Really cool private lesson. Marcelo is such a laid back and funny guy. He always has a smile on his face and is a good teacher. He had problems with his english but he was able to demonstrate all the details and points that he was unable to verbally communicate.
What was interesting was that Marcelo remembered me from his LA seminar. I started telling him how much I enjoyed the seminar and looked forward to trying those moves. I also mentioned that he probably remembered me because I was the only tall asian guy that attended. He responded by asking me "Do Chinese no like jiu-jitsu?" I responded that I have no idea but I know that I like jiu-jitsu. Also, what was interesting was that Vince from Shoyoroll.com (the guy who set up the private and the seminar) had lied to Marcelo that I was some brown belt phenom. Imagine the surprised look on his face when he saw my faded blue belt.
In any case, we began our private lesson with me asking him to demonstrate his butterfly guard. Marcelo showed me how he fights from the butterfly guard and what moves he likes to do from there. He demonstrated 5 sweeps + a transition to x-guard. Naturally all of the sweeps are setup by an attempt at the basic butterfly guard sweep (hook sweep). Marcelo is really big on fighting grips on his legs in the butterfly guard. He absolutely refuses to allow the other guy to obtain a grip on his legs in the butterfly guard. Constantly fighting to break their grip and block their grip attempts. The sweeps he demonstrated are really cool, different from the other butterfly guard stuff that I'm familiar with.
After drilling these moves for a bit, we worked on my x-guard. Interestingly, Marcelo is really big on the placement of your legs in the x-guard. You place them higher up, with the bottom hook behind the knee, if you're sweeping them forward. You place them lower, with the bottom hook on the top part of the calf if you're sweeping them backwards.
Next, I asked him about finishing opponents from the back. Marcelo's biggest point is to always maintain position first. He keeps trying different chokes from the back. He also showed me some nifty ways of breaking your opponent's grips where they are gripping your arms to defend the choke (too hard to explain on here).
Finally, Marcelo and I rolled for about 15 minutes. He told me that he had dislocated the thumb on his left hand and tore the major ligament there. However, he told me that he's basically recovered but wanted to play it safe. As such, he wore this splint/support device while we rolled.
Well I decided to pull guard on Marcelo just to see what his top game was like. Let me tell you, he may not be renowned for his top game, but he kept passing my guard and, not surprisingly, dominated me. Marcelo doesn't concentrate on controlling you in his top game. Instead he gives you openings to try escapes because this sets you up for his subsequent moves. For instance, he gave me space to hip out of his side control... which consequently set me up for this nifty move where he switches to the opposite side and took my back.
In the course of the 20 minutes, I think I spent most of it with Marcelo on my back or me desperately trying to avoid some kind of a sweep attempt (usually in vain). What was particularly impressive was that Marcelo was only using his right hand to grip me because he was babying his injured left hand. Despite that handicap, I couldn't pass his guard at all.
All in all it was a great experience. Despite his accomplishments, Marcelo is a really humble guy. He had no ego. I wish I had pictures to share with you guys but there was no one there to take them while we were training. I did take a couple of pics with him after the private but I doubt you guys would be interested in our stupid poses.