I have been bringing 3rd Degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Chris Haueter down to San Diego every year to coach us for several years. This past weekend we were able to enjoy an awesome Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu seminar with Chris.The seminar began discussing some of the primary differences between the Art, Sport and Fighting aspects of Jiu-Jitsu. Chris specifically emphasized the importance of sport. Haueter who in addition to coaching his private students is an instructor at Rigan Machado's Academy where he recently had been rolling with several world class black belts. Chris Haueter had some keen insight on the benefits of competitive sport oriented Jiu-Jitsu.
"When you are in competition with someone you don't know who is trying to choke your neck its not the same as rolling with someone you know in class every week playing a friendly game," Haueter said.
For the first two hours we worked on our technical game. Covering a guard passing series Chris has put together specifically for competition. Often you will only be able to control one leg with a single grip when faced with a highly competitive opponent. Chris went into great detail covering numerous ways to gain hip control and pass against an active aggressive opponent from nothing more than a single grip. After an hour of guard passing Chris showed us the defense and counters to all the guard passing techniques he had just taught us.
Pictured Above; Chris Haueter showing us how to go straight to an attack after defending the pass.
Following two hours of instruction on passing and defending the guard for tournament oriented situations we began rolling. Chris rolled with me first which was a lot of fun. After rolling with me Haueter went onto roll with everyone of my blue belts spending ample time rolling with each one of them. These are some very tough blue belts Chris had to roll with. Chris Cichy recently went 1-1 in the purple belt division loosing his 2nd match by a very controversial disqualification against a purple belt from Rickson’s camp.
After rolling for close to an hour straight Chris called Peter out onto the mat for a roll. Peter is a lean 230lb blue belt who is very close to the purple. Peter gave Chris a battle and had a very impressive roll. Afterwards Chris commented on Peter’s game saying, "Peter is feeling more like a purple belt it’s hard to tell because of his size however it does feel like he's really using skill and not just his weight." This was a very nice complement not just to Peter but to everyone Peter has been training with for the past several years.
After rolling for close to an hour straight Chris called Peter out onto the mat for a roll. Peter is a lean 230lb blue belt who is very close to the purple. Peter gave Chris a battle and had a very impressive roll. Afterwards Chris commented on Peter’s game saying, "Peter is feeling more like a purple belt it’s hard to tell because of his size however it does feel like he's really using skill and not just his weight." This was a very nice complement not just to Peter but to everyone Peter has been training with for the past several years.
After rolling with Chris Haueter we went into some Iron Man Games. The Iron Man game we played went as follows; two of us would take center mat, the Iron Man would start on his back with the opponent in his guard. Whoever scores first wins. The Winner stays on the mat. Four wins in a row makes you a champion.
Spencer and Brian B. started off the Iron Man games first with everyone else following. All the white belts looked really good many of them being very close to the blue belt level. During Brian B. and Jeremy’s roll Brian passed the guard to side control and then allowed Jeremy to escape to an arm lock. “That was so white belt of you!” Chris shouted out as Brian gave up side control. For the majority of our white belts it’s simply a matter of eliminating those white belt mistakes in order to make a blue belt level game.
I stepped on the mat last and began blasting through all my students until I met up with Peter who passed my Guard! Overall the everyone showed a lot of improvement by the end of the night we had been training for close to 4 hours!
I remember the first time we had Chris Haueter down Joe Celona was there along with about 5 others all white belts. This past weekend we had close to 20 of us there including Joe! The group has come a long way. While no belt comes easy in Jiu-Jitsu it’s a lot of fun to see everyone’s game progress.
Pictured Top; Jeremy fully attentive to Haueter's Jits instruction.
The best part of the entire experience was just getting everyone together to train and have a good time. Chris joked around with our protégées Patrick (12yrs, yellow belt) and Mc Crae (13yrs) hitting Mc Crae with a stick several times and calling Dan the No gi Bastard! Afterwards a large group of us went to Wahoo’s for dinner. We are looking forward to brining Chris Haueter back soon. For right now we need some time to digested and integrate all the material and coaching he gave us into our games.
Pictured Below; Chris Haueter a truely seasoned black belt!
