If you roll you probably know who Lucas Lepri is. I was pretty excited to hear he was coming to Alliance, especially just three weeks before I compete at my first Masters Worlds. If you’ve gone to seminars you know that they can be an unknown quantity, just because the guy is a world-class, back-taking, guard-passing arm-barring, triangle choker doesn’t mean they put on a good seminar, or show practical skills that you will be able to incorporate into you’re own game.
Day 1: This was a two-day seminar, not the norm, but certainly a better value. Everybody started streaming in about :30 minutes prior and as with most Seminars at Alliance, there was a great turnout, around 50, all ranks were represented, and at least 6 Black and Brown belts. After bowing in, everybody paired off, big Rob grabbed me, I really like Rob, he’s a genuinely nice dude and I enjoy working with him, but my first thought was…if we do any knee on belly shit, i’m blowing chunks. I had a had a rough night prior, I had heartburn (no, it wasn’t from the CheeKufta, I had the night before) and it woke me up at 4am, i was also sore from head to toe from a pretty intense week of training, so I wasn’t sure how I was going to withstand a lot of chest or abdominal pressure, let alone 250lbs of it. The other issue is that i have an old rib floating rib injury that sticks out…it’s like a magical pain button. It was pretty rough. Rob did his best to not squash me, but it was knee on belly, so to wasn’t fair to him to have to do it half-assed, so I figured I’d do us both a favor and let him get a more durable partner the second day.
Day 2: I worked with Brown Belt Mason the second day, he’s an old fart like me and we’re a lot closer in weight (although he’s not quite as broke down as I am) it was a good pairing and we had fun. After the Seminar was over Lucas stuck around and rolled with anyone who asked, towards the end, I figured, “you don’t get many chances like this”, so I asked for a roll, it went pretty much like you might imagine, he was on my back tighter than my old Jansport backpack, but it was a great opportunity and awesome experience.
The wrap up…The seminar was excellent, probably one of the best I’ve ever been to (and I’ve done quite a few)The techniques were practical and I’ve actually been using them steadily, so I retained at least one of them. If you get a chance to do a seminar with Lucas…do it.
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