"Why can't a purple belt present a seminar (free or otherwise)?"
Same reason a blue belt shouldn't be making instructionals(i.e. Egan Inoue's set he made a blue belt)-- it's irresponsible. In a few months Mr. Purple belts opinion will change about things, the longer he trains the more it changes. There are a lot of things he's not not seeing right now just due to experience.
I'm pretty sure I gave the attendees cancer.
I think Aesopian teaching a seminar is as gratuitously useless as training with my classmates. Obviously my classmates don't know shit, so how I can learn anything from training with them? ;-)
For that matter, how could anybody learn anything from a Brazilian black belt, years ago when they couldn't speak English?
No wait, the key to learning is rolling with someone who has it all down pat in muscle memory. But that doesn't jibe with the fact that I've learned stuff from rolling with purples and browns where I haven't been able to learn from a black belt (who reflexively just shut me down, giving me no room to learn).
One of my best private lessons was from a Lloyd Irvin purple belt of all things. And I say that, painfully aware that I'm a private lesson 'ho, and as a result have been fortunate to take private lessons and seminars from some of the best. (If my ability to retain what I've been shown, only matched my enthusiasm...there's the rub.)
I reserve judgment on Aesopian's teaching and rolling ability. I haven't seen that. But his online tutorials are some of the best analyzed, broken down materials I've seen.
Let's face it, Aesopian explains well. I haven't seen anybody yet nailing him for explaining a move wrong. Within the limited range of techniques he elected to teach, I'd guess he probably knew what he was doing.
Yeah, he's toots his own horn. But unless he has me really, really fooled, I'd guess a lot of that is tongue in cheek.
On the other hand I somewhat agree with the LMAO part. There are a lot of GREAT instructors out there who can hardly get students, they don't know how to self-promote. Aesopian is green, green, green, yet he has fans and supporters, because he is a master at self-promotion and droll humor.
But I have to think that underneath it all he's a good egg, or his instructor wouldn't have promoted him despite his rather larger internet presence (yes, I just discovered sherdog.com, and Aesopian is there too. I imagine at the next archaeological dig they will uncover an early pottery shard with some reference to Aesop on it.).
Shen needs to sign in now, and let us know if Aesopian giving his attendees "cancer" is a code word for anything....
Hello Wutang,
I understand where you're coming from. I'm sure my perspective on things will change as I gain more experience. But you hear veteran black belts say the same thing. You always have more to learn. It's a truism in a way that renders itself mostly pointless. Of course everyone has more to learn. That doesn't make everything earlier useless.
I have an admitted limited knowledge of BJJ, so I stuck to teaching only those things I'm confident with and have seen other use successfully. Part of being so organized was making sure I didn't teach anything beyond the scope of my experience.
Maybe I'll reach a point where I look back and go "My God, what have I done?" as I cry into my hands. "Wutang was right all along. The road to hell truly is paved with good intentions." That's a possibility. More likely though, I'll go "Oh, I could have done that differently." And then I will and it'll be all good.
Leo and I have been sharing techniques over the internet and meeting up to train since he was a purple belt and I was a blue. We have a running joke, "You can learn from anyone as long as they're a black belt." The sad part was that's how it really is for some people.
Are you against purple belts running gyms? Giving private lessons? Not being rhetorical, I actually want to know.
What I'm trying to get is from what ivory tower you're speaking. My belt is purple and I've been training for just over 3 years. I've always been open and honest about that. I'm usually the first to point it out since I know someone else will if I don't. What I'm really waiting for is someone to slap me for teaching something horribly wrong, since that hasn't happened yet. I'm waiting for it though.
I don't feel particularly entitled to teach but people ask me to. So I do and they come back to me and say it helped them. So I keep doing it.
I don't want to fall back on "Well, you weren't there so you wouldn't know" or "Everyone who went was happy with it." George Dillman could use the same excuses for teaching dim mak. I'll be getting the footage soon and I'm playing with the idea of putting it online for free. Then you'd be able to check out how I was misleading a bunch of fools.
Jean-Jacques shows the reverse omoplata in one of his books. I think he teaches it in about 5 photos and a little text. Personally, I don't think that's enough to learn it correctly. But I'm going to guess you don't have a problem with that. My 2 hours of instruction on it is worse.
All that said, I may be wasting my time trying to discuss this with you. I don't think I'll change your mind about anything. I already know you just don't like me, that I rub you the wrong way. That was obvious when you posted "PLEASE find out where that pale vampire aesopian trains and choke his ass out mmmmkay?" on NHBGear. So I'm not expecting to end this with us giving bro grabs and buying each other beers. But I've got some free time so I figured why not throw it away here.
pretty accurate imo
After 3 years in any sport you should be able to instruct newbs, even peers as long as you regularly beat them in training and competition.
Personally I think Wutang is a bit jealous on the low. If you don't like what Aesopian's doing, turn your head and keep it moving. You expressly stating all of your "Lmao's" just all in all makes you seem jealous.
Sure, he may just be a purple belt, but there were many Brown, Purples, and Blues attending, all of which really enjoyed the seminar.
There are several Gracie Barra purple belts over in the UK that teach and have taught seminars. Hell, last I heard Chris Moriarty has even done it.
Also saying that "Mr. Purple Belts" opinion will change over time is correct. In fact, most black belts opinions change on things as the seasons go by. Your also displaying what I like to refer to as "Black Belt syndrome". Give a copy of some black belt seminar footage to 10 different black belts, and they all will have opinions on why the instructor was wrong.
I'm not sure if this is the perfect analogy but here goes...
