Review of Steve Maxwell Gracie Self Defense Jiu JItsu Seminar

The review below is from a seminar I attended in May of 2016. I originally wrote it for a small forum I belong to. Lately I have made a decision to start putting up some of my other articles, reviews, etc., on the Blog for general perusal by the public.

I'm putting this one up as a sort of follow up to my Blog post about how some instructors whose self defense programs have previously been based heavily on their students becoming near full time BJJ students, but have recently realized that not everybody looking for some sort of self defense training are actually interested in the Martial Arts per se. In short, they are not looking for a new addition to their lifestyle.

Some people are, but from my observations over the years after being involved in Shotokan Karate, Muy Thai, Doce Pares Escrima and Combatives, some people do develop an interest. However a very large percentage do not.

Having said all that, time to get to the review.

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Steve Maxwell Gracie Jiu Jitsu Self Defense Seminar
5-1-16

So May 1st, I drove into Brooklyn for a 3 hour "Brazillian" Jiu Jitsu seminar with Steve Maxwell. This was not your sport or MMA oriented type of seminar. This was the original self defense material that the Gracies originally taught when they came up to the US. This was supposed to be stand-up and grounded defenses. However due to the fact that Mr. Maxwell felt the matting in the gym was inadequate and that there might be injuries he decided to just do all stand-up.

Considering my shitty lower back, I was actually quite happy with his decision.

To get right to the point, the material he showed was quite in line with older style Jiu Jitsu techniques along the lines of what I had been trained in for years by the late Carl Cestari, as well as material from older Jiu Jitsu manuals. The escapes from wrist grabs, throat/collar grabs, two hand chokes both against the wall and free-standing, etc. were in some cases slightly different from what I had previously trained, but they were close enough for me to have no trouble keeping up. The biggest difference was in the area of mindset/mentality in that where I had been trained to be quick to use strikes to injure my attacker, these older style methods were geared more to just getting the guy off you while doing a minimum of damage.This isn't to say that some of the techniques didn't involve strikes, because they did. It's just that there wasn't quite as much emphasis as I was normally used to.

One of the hardest parts for me, considering my age and chronic injuries, were the drills for getting up off the floor. They were similar to what Carl and Clint have shown for years. One of the drills involved delivering a kick to your attackers knee and then getting up. The difference was that Steve Maxwell had us using the leg closer to the ground for the kick instead of the top leg. When asked about it he explained that the thinking was that because the top leg was higher off the ground it would be easier for your attacker to catch it or knock it out of the way because he wouldn't have to bend over as far to grab or deflect it.

Overall I enjoyed the seminar and got a chance to work some material that I hadn’t had the opportunity to practice at a seminar for a few years. In the 3 hours I was there I got to do plenty of drilling on the material he showed. The price was only $80 because it was basically a 1/2 day event and I feel it was well worth it. Steve Maxwell in person is exactly like he is on his DVD's. Friendly, personable and a good instructor. An interesting thing I think I should mention is that Steve actually lamented the fact that the most BJJ schools weren't teaching the actual original Self Defense material these days and were concentrating too much on the BJJ Sport competition and MMA programs.

My only complaint is that my hips and glutes were not happy for the next few days. However that really just shows what parts of my body aren't getting worked out the way they need to be. Oddly enough though my lower back hardly bothered me at all.

All in all, a good day of worthwhile training.