Romolo Barros visit: 29-30 April 2011

So, back in April 2011, Dean brought over Romolo Barros from Hawaii. Romolo is one of Rickson’s oldest blackbelts and friends and I’d heard lots about him from guys that had trained with him back in the early days of Dean bringing Rickson’s Jiu Jitsu to the UK.

I found Romolo to be a very warm, friendly and laid back guy. Clearly the Hawaii lifestyle has infused his very being and he talked about surfing as much as he did Jiu Jitsu!  I’m not going to recall everything we did during the seminar, but both days generally followed this format: Warm up, self defence, escapes, submissions, open Q&A, rolling.  As with all high level instruction, it was the simplicity of the techniques that I found most impressive and the high attention to detail that made all the difference. All techniques blended seamlessly together rather than a random collection of techniques which you get at some seminars.

 

The thing that stuck with me most, mainly because asked the question, was around maintaining the mount. I wanted to get Romolo’s take on this as I know it’s something that Rickson has spent a lot of time on in his recent seminars. Being shown a few little tips and then drilling that position mad a hell of a difference to maintaining that important position.

 

We also saw Romolo at training on Monday night for a short while where he ran through some nice chokes from inside half guard and cross side – I also felt the torque and leverage first hand….amazing.

It was a great turnout by the disparate bunch that makes up our little club and great training. Another part of Romolo’s trip was to take some of the guys that were read through some belt tests. The result of some pretty full-on test from what I hear were the following promotions:

 

Sunny – Blue stripe

Nuri - Blue Stripe
Monkey – Blue Belt
Richard – Purple Belt
Roubel – Purple Belt
"French" Steve - Purple Belt
Dean Taylor – Brown Belt

In all cases, these promotions were long overdue and testament to all the guys’ commitment and loyalty. Can’t say it enough, but well done to all, and especially to Dean who is one step closer to a truly amazing achievement. I’m hoping I might be ready next time round to put on a pretty new tag or maybe even a belt.