Brief bio of Scotty Bowman (one of the greatest hockey coaches ever)
"Scotty Bowman was born September 18, 1933 in Montreal, Quebec,
Canada. Bowman played minor league hockey, but his career was cut
short. So, he began coaching hockey. He began coaching junior hockey
leagues in 1956. He entered the NHL coaching world in 1966. During
his coaching career, he took away nine Stanley Cup wins. He retired in
2002 but is still considered among the greatest coaches in NHL
history."
He never played one day of NHL hockey yet he is widely known as one
of the best coaches ever. Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson were two
of the best basketball players ever; yet their coaching ability is not very
good.
Although I have never met Aesopian, he has helped my game in many
ways. I have had the pleasure of having many great coaches in my life.
He is one of them.
As far as the belt is concerned, I thought belts weren't that important.
Or does that only apply when you are trying to get one??
If I ever got the chance to roll with him and let's say I beat him; that
would not diminish his teaching ability.
I love bjj because titles, rank, reputation, etc., mean nothing if you
don't get on the mat and prove it.
"Personally I think Wutang is a bit jealous on the low."
You're right, I'm HORRIBLY jealous -- it's my goal in life to teach.
"Are you against purple belts running gyms? Giving private lessons? Not being rhetorical, I actually want to know."
If that's all you have, then no. There are no black belts in Florida? You can definitely learn ALOT from a non-black belt. It would be ridiculous -- you can learn something from a kid if you happen to see them do something you haven't thought of. I wouldn't turn to a purple belt to me complete moves.
"Jean-Jacques shows the reverse omoplata in one of his books. I think he teaches it in about 5 photos and a little text. Personally, I don't think that's enough to learn it correctly. But I'm going to guess you don't have a problem with that. My 2 hours of instruction on it is worse."
How are you going to compare a seminar with a book? Oh right, you'd make a book 100x better and you'd probably show JJ something he doesn't know. Probably something you got from another instructional. Gotcha.
lol @ comparing Chris Moriarty to Aesopian.
You do rub me the wrong way -- in fact a lot of people do. Maybe your it's just your online persona. Yes, that's my post and I don't deny it. Though, it's more tongue in cheek, as egebvr says.
You've got me on the book-to-seminar analogy. I won't push that one.
There are plenty of black belts in Florida. I train under one. What's funny is the last time we were going over the reverse omoplata, he stopped and had me teach it to the class instead. Not because I do it better than him, but because he knew I used it a lot and he wanted to see how well I did it. Afterwards he said it was perfect.
So forgive me if I'm not worried about teaching it to others. I've been given the go-ahead.
You're welcome to dislike me. I've had people seriously hate me for the way I structure my sentences and use punctuation, as if my use of grammar was an affront to their sensibilities. One of the joys of the internet is being able to hate more people than you'd ever get to meet in real life.
I don't think you're jealous. I try to not assume I really know someone else's thoughts and reasons. But I am going to go out on a limb and guess you don't like me because I tend to call myself awesome a lot and talk like I'm the eighth wonder of the world. I'm also guessing you're one of the guys who thinks I just rip off instructionals and take credit for the moves. Sound about right?
Here's something I've been wondering about. I really like Andre's tutorials and I think he's a great guy. But the other day I was looking at them again and realized a lot of the stuff he shows comes directly from black belts he did seminars with. The Ninja choke, the Shaolin choke, Willid's pass, the Margarida pass. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I don't think anyone else does either. But it struck me that if I'm guilty of anything it's nothing he hasn't done (beyond overusing "awesome").
So why does he get the by while I get snide remarks? Probably because he's a nice and modest guy that's made a lot of friends and he has a brown belt. And I'm just some guy on the internet who came out of no where yet acts like he knows what he's talking about.
I don't compare myself to Chris Moriarty or guys like Jeff Glover, Brian McLaughlin and others who have been teaching seminars since they were purple and brown belts. They have far more impressive competition records than me.
They also probably charge for their seminars.
I'm trying to figure out where this post is going. I guess it's this: How much of your criticism is actually about what I did (seminar, teaching, etc.) and how much is you just not liking me. Because it seems you're less concerned with what was actually taught to the people at the seminar and more worried about my belt, my personality and my skin tone.
And whether or not I drink blood.
Wutang,
I attended the seminar and learned a lot from it.
I think that you are one of those people who just likes to argue. You are so wrong I dont even know where to begin.
The belief that you must learn from a blackbelt is ridiculous. I would rather take a private lesson from Ryan Hall than with the majority of black belts. But, I guess I would be wasting my time since you dont think that there is any way that he would be qualified to teach me a triangle.
MATT DID NOT CHARGE ANYTHING FOR HIS TIME OR EFFORT. He did it bc he genuinely loves jiu jitsu and obviously enjoys helping people.
Matt, Where are you training??
Glad to hear you got something out of it. What I'm finding funny is how everyone who's complaining wasn't there. I figure I'm doing alright if the people who didn't like the seminar were on the other side of the country.
I train at Gracie Barra Tampa. Stop in whenever you're in town.
Where are you training while in south florida? BTW, the large brazilian also enjoyed it. Also, the next time you teach I can post a flyer in the gym or make some sort of announcement.
Dont worry wu the sheeple need a preacher.... Keep up the good work guys! lol
Please keep me posted on the next move you will be copying and pasting. Just try to keep it to moves you can actually pull off on anyone other then a white belt.
Oh yes we've all seen you roll ;-)
I've been meeting up with Leo at his gym. I'd like to get around to some others too, since I know there are a lot of good schools down there.
Thanks, that'd be great. I'll let you know the next time I'm in town. I may be back around the end of September.
I'm thinking about reenacting Saulo 1. I figure I can do it even better since I don't have an annoying Brazilian accent.
"I'm thinking about reenacting Saulo 1. I figure I can do it even better since I don't have an annoying Brazilian accent."
LOL!!
On second thought, I'm going to fake a Brazilian accent then have it dubbed over in English.