by Prof. Renato Migliaccio
The 5th BJJ intensive camp. This camp was very international with students coming from Russia, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, England, and Belgium. We met for 4 days and trained BJJ for 5 hours a day. Each day, we had 3 classes at the same time: Beginners, Advanced, and a special class (No Gi, Footlocks, Self Defense, Wrestling, etc). We had many new people this time including people who have never done BJJ before, which will require us to have a new class, an introduction to BJJ, a very basic beginner course that is even more basic than the normal beginners class.
This is a great challenge for us to be able to teach so many different levels of students. And Hopefully in Italy we will offer 4 classes at the same time, including this very beginner class.
We also had 70 people on the mat at one time! This was a new experience for a lot of students to have to share mat-space and some felt uncomfortable not having as much space as they were used to having.
For the next camp, we can definitely look into booking a location with more mat-space, but we also wanted the students to understand that in many places in the world where BJJ or Judo is more prominent, there is often not very much mat-space.
In Brazil and Japan, there are usually many people on the mat at one time and the students have to learn to be aware of themselves, their partner, and the partners rolling around them. In most places in America and other countries where BJJ is less prominent, people are used to having a lot of mat-space and do not have to learn the same type of body awareness.
Regardless, the students were all very happy with the camp and gave us excellent feedback. The location was great because there was a lake, dorms, a mat area, and a food area that were all in the same place.
At our next camp, we hope to improve even more and add in time for a drilling class so that the students can repeat the techniques they learned. We will also work with the facility to give the students more time for food because at this camp, the students had to rush off the mat to try and get their food in time before the kitchen closes. Overall, though, the camp was great!
We had over 10 black belts attending and had Mr. Niel Owen receive his 3rd degree black belt.
We also had a Women’s Only Class for the first time at our camp and had a blast. We also had an instructor course to teach people how to properly be teachers.
Many times people think that knowing technique is the only important part of being a teacher but they are wrong. If you teach poorly, you can cause students to quit before they can actually understand the wonderful sport of BJJ.
Many of the teachers were amazed by the techniques and skills that we taught on how to teach. Many of them decided to join our consulting program that helps them not only teach classes but also teaches them how to run a school.
We also had many students join our affiliation and we would provide them with assistance on curriculum and we would come and help them by teaching seminars and deliver sylabus in order to promote their level of BJJ.
With these affiliations, we want to promote hard work and good ethics in BJJ and other aspects like competition, self defense, history, philosophy, and martial arts.
We are very thrilled about our next camps in March 2018 here in the US, in August 2018 in Germany, and February 2019 in Spain or Portugal.
Regards
Prof. Renato Migliaccio