Jacare and Roberto Traven Seminar Series and Upcoming Tournament:
From Our good friend Rebecca Motte of www.theTechniques.net
Jacare and Roberto Traven held a extensive Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar in Greenville SC at Billy Fletcher’s new location at Park Square on E. Washington St. on Friday night. The crowd was small but that was a benefit to the seminar participants as they got a lot of individual attention. Jacare and Roberto started off with a light warm up then moved on to the stand up game. Jacare covered a lot of really cool take downs. I will place bets that we’ll see some of these effective take downs at the upcoming Tournament in Atlanta on December 15, 2002 (for details: Casca Grossa Tournament )
From the stand up the game moved to the ground where Jacare and Roberto demonstrated many great moves. Among those were a series of sweeps from the butterfly guard. Jacare and Roberto were generous enough to allow me to photograph this series, so make sure you check out the techniques section – new for December.
I had the great fortune of meeting a new friend from Puerto Rico — Pepe. He works with the Puerto Rico coast guard flying and maintaining helicopters. He is an extremely talented and pleasant young man. His skills on the mat truly amazed me since he has been training only about 6 months. His enthusiasm to learn and meet fellow bjj’rs was an inspiration to all, and he definitely got Jacare’s and Roberto’s attention as I noticed them follow Pepe around the mat watching his moves when time came to roll. Pepe and other of Alliance’s white belts were tapping out black belts from other styles of Jiu Jitsu with ease. Admirable though, these black belts from another style of Jiu Jitsu came to learn and add to their arsenal some techniques from one of the World’s leading instructors – Jacare who is a 6th degree black belt and leader of the World famous Alliance competition team. http://www.alliancebjj.com
From Greenville, Jacare and Roberto moved on to Alliance – Charlotte ( http://www.sucuribjj.com ) – the Alliance affiliate school headed up by Professor Luis “Sucuri” Togno. We had a crowd of about 30 people which filled up the mats, everyone worked hard and learned a lot. Jacare gave a motivational speach – one that actually I have heard from Professor Togno before – about the success of his academy comes from his philosophy of teaching everything and hiding nothing. According to Jacare his goal is to leave a legacy and in order to do that he must be sure that his fighters become better than their instructor. The mark of a good instructor is “an excellant student that actually surpasses the skill level of his instructor”. Jacare feels that he is succeeding in building that legacy and will hide nothing from his students. Professor Togno has that same belief and it is evident when you attend one of his classes.
We were all sad that Professor Togno was unable to attend because of a family emergency, but all of our thoughts and prayers went out to him. We kept him and his family in our minds and our hearts as we worked out on the mats. It was unfortunate that some of the people traveling in from W. VA , VA, and GA were unable to meet this friendly and talented instructor, his presence was greatly missed but we all understood the difficulties that detained him.
Renato, one of Luis’s students, stood in for Professor Togno and took care of making sure that Jacare and Roberto had meals so that they had the strength to teach the seminars ( ha ha ) – I understand that Roberto must have a metabolism that would make most of us green with envy. It was quiet an awesome picture that he could put away 5 plates of food and remain the tall slender cut athlete that he is. I honestly have no clue where he puts it all but wish he would let me know his secret !! Maybe next time he can teach a seminar on THAT (ha ha).
At the Charlotte academy, Saturday was dedicated to gi techniques and the Sunday seminar was dedicated to no-gi. This entire seminar series is a major ‘lead up’ to the First Annual Casca Grossa Grappling Tournament to be held in Atlanta on December 15, 2002. Headed up by Jacare and Alliance – the tournament will have divisions for women and children, gi and no-gi, and divisions for seniors & masters. T-shirts will be given to all participants and medals for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. One of Jacare’s goals is to bring attention to the sport of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu throughout the Carolinas and Georgia and bring together a Federation of sorts that will work together to promote the art and standardize the tournaments and legitimize the instructors who are teaching bjj which in turn will help the sport grow. Jacare’s goals are to develop the art so that Jiu Jitsu players will have more opportunities in this area to test their skills at legitimate Jiu Jitsu tournaments and to gain the respect and level of competition at those tournaments to equal that of the Pan Ams. To do that we need the support of the grappling community, so all you fighters out there, be sure to support the tournament in December.
Also, coming in January, 2003, Joe Hurst ( jiujitsujoe@hotmail.com ) of Concord NC is promoting another big tournament the Dale Earnhart, Jr. Classics which is also dedicated to taking the level of competition in the area to a new height. Fighters — these two tournaments are golden opportunities to test your skills and find out where you stand if you plan to compete at the Pan Ams in May. Hope to see you all there.