I was wondering what you guys thought about seminars my school doesnt do too many and i was wondering if there is any way to find out if there are any in the new england area? i tried a google search but just came up with schools in the area. thought it might be cool to go to one of the high level competitors seminars to see what it was like and hopefully learn some different techniques that we may not see at my school. do you guys find them beneficial or is it kind of a novelty thing?
As for finding seminars, I don't know of any particular resource that lets you search for them. If there is, I'd like to know about it. I would recommend "liking" the Facebook page or following the Twitter account of whoever you might be interested in learning from, and similarly for schools in your area. Generally they will advertise their seminars well in advance.
As far as the benefits of seminars, it depends on how they are structured. I have been to several seminars and they generally fall into one of two categories: 1. A collection of techniques, often disparate, that the particular instructor likes, or 2. a seminar structured around a particular position or concept, with everything shown falling under the overall theme of the seminar.
For the first group, I've found them to be of limited use. I've retained only a small portion of what individual techniques I've picked up in seminars, and I regularly use even fewer. Seminars under the second group are very beneficial. Going over new concepts and having each technique related to each other helps me a lot in retention and in implementing them in sparring. For example, I attended Rener Gracie seminars on attacks from the back and attacks from the mount. Each seminar was presented as an approach to each position, with various options on transitions and attacks. Although the individual techniques shown were nothing fancy in themselves, being able to flow from one attack to another has greatly benefited my training. I use material from these seminars almost every time I train.
Short answer: it depends.
thank you guy's for the responses i have only attended two seminars outside of regular training. i am from NH so i would assume most of the higher level competitors would teach out of Boston as the nearest big city hub.?.?