Eddie Cummings Seminar Review

[Uchi Mata]

This weekend I had the luck to go to a seminar with Danaher BB and DDS member Eddie Cummings (assisted by Ottavia Busia, formerly Bourdain). As you might expect, the seminar was mostly focused on leg locks. We covered:

• Basic entry to ashi garami (single leg X)
• Inside and outside heel hook breaking mechanics
• Entry to inside sankaku/ashi garami from to DLR
• Entry to inside sankaku/ashi garami from bottom butterfly
• Entry to inside sankakut/ashi garami from the feet as a defense to a single leg

After the main portion of the seminar, we did an hour long Q&A that was totally open. Eddie answered a ton of questions about a wide variety of positions. I picked up a huge amount of useful info, it was one of the best seminars I've been to.

One reason I wanted to write a review was that I've heard in the past that the DDS guys were more or less told not to talk about the details of the system at seminars, and while it's certainly true that Eddie might have been holding something back and I wouldn't have known that very much did not seem to be the case. On the contrary, as someone who's studies his game a great deal I had a list of very specific questions to ask and he answered them all in depth. We had some 10th Planet guys there who were asking him very specific questions about things he did vs. Geo Martinez, and while Eddie made a few jokes about how he shouldn't really show them what he was working on he did anyway, again going into pretty mind blowing depth on counters and recounters from a specific inside sankaku position he got into against Geo. Overall I was incredibly impressed not only with his openness but also the clinical, incredibly detailed approach he clearly took to BJJ as well as his encyclopedic knowledge of things that occurred in even relatively obscure matches. Seriously, I'm a big BJJ nerd with a pretty damn good memory and he amazed me with his ability to recall specific small details of positions that occurred in things like ADCC trials matches from 2009. I'd highly recommend training with him any time you get the chance, I was so impressed that I'm seriously thinking about trying to arrange a training trip to NYC. What those guys are doing really is pretty far beyond anything else I've seen.

 

[mataleaos]

if good Q&As are determined by the quality of the questions I'm guessing a lot of good questions were asked? Did anyone ask about non leg lock stuff or was most of it leg lock focused?

 

[kjg1672]

Thanks for the review. Did you get to roll with either of them?

 

[Uchi Mata]

if good Q&As are determined by the quality of the questions I'm guessing a lot of good questions were asked? Did anyone ask about non leg lock stuff or was most of it leg lock focused?

Basically all the questions were good. It wasn't a huge crowd, the guys who were there were mostly upper belts looking to flesh out their leg games for the F2W pro events so they were pretty well versed and knew what to ask about. Most of the questions were about leg locks, though I specifically asked about their back attacking system and got some pretty useful little nuggets.

They didn't roll, and we had limited time before the pro MMA team took over the gym. I'm not sure if they were in town just for seminar, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were training with Elevation right after the seminar and that's the real reason they were in Denver (MusclePharm HQ where the seminar was at is the gym for Elevation fight team with guys like Dillashaw, Magny, Matt Brown, etc.).

 

[FatherSauce]

Went to one of his in Houston last year. It was great but I unfortunately was not fully prepared for it. I found out last minute so didn't have questions prepared and had to leave to go straight to work right near the end of it. But I would definitely attend again if the opportunity was there.

 

[NSchoke]

I've trained with Danaher at both seminars and in his classes. I'm not surprised to hear these things about Eddie, although I've never trained with him. The hype is real. These guys are playing chess while most others are playing checkers.

 

[TheMood]

Thanks for the review. I will have to make it to Renzo's at some point after I get better. Do you think the seminar would have been too advanced if you don't have much leg lock experience?

 

[Uchi Mata]

Thanks for the review. I will have to make it to Renzo's at some point after I get better. Do you think the seminar would have been too advanced if you don't have much leg lock experience?

It was a structured in such a way to be as accessible as possible to non-leg lockers, but I do think that having some leg lock experience is necessary to make it really worthwhile.