I finally learned the reverse omoplata

**FictionPimp** · Posted On: 7/01/2006 6:37pm

Man, I just came back from a 2 day semminar hosted by Marcello Monteiro (I hope I spelled his name right). It was one of the most awesome things I've done in a while. He mainly went over open guard passes, sweeps, and submissons. He also covered the reverse omaplata from turtle, tons of side control positions and lots of sweeps to side control. And a few ways to pass and, regain guard, and sweep from half guard.

I tried to work my open guard game before, but it was never really covered much at my gym. Now I really have a feel for what it takes to work a good open guard. I've never spent so much time in the open guard before. I've actually gotten better at using the open guard for positioning the traingle and omaplata.

The best part about the semminar was that he showed every technique, pass, etc as a gi and no-gi variations. The semminar was small so he spent personal time with each pair of people working and I really feel he helped point out and fix some flaws in my game.

The only cons of the semminar was he really wanted to cover a lot of the basics (most of the semminar was 6-8 month white belts, with a couple blue and purples) and show us some advanced techniques so he went very fast. We only got about 2-3 minutes to work with our partners before he was moving on. He would also show 4 or 5 variations of a technique at once. Making it hard to remmber the finer details. However the personal instruction from him and the guys he brought with him really helped solidify the techniques in my head (at least long enough to get home and write them down). He also made sure to give us plenty of time to spar at the end of the semminar. I got to watch him roll with some of the best guys in my class and of course he was amazing.

So anywyas, I just wanted to say I learned more in the last two days about the open guard then I've learned in the last 6 months. I was able to use techniques in sparing that I never thought I would be able to pull off (head stand passes, a lot of different kinds of sweeps, and I'm actualy hitting omaplatas more consistantly now.) I have great respect for the man and I would like to say he really lit a fire under my ass and improved my game greatly in the last two days.

**Aesopian** · Posted On: 7/01/2006 6:43pm

Sounds like a great seminar. How many hours per day was it?

One thing I've heard works well if you're doing a multiple day seminar or camp is to go with a friend or two, then at the end of the day, have someone video tape you doing the moves you learned. That way it's not just you trying to remember it on your own, and you've created a reference for reviewing the material.

**FictionPimp** · Posted On: 7/01/2006 6:47pm

It was 3 hours the first night and 4 hours today. He basically was brought into the club by my instructor so I know and train with just about everybody that was there. A few of us made a promise to run the drills he showed us at least once a week after class.

A video is a great idea. I'm saving up for a camera for c3 so I can record my matches. Hopefully I can get it and record what I learn from semminars in the future.