Spring Camp 2011 in review
Camp Review:
The reviews are in and everyone seemed to really enjoy Spring Camp 2011 in Berkeley CA.
The camp started Friday evening with the traditional roll. Following this students were broken into four groups, and four sessions took place between Rick, Travis, Cane and Lily. Cane focused on some core fundamentals for the escape game involving short frames, long frames, and the distinction between the two. Rick focused on guard passing, in particular low, tight, smashing passes. Lily taught how to stand up quickly from guard when you are matched up against a much heavier opponent. And Travis focused on breaking posture when your opponent is in combat base.
Saturday morning started off with a two-hour session taught by Matt Thornton on guard passing, in particular the F.I.T passing game. Emphasis was placed on ‘finesse’ passes to start, in all variations, and followed up with ‘isolation’ passes if that doesn’t work. After Matt’s session the seminar members stayed an extra hour for Dax Soto’s purple belt ironman.
After lunch Travis Davison took over with a two-hour session on attacks from crossides. After reviewing the fundamentals of holding top, he focused on the staple position, and went through a series of great chokes and attacks from there. This was a must attend session that elevated everyone’s game.
At the end of Saturday the entire seminar lined up for a long ironman session that culminated in long time SBGi Coach Ray Price receiving his brown belt!
Sunday started with a session completely devoted to coaching, taught by SBGi coach and BJJ black belt Cane Prevost. This two hour long session dissected all the different drilling methods, their appropriate time and place of use, and why we approach drilling the way we do. You could walk around after Cane’s class and here other black belts with a dozen years of coaching experience themselves talking about the things they picked up, and will change after taking Cane’s class. This was a fantastic session.
After lunch the group had a rolling session that was followed up by breaking the entire seminar down into four groups. Five sessions were taught, and each smaller group rotated to every station. These sessions included the fundamentals of sweeps, by John Diggins; an excellent course that really broke the concepts of sweeping down to two principles, and demonstrated it to the group. More details on smash passing, as well as some chokes from Rick Davison, passing half guard by Lily Pagle, and a stand up session devoted to moving the hips in and out with correct posture while boxing, featuring Brian Walsh. As always the camp ended with a Q & A for all coaches.
This was a great event, and we want to especially thank Alan and Lily at ModCom for being brilliant hosts, and for volunteering their home for always wild SBG after party on Saturday night. Look for the next Fall Camp in Oct to be held at a resort in Mexico! Details to come in the next two weeks, see you there.