10th Planet Hollywood Ca

[cyrijl]

I travelled to Hollywood just to train at 10th Planet for a week. I attended 1 week's worth of classes (6 classes - 4night/2day).

Here is a quick summation:
No BS Martial Arts - View Single Post - 10th planet

Alot of people have asked about this school I will try to be as fair as possible, but to be honest I had a great time there. I knew somewhat what to expect going in and managed my expectations accordingly.

The Facts
Classes from from 8:30-10 M-TH and there are days classes 11:30-12:30 T/TH.

THE CLASS
The Arrival
Before class there were alot of people going about stretching and jumping rope. I grabbed some mat space and began stretching. For those of you who know little about the 10th Planet system, stretching is almost as important as breathing. Some might say breathing is almost as important as stretching. People were much more friendly than I had anticipated and before the first class I had already met a number of people I would roll with and talk to throughout the week. Everyone was very welcoming.

In typical rocker fashion Eddie was about 10-15 minutes late each night. I was worried at first, but then was told this was common and class usually went until 10:30.

The Cleaning and The Beckoning
Before each class they spray the mats with soap (hopefully disinfectant soap) and Eddie himself dries the mats along with the students. Once the mat is dry enough he tells everyone to gather on the mat.

Intros and Outros
Before class started Eddie says hi to everyone, points out the visitors and makes sure everyone is doing ok. Even though in reality a few of us matter very little in the long term success of his school, each night he acknowleged us and thanks us and made us feel welcome. I have joined gyms and paid for months and been treated so warmly. He taunted us just like his own students. It was also very much a boy's club. (Nothing overtly sexist and there were women there)

Warm Up
This is where my jiujitsu experience begins to differ. There was no cardio warmup or calisthetic or any non technique warmup. The warmpup drill was working over two knee bars. One knee bar from passing the guard and the other from the X-guard. Eddie demonstrated the technique for a few minutes then we paired up and started working on it. (We did this every class. The idea is to learn the technique so that by the end of the week the knee bar is fast and tight.) My first few night classes I got paired up with basically visitors and beginners. Since no one has a belt it is a little difficult to determine who is experienced and how is not. But since this was just the technique it was no as important (except for the fact that some people didn't know what the X-guard was)

Eddie came around and gave personal instruction to those who had issues.

Techniques
We went over the same two techniques all week. (A half-guard pass and a rubber guard flow). What made 10th Planet really stand out was the willingness to experiment. Eddie readily admits where his weaknesses are and is willing to give his students the opportunity to improve on his techniques. By the end of the week the two techniques were far better at the end than the beginning. This constant review of techniques is what makes 10th planet unique.

Rolling
My biggest fear was that I was going to get brutalized 3000 miles from home. Luckily this was not the case. There were few big egos, most of those from wrestlers and not really 10th planet guys. Since there are so many transient members it was hard to guage who was a serious jits player and who had some submission background and just needed a place to train.

THE GYM
The Equipment rating was 1 because there was no N/A. As long as you have yourself you're good. I didn't actually venture around Legends itself very much. There is a Legends Gym review lurking somewhere if you are interested in the gym as a whole. I moved it to 5 for the reasons discussed below.

The area of training was very cramped. They used what seemed to be Zebra mats. Since they washed them right before class they were very slippery from the residual cleaner. As soon as the sweating started so did the sliding. I would find myself trying to sprawl and just sliding on the mats. It was nice that they were clean, but the slipperiness was a little out of control especially for zebra mats. The mat area has a cage wall on one side which is nice to do cage training.


THE MAN
I didn't really know what to expect from Eddie himself. There is alot of debate about him and his ideas and people tend to fall on the extremes. They hate him or love him. Either emotion is felt with quite a bit of intensity. So here is my take.

Eddie is a great teacher if you 'get it'. Eddie doesn't want to take a total noob and show them a scissor sweep. And if you are like that, and you have a hard time improving, I can see that his patience might run out rather quickly. In many ways the classes are like a moderately directed open mat. You really have to make an effort to make the techniques work for you and understand why. He will help you, but he won't hold your hand.

Eddie rolls with his students. I rolled with him my last night was pretty amazed. You just never know what was coming next. I was able to pull of the pass we just learned that week and he was happy I was able to do it. It was very encouraging that he wants his students to be better than him. He doens't hold many of his tricks back. He teached pretty much all he knows.

THE STUDENTS
Since there are no belts it is a little hard to tell who had what kind of experience. His brown belts are top notch but that is to be expected. They have years of experience and cross train at other places for the most part. The few that I knew were purple were harded to judge. They were definitely better than me, but there seemed to be an over reliance on neck cranks in general. Everyone one was nice. There are always a couple that want to smash the new guy so I knew that going in.


My Final Thoughts
My overall impression was that this is a great place to train, but there are a few caveats. The most important one is "You need to have some solid jits before you join". I was told that Eddie prefers that you have at least one year of solid training before you sign up. Since 10th planet is a highly conceptual school, the fundamentals are not explicitly taught, they are only implied. Some of his students even after 9 months would still try to straight arm you out of mount, they moved with alot of space and things that usually are cleared up after 6 months.

The lack of fundamentals also seems to lead to a lot of neck cranks and headlocks. There were very few triangles and armbars from the lower level students (blue and white). The learning curve is a little messed up. For some of the students they are learning to defend things which they will not see outside of their own school.

That is my only real criticism. There are alot of starry-eyed noobs who dream of throwing around the rubber guard.

If I could only train at one school out there it might not be that school right now. I personally still need to practice more of the fundamentals and I also enjoy using a gi. But if I were to train at two schools there would be no doubt. 10th Planet is definitely a great place to train.

I shoud clean this up a bit more, but the summation at the top hits all the main points.

[Phrost]

Thanks for this. As someone who's gay for Rubber Guard I've been meaning to get out there myself.

Now it's just a question of "when".

[cyrijl]

It is definitely worth it. I have trained at about 6 different places and none of them have the perspective that 10pth Planets does. Not saying it is the best perspective, just such a different one.

[Ryno]

Excellent review, thank you. It's good to get beyond the marketing and backlash against the marketing to hear a firsthand account of Eddie and his club. It sounds like a good place to go for more experienced folks.

If I'm down in the Hollywood area I would try to check it out. (After a week at Gokor's and Gene's club ;)

[cyrijl]

No offense to Gokor, who I know nothing about, but i was told the place is not really that good. (For what it's worth, I trust the person who told me)

[Snake Plissken]

nice write up and glad you had an enjoyable time.

isn't it refreshing when you find out someone you expected to be a jerk turns out to be nice?

[cyrijl]

It probably helped that he was high as an MF-er. I was suprised by the low douchbag factor in LA, but that might have just been becasue I spent all of my time training or in my hotel room sleeping/recouperating.

[GoldenJonas]

Awesome review cyrijl...I hereby award thee the coveted Review Column Gold Star!!!!!

Dah, dah, dah, dududududuhhhhhhhhh, dum, dadaddum, dahhhhhhhhhhhhh, bum, bum, bum, badabum, dadaaaaaaaaaaaaa........

[cyrijl]

Thanks. If anyone wants more info, or thinks certain aspects should be added let me know. I wasn't sure what people wanted to know.

[Snake Plissken]

Can you flesh out why you rated the gym size and equipment so low?

Maybe make a quick paragraph on each detailing what they had by way of size and equipment, what you are accustomed to and what could be improved to increase ranking?