Jeff Rockwell is a brown belt under Ricardo de la Riva and runs a DLR affiliate school, teaching BJJ and MMA at LionHeart Fitness and Mixed Martial Arts in State College, PA. You can find the address and schedule at myspace.com/rockjitsu.

Jeff Rockwell and Ricardo de la Riva.

How did you get into BJJ?

I got into the martial arts the same way a lot of people my age did: I saw Bruce Lee and I wanted to be just like him. My parents never really wanted me to get into martial arts…

I had the pleasure of training at American Top Team in Hollywood, FL this past Christmas weekend. Leo Kirby and I met up to share techniques and take photos.

A while back, Leo did a private lesson with Robson Moura. He’s long wanted to show me what he learned, and the members of the SBG forum were clamoring for it as well, so we thought we’d shoot a tutorial of it. I have taken Leo’s notes on the private lesson that he posted on the SBG forum after training with Robson…

Originally posted on Paul Pedrazzi’s Journal and the Straight Blast Gym Forum. Reposted here with his permission.

The Training

Yesterday I drove down to San Jose to train with Dave Camarillo at AKA in San Jose. I have not been down there for about a year simply because the drive is about an hour each way and with my family it is very tough to make it. On this day though I had some time and was fresh on the heels of my decision to work harder on progressing in bjj, so I got down…

A few weeks back, I was in Miami and stopped by American Top Team Hollywood to train with my friend, Leo Kirby. I know that the gym is having some trouble since the main instructor, Carlos Rollyson (for whom the gym was originally named) has left. Edson Diniz of ATT was brought in to replace him, but they’re still sorting issues out and could use some promotion. Since I was given great hospitality, I figured I could do a little to help them out.

I had a lot of trouble finding…