It’s 5am on a warm Monday morning here in Annapolis. I just spent all night working on some new websites for Ivey League. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a bit wound up.
So anyway, I was watching some youtube videos because I wanted to email my students some clips of guys teaching the anaconda choke.
While I was looking I came across a guy I’d almost forgotten about. His name is Robert Drysdale. Former world champion in BJJ and now an up and coming star in the MMA world.
How good is Robert? Well he tapped out Marcelo Garcia…so yeah pretty good.
A while back I got a chance to train with Robert. This was during a training camp being held in Chicago. I just happened to be in the area so the guys inviting me down. Right place at the right time I guess.
I’m lucky to have had the chance to work with so many great fighters over the years. Guys like Drysdale. Because many of them are wise beyond their years.
Some were dumb as a box of rocks too, hehe.
I’ve learned so much about the world from having just been around the best fighters for most of my life.
I’ll never forget the conversation I had with Robert. Some of the things he told me really were priceless. It helped me a ton I can assure you.
We were talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu techniques and what we thought were the best skills to work on.
I told him that the basics were the key, and he agreed, for the most part. Robert thought the basics should be the #1 go to skills, but at the same time, the use of “outside the box” skills are needed as well.
Outside the box meaning stuff that’s not basic. Very unconventional stuff. Techniques that might fit 1 in 10 fighters. Why outside the box you might ask….
He told me that when he trained in Brazil everyone knew what he was going to do. His style was very conservative and simple.
He said he’d have rolling sessions that would last 40 minutes. Since everyone was doing all the same techniques they all knew each others moves.
So Robert decided he wanted to re invent the wheel, sort of.
He said he didn’t start to have real success on the mats until he started taking chances, doing some techniques a bit different. Trying stuff that no one in their right mind would attempt.
He’d Put himself in bad situations just to work his way out. He said it was when he started doing all of that he had success with BJJ.
He started to tap a lot of people in training (and tournaments).
His advice to me was this: Be wreak-less from time to time. Take chances. Go for broke. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but in the end you’ll learn a lot…and have a heck of a good time in the process.
That was some good advice. It made getting my rear end whooped by Robert easier to deal with 🙂
I took that philosophy and ran with it. Not just on the mats or in the cage. I play it loose in life. Helps me keep things interesting, ya know?!
I’m sorry if I got off track, rambled and made pretty much no sense with this story. I’m dead tired so I tried my best. Hopefully you get the picture.
So in honor of Robert Drysdale I posted some youtube videos of him below. Study up!
We’ll be working on a few of his signature techniques throughout the month of July.
