My Time Training With The Gracie’s By Danny Ives

Over the years I’ve been asked about all the different people that I’ve had the chance to train with and learn from. By far the ones I get asked about the most is the Gracie family members.

I’m not surprised by that at all. I mean Royce Gracie is pretty much considered the father of modern day MMA and the man who changed the martial arts industry.

So for a lot of people who aren’t up to date on today’s Mixed Martial Arts scene the only name they know is Royce Gracie.

I’m lucky enough to have trained not only with Royce but also many other Gracie family members.

For today’s blog I thought I’d talk about the Gracie’s and my time training/learning from them.

I first started working with the Gracie’s back in ’94. First Royce then Renzo.

I trained the most under Renzo Gracie. I would say that he taught me about 60% of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu skills that I use today.

He’s got an academy located in NYC and for a long time I trained with one of his affilent schools in New Jersey.

So I got to roll with Renzo quite a bit. When I say roll I should say get beaten down by him, haha.

Renzo was in my opinion a very good instructor. His techniques were simple yet effective. His coaching style was very laid back. He never yelled or anything like that. It was typical Brazilian, super chill.

I also worked a bit with Royce Gracie. Most of the time at my first academy called Maxersize. I took a private lesson from Royce and also took some seminars. All of which were great.

Royce was different from Renzo in a lot of ways. I would say Royce fit more the mold of good businessman and serious instructor. Less joking around and more “get it done” was the mood I’d say.

Royce very much like Renzo always showed good techniques. I would say that Royce’s style was a bit more basic and designed for self defense. Renzo was a mix of self defense and sporty type BJJ.

Renzo also focused more on nogi grappling then Royce did. Royce was a man of the gi (uniform).

Overall I’d have to say that without the training of both Renzo and Royce I wouldn’t be the man I am today. Both had Different takes on training and technique but at the same time both systems worked.

Today in honor of the Gracie’s I posted some videos for you guys to check out. Enjoy.