Not everyone gets to have a private training lesson with the legendary Rickson Gracie… But those who do, all say one thing: that the way Rickson teaches and what he teaches are two equally extraordinary things. Things, that you’d never get to experience from any other instructor on the planet.
MMA Fighting‘s Spencer Fisher had such a learning opportunity. In an eagerly expected lesson, Spencer learned a lot from Rickson. For example, the necessity of being comfortable in uncomfortable situations and using the opponent’s energy to your advantage:

Don’t worry about escape — worry about be comfortable. So bump first… STOP… Stay cool there, cool… Yes, so cool… Everything’s cool… Beautiful. If you can feel my energy, you can use my energy…YES.
Make sense? You have to make yourself in a position to play in the middle. Where my energy goes, you can take advantage.

Rickson told Spencer that the most important thing for him is to remember to breathe deeply, at all times. For, when you breathe properly, you can think and react better:

People think just because you get slapped on your butt and start to cry when you’re born, you know how to breathe and stay alive.
That’s true, in the matter of being alive, but it’s far [from] true in a matter of increasing your awareness, your capacity to overcome nervous, emotional breakdowns, or endurance for high-top athletes.

So when you know how to use the diaphragm and breathe properly, you open a different dimension of understanding calmness, possibilities, control of emotions.
And that goes not only [for] fighters or Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, but anyone in this universe.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rickson Gracie (@ricksongraciejj)

Read more on Spencer Fisher’s unique training session with Rickson on the following link.