I just went to his class yesterday, its 20 bucks for a two hour class in the back deck of his house. He has a big deck. I am a fan of it.

Keep us updated.

was that price a group class or private? what area of town?

No, twenty bucks per class per person in a group setting. He lives near Bee Caves and 360. The class was great, very good instruction and no nonsense to worry about.

Was two hours two hours or the more usual "until the teacher gets bored"? Which is a good thing -- most of the two-hour class sessions I've had last three and a half or four.

We'll see...

Just an update, I went to my second class today. It was the same basic intro stuff. We warm up, do forms exercises, then compliant drill that throw that was in the form exercise. Eventually we will get to going full speed with resistance, but since most of the people in the class have little experience we are starting out slow.

The top student that trains there is a wrestler and is going to get together with us later in the week to spar a little. So that should supplement things nicely.

edit: We trained a little over two hours this time, then talked for another hour about training styles and principles and equipment. He uses this big pvc pipe with cement blocks on both ends like a weighted bar bell. Pretty hard to control since it wobbles so much.

Further update- My roomate has been going to Dave Pickens class for about a month now, and he's been landing the takedowns in sparring with some regularity(mostly footsweeps). I was late for Muay Thai last week, so I decided to go with him

a few observations

1) my knuckles are way too goddamn bloody. Who the **** decided to make shujiao jackets so fucking coarse?

2) aliveness within the first 10 minutes of class. The guy i was paired up with would let me get a few compliant reps, and then start introducing difficulties

3) dave's teaching was responsive- if he observed that a certain type of resistance was keeping you from getting a takedown, he would stop and show an adjustment or a takedown to switch to as a counter

4) dave's version of that pseudo-sprawl in the noob thread looks a little more like a normal sprawl, and he stuffed me into the mat when i tried to switch to a single against the exposed leg(i'm not a great wrestler).

Thanks for the class review.