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One of the most underrated icons in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the legend..

Relentless chase

Relentless chase

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Master Sergio Penha. Most known for being one of the only guys to give Rickson Gracie his toughest match ever back in the '80's. Rickson tapped him in the final minutes of their match after Sergio put on a dominant performance, up 15 points to 0.

Sergio is also one of very few people that has surpassed brown belt and promoted straight to black belt with the permission from Grand Master Helio Gracie to Osvaldo Alves.

He has trained and guided some of the sports top fighters and athletes such as Frank Mir, Stephan Bonnar, BJ Penn, Saku, and many more.

He was awarded his 8th degree coral belt last fall as well, a HUGE honor in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I just feel the need to post about him, because, I rarely see anything about him anymore and what I see from him is from years and years back. We need to keep this legend alive on the forums.


alex-prates-sergio-penha-guga-pinto.jpg

This is a more recent picture of him with his red and white coral belt. just an absolute BJJ legend and one of the few Teachers nowadays of pure Old School Jiu-Jitsu.

Long thread, I know, but what are your thoughts on Master Sergio?? anyone on here trained in Old School BJJ??
 
Relentless chase said:
Why's that?
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It's obsolete. Modern bjj has been refined by years of super elite guys battling each other and is designed to work against skilled resisting opponents.
Old school bjj is a inferior form that relies a lot on doing not very good moves against people who aren't that good (back in the day everyone sucked more or less) and a lot on using a ton on practice and invisible "details" to pull of stuff instead of the technique being super sound and it being a matter of doing things correctly.
 
yetanother said:
It's obsolete. Modern bjj has been refined by years of super elite guys battling each other and is designed to work against skilled resisting opponents.
Old school bjj is a inferior form that relies a lot on doing not very good moves against people who aren't that good (back in the day everyone sucked more or less) and a lot on using a ton on practice and invisible "details" to pull of stuff instead of the technique being super sound and it being a matter of doing things correctly.
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Are you in a way saying guys like Sergio don't have good technique? I know several guys that I have good contact with, that say he's one of the top and very best Jiu-Jitsu coaches alive today and you gotta take into effect too, Rickson knew just how good he was before they fought, plus Helio Gracie was the one to give the assurance to Osvaldo to promote Sergio from Purple belt straight to Black belt, that's like such a huge honor to be recognized as one of the best like that from a Grand Master like Helio, so I mean, that just goes to show that Sergio Penha and his game, as well as his techniques are no joke. He's refined a lot of old school techniques too and even has came up with some of his own.

I said he's old school, he's like a modernized old school if that makes any sense. I know a guy that's a blackbelt under him and he's trained all over the world pretty much with some of the best of the best and he's said time and time again, if he was a white belt all over again, there's only two coaches he would want to learn from, Sergio Penha and Marcelo Garcia. He's said that Master Sergio is hands down, one of, if not THE best and most technical Jiu-Jitsu coach alive today (Bias) but stays under the radar and isn't talked about much like guys such as Fabio Gurgel, Renzo Gracie, Jacare Cavalcanti, Roger Gracie, and more of the common well known BJJ instructors.
 
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I think it's a misnomer to call the Alves lineage old school in the way we call the Gracie stuff old school. I agree with @yetanother that most of the Helio filter camp is obsolete, but that's never how Osvaldo trained his guys.

That team was doing all types of judo, crazy movement drills, hardcore conditioning after training, etc. They were most definitely training for sport. Guys like Fredson Paixao and Jacare are more recent products of that team. I don't think anyone could fault their technique or competition record.

Has the sport game evolved? Most definitely, and thankfully so. But Alves and crew never displayed the blind ideology that keeps a lot of 'old school' guys from catching up to the modern game. Alves had good methodology; he could have applied it to any evolution of the sport.

I can't speak to how Penha trains his guys, or how they do in modern competition. But I do think it's important to not think of him in the same context as people who are just trying to push their brand.

Search for some old Pete the Greek posts about training with Alves. He tells the story way better than I can.
 
yetanother said:
It's obsolete. Modern bjj has been refined by years of super elite guys battling each other and is designed to work against skilled resisting opponents.
Old school bjj is a inferior form that relies a lot on doing not very good moves against people who aren't that good (back in the day everyone sucked more or less) and a lot on using a ton on practice and invisible "details" to pull of stuff instead of the technique being super sound and it being a matter of doing things correctly.
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If you spent three minutes on the mat with a guy like Relson you'd change your tune. The smart old school guys have continued to evolve.
 
mattemate said:
The smart old school guys have continued to evolve.
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If they stay up to date great. The ones that stayed way back in the past suck. I wouldn't want to train under say Rickson. And I wouldn't go to his seminar for free.
 
yetanother said:
If they stay up to date great. The ones that stayed way back in the past suck. I wouldn't want to train under say Rickson. And I wouldn't go to his seminar for free.
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Why not? Seminars will surely suck, but training under him? You won’t bendoing any fancy shit, or modern day leglocks, but the basics you should pick up from him will certainly be of use to most people
 
Relentless chase said:
Are you in a way saying guys like Sergio don't have good technique? I know several guys that I have good contact with, that say he's one of the top and very best Jiu-Jitsu coaches alive today
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What modern competitors does he have? I live in Vegas and I never see more than a couple Sergio guys at local tournaments. I have a good relationship with some of his team but I think you need to have good modern competitors to earn the moniker of top and very best coach alive.
 
They promoted him to BB from purple nejt because they did not have a BB opponent for rickson on that day
 
yetanother said:
He didn't even teach his own son anything. There is tons of video evidence he sucks.
If you can't see it you need to train a bit more.
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There’s evidence Rickson sucks? Holy shit... he’s certainly far from super human, but the only real evidence is the one that stands, all people... all black belts that have ever rolled with him have said he was a monster... the fuck are you talking about?
 
yetanother said:
He shows things that sucks. And the guy I'm certain hasn't learnt a thing in decades.


That's what he thinks is good jiu jitsu.
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Roger Gracie must suck too, all things show that he hasn’t catch up with modern Bjj either right...
 
BJJ_Rage said:
Roger Gracie must suck too, all things show that he hasn’t catch up with modern Bjj either right...
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The stuff Roger shows and uses is all great. Rickson shows some retarded get triangled technique. You see better technique at white belt worlds then from Rickson.
 
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