Danny Ives & The 2013 New England Seminar Tour

This past weekend Master Danny Ives and Platinum Member David Miller made a little trip to New England for a short but awesome seminar tour.

The tour was focused on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) techniques both with and without the gi.

The tour started in the great state of Connecticut at the home of Naga (North American Grappling Association) presidents Kipp and Mary Kollar.

The Kollar’s are long time friends of Master Danny’s and for that reason he always makes a point to stop in and see them.

Since the Kollar’s have their own home MMA training center all of the teaching and classes take place at their house.

Oh and it’s a nice place to train for sure, the training center has everything you need, complete with mats, heavy bags, gloves and fitness equipment. It’s pretty nice.

Master Danny started the class by teaching nogi set ups and attacks that can be used from the butterfly guard. Nogi meaning training with just t-shirts and shorts on, not a martial arts uniform aka GI.

The students picked everything up well and the technique session was followed by a lot of live rolling, which Master Danny and David Miller took part of.

We should point out that even though Kipp is 47 years old he’s still a beast on the mats! The guy moves like he’s 21…

After the training ended it was time to eat. We got some sushi and even some chill out time in the hot tub, which was more then welcomed!

Thursday and Friday were spent in Easton Massachusetts. At the academy of UFC lightweight contender and fan favorite Joe Lauzon.

Joe is also a long time friend of Master Danny’s, so stopping in made a lot of sense.

Thursday night was spent more or less with Danny and Joe catching up on life, the UFC and business related things. No training on the mats.

Catching up was followed by dinner at an Italian restaurant w/ Joe and his brother Dan as well as Chris Palmquest.

For those who don’t know Chris Palmquest we can fill you in on that. He’s the manager for not only all fighters out of Joe Lauzon’s Academy but he also runs the largest MMA website in the world, mma.tv.

He’s also, not a shock, a good friend of Danny Ives. Chris was gracisas enough to let Danny and Dave stay at his house for the night. Thanks so much for that!

So Thursday night was a lot of downtime. That downtime was welcomed however because both Danny and Dave were sore from the workouts with Kipp and gang.

On Friday afternoon Master Danny got some training in with some of Joe’s students.

The students at Lauzon MMA are some of the best Master Danny has ever worked with. One in particular, Kenny Lovetere, was simply outstanding.

They really are doing big things out in Easton.

Joe unfortunately couldn’t do much training. He got injured a few weeks ago and was still healing but Danny and Joe did get one roll in, which was nice.

Joe is a wealth of MMA knowledge and Master Danny learned a lot from him.

Saturday afternoon was spent teaching a seminar at Black Diamond Mixed Martial Arts in Wakefield Rhode Island.

Black Diamond is run by another close friend of Danny’s, BJJ Brown Belt Dan Faggella.

That seminar was focused on nogi Jiu-Jitsu with techniques covering butterfly and turtle guard. Some of the skills shown were:

• Switch Defense From The Double Leg Grab Guard Pass
• Murphy Roll
• Butterfly Guard Reesee Roll

After the technique portion of the seminar it was on to some rolling. Master Danny like always, decided to hop in and get some matches.

There must be something in the water here in New England because just like with Kipp and Joe’s academies, the students were very tough and super technical.

Master Danny had no easy matches that’s for sure.

Needless to say, the students in attendance seemed to have fun and looked pleased 🙂

After the seminar Master Danny and David Miller went out and got the NE standard, Lobster! Oh and we’re told it was good…

The final day of the seminar was spent in Worcester Massachusetts, at Dan Simmler‘s MMA/BJJ academy.

This was the first and only day of the trip that included BJJ gi training.

The seminar went smooth with techniques being taught for both butterfly and turtle guard. The only difference here was the added use of the gi.

The seminar lasted 3+ hours with as always, lots of rolling with the students. Yes, like the other places visited, these students were sharp and technical.

Master Danny sure did break a sweat! After it was dinner at the 99 restaurant followed by a 7 hour road trip home (which David Miller slept through…).

Thanks again to everyone in New England who made the trip better then great. We look forward to Master Danny returning something in early May 2013.

After all his wedding stuff calms down and if the wife to be lets him leave…hehe.

Below are some videos of Joe Lauzon and Dan Faggella. Watch them in action and learn!