Visited Gracie Barra Encinitas

Last Saturday, Wayne and I headed to GB Encinitas for a charity seminar. The charity was for a young girl named Jacklyn who is having her lip surgically repaired by GB Encinitas student. I was feeling pretty lazy when Alby cancelled and Wayne wanted to meet there instead of carpooling. Luckily, Wayne changed his mind and we met up and carpooled, good thing too because the E-light for my gas tank came on.

The seminar started off with about 4 black belts each teaching a technique. A lot of people showed up for the seminar. I'm thinking at least 50 people because the mat was packed! There wasn't much room at all to do some of the techniques, especially the ones involving takedowns and rolls.

Techniques:

1. Standing opponent headlocking you from the back.
2. Knee slide on turtled opponent's back to roll, then finish with an armbar. I like this one, the setup involves an underhook cross-collar grip
3. Opponent headlocking you bent forward. (Dominic's)
4. Rolling an opponent when they are in top and you are turtle to side control.

After technique, we did pass the guard "King of the Hill" and it started with the black belt's guards. So there were about 7 black belts down and ~50 students waiting in line to pass their guard. It started off slow because we lined up in ranked order so the brown and purple belts were up first. They were more slow and technical. After sometime, as expected, it got faster and faster because belt and white belts were much easier for the black belts.

I was in there 3 times and each time with a black belt. Those guys capitalize on every mistake. The first one I was going to try a stack pass, but he threw up a triangle. I was able to defend it to just end up back in his guard. Eventually, he opened his guard and I was trying to do a knee slicer pass, but then he kicked my legged and took my back. This was the most memorable attempt. My 2 other failed attempts: another back take and ended up in turtle position.

After 3 failed attempts at passing a black belt's guard, I called it quits and talked to Dominic off the mats for a little bit. He said he was teaching Tues/Thursday classes now. After that Wayne and I walked around the facilities before leaving.

Their facility is huge! There's a boxing and workout gym downstairs! Raquetball and basketball courts down the hall. Passed what it seemed like another private gym, there was a fusion yoga class. It was like a physical workout Mecca!