Left: Me and Ralek.
Last night I was privileged enough to learn Gracie Jiu-Jitsu from Helio Gracie descendant Ralek Gracie. The son of Rorion Gracie, nephew of Royce Gracie, and grandson of the great Helio is 24 years old and trains out of the Gracie Academy Headquarters in Torrence California. Ralek has a 3-0 Mixed Martial Arts record with wins over the likes of Kasushi Sakuraba and has fought in K-1 Hero's and Dream fight organizations. He is on an incredibly high and elite level of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and I am honored to have attended the seminar.
Please keep in mind, I am a white belt that has trained off and on due to injury for about a year. If some of what he taught seems elementary this is just my take on things. I assure you, the guy is GOOD.
Ralek started by breaking down a simple mount escape, the trap and roll. Basically, when someone has you mounted the idea is to trap one of their arms, trap the same side leg, bump up with your hips and roll toward the direction of the limbs you have trapped. The fact that you have trapped their arm and leg on one side means that they are unable to "post out" or stop themselves from being rolled onto their back, allowing you to take away their dominant positio while you take an advantageous position. This is a seemingly simple move that anyone with a few hours of Jiu-Jitsu should know and that many know does not work every time. Ralek took the time to break down the move in a very precise fashion and explained how with more practice and better technique it can be an extremely effective move.
A few tips I learned about the bump and roll from Ralek:
1) When trapping the leg place your foot on top of their foot. Also, bring the elbow of the arm that is controlling their elbow to your knee. This traps your opponents leg completely so they have very little chance of using their leg to post out.
2) When bridging bridge as far as you can with your non trapping foot on the ground and when you are at the top of your bridge turn your hips. Bridging is basically arching your back upward. If you are trapping the left arm/left leg you will bridge upward and to the left all while using your right foot to push off the mat hard. Before I just kind of bumped up and rolled into my opponents guard, if it worked, if not I was back on my back or my opponent was now fighting for my back. Now I have learned to bridge hard and regardless of the outcome if I turn my hips to go to my knees at the top of my bridge I can escape most of the time.
3) Often times your opponent is struggling to keep their position and ends up nearly getting to your back, which is bad. To remedy this, once you have turned your hips and your knees are on the mat just sit up and you will be in their guard.
So those were a few touch up tips that Ralek taught us and I am very glad to now know. He was emphasizing that he only learned after years of rolling with his brothers and family that the trap and roll is a highly effective move and there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. Learn the technique inside and out. He showed us ways to bait your opponent into compromising their base and use their reaction to dictate how you use the trap and roll escape. While many go to the elbow escape immediately after a failed trap and roll Ralek says don't give up that easy. Keep perfecting the technique and you will be using the elbow escape as a back up less and less and having more and more successful trap and roll escapes. This was easily my favorite part of the seminar.
I may post more but for now I wanter to jot down some of the seminar more for my own records than anything.
I also wanted to say that Ralek was extremely patient, kind, and helpful. He hung out after the seminar and shook hands, chatted with people, and took pictures with us.
This was a great seminar and if Ralek is in town I suggest you do your best to get him to do a seminar!
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