Can you expound on your experience with him? I'm a huge fan of his podcast.
Two years ago I went to visit family in California. While there, a family member of mine (Sister's husband at the time) that trains at Alliance San Diego told me about Eddie Bravo's gym in downtown LA. I have always known about Eddie Bravo, since he submitted a particular member of the Gracie family that was renowned for his JiuJitsu skill set. I figured it would be fun to head over and try to pick up a little of his rubber guard and see if maybe I can add it to my own JiuJitsu game.
We went for about a 6 days to Bravo's gym (every other day mostly using day passes) and while there I met Eddie Bravo and he was a very nice guy, definitely into the alternative lifestyle that a musician would have. Joe Rogan showed up two times while I was there during the evening hours. I got introduced to him and told him I was a Renzo Gracie Brown Belt and he was a Eddie Bravo Brown Belt at the time. I asked if he wanted to roll, he was up for it and we went at it for about 10-15 minutes for 2 solid rounds of rolling. We got to roll both times that I saw him and each time he seemed like a super passionate guy that was very set on his ways. I told him I was in the finance industry and he expressed to me how our economy was fucked due to big pharma and agricultural monopolies (Monsanto came up, as well as a few others). I tried to explain to him that things like this have been occurring for the better part of the century and that conglomeration of companies into larger entities has been going on by way of the various media, accounting & finance firms, agricultural, to even that of car companies and that as a result, these predatory ways of pushing out the little guy is nothing new. He felt that it was never to the extent that it has become today and kept referencing stuff from the internet. I simply agreed and kept rolling with him and in subtle fashion asked him to teach me more regarding their guard and the transitions from their back. I was not there to try to debate with someone that clearly has done their internet research.
Aside from that, he just seemed like the type of guy that was on Ritalin or one of those attention enhancing drugs. You know, guys that talk intensely, while staring at your eyes and accentuating words to the point that you don't know if their angry or simply over zealous..
Other than that, he seemed like a very nice guy. He certainly reeked of a little marijuana, but that doesn't bother me much. He was also pretty short, I'd say about 5'6-5'7, if I have to guess. I can see him being a nice guy to catch a drink with and possibly wasting endless hours debating ideas regarding the economy and politics.
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P.S. I never was able to add the rubber guard to my ground game, as I am not as flexible as you need to be to employ it and it didn't seem to be worth all the effort it takes to set it up. Maybe if I was brought up in his system, I would have been able to appreciate it more, but it didn't work for me.
