See how Sean avoids the leg lasso:

Note that for IBJJF events, this submission is only legal for brown and black belts.

Check it out:

Black belt Sean Roberts of GMA Ralph Gracie Chino Hills has been driving across the country since the start of the year. The Southern California native has made his way from the east coast and is currently in Arizona set to lead another seminar.

The trip began in Fort Lauderdale, FL at a tournament. On Dec. 29 Sean entered a bracket of eight men and took home the $1000 cash prize before teaching a seminar at the location of the event.

With the opportunity of being in Florida, Sean and his fiance Elizabeth, who also trains, decided to make it an adventure with a Jiu-Jitsu road trip. Teaching seminars and classes helped fund the traveling costs and practitioners all over the country learned from the Ralph Gracie black belt.

You can still catch Sean on his way home to California. He is currently set to teach on Feb. 1 at Nava BJJ in Mesa, AZ. On Feb 2. he will have a seminar in Cottonwood, AZ and the next two days he will teach classes at both Cavalcanti JJ Kingman and Lucero JJ.

Check out the rest of the teaching tour by clicking here and learn more about GMA Ralph Gracie Chino Hills by visiting www.ralphgraciechinohills.com/

Sean Roberts with his mentor, Ralph Gracie. Photo: Personal Archive

GMA members from Ralph Gracie Chino Hills, Rocha Jiu-Jitsu and Crispim BJJ are set for superfights in a new submission-only event.

Sean Roberts, who currently lives and trains at the Ralph Gracie headquarters in San Francisco, is a representative of his home school in Chino Hills and will be attending the Kurt Osiander Finisher Series first event on August 10 for a superfight. He received his black belt right before the 2013 Pan American Championship and will be going against an opponent who received his black belt from GMA member Eduardo Rocha in 2010.

All superfights are specific to whether they are gi or no-gi, Sean’s will be in the gi but he is currently looking for an opponent for another superfight in the event. The rules vary from other events as they do have a time limit, fifteen minutes. This way, the competitors are forced to really look for the submission and not focus on the points at all.

Other superfight match-ups include brown belt Mark Tse under Eduardo Rocha who will be going in a gi match against Crispim BJJ’s Kola Ajose. Another Crispim BJJ student in a match-up is Brooke Goldsworthy who is currently looking for an opponent in a gi match.

Alongside the superfights is a round-robin structured tournament that has 5-6 minute matches and submission-only format. Should the match end in no submission, a ref will determine the more aggressive athlete. Divisions are bracketed in pools like the Copa Podio and the competitor who gains the most submission/decision wins the group will advance to match-up against winners of the other groups in the division.

Submission-only tournaments are surfacing with points and advantages remaining for the most prestigious tournaments like Worlds and Pan-Ams. Is this the future of sport Jiu-Jitsu?

Black belt under Bruno Mamute Paulista and Romulo Barral, Benny Dariush is hosting a local seminar at GMA Chino Hills. The 23-year-old is retired from Jiu-Jitsu competition and working towards his MMA career but his gi training never stops therefore the signature “Dariush guard” is still in full effect.

Benny received his black belt in five years, all of which he spent competing in the highest level tournaments. He has placed at every Pan Ams and World Championship at every belt except for black belt. Known as having a flexible guard with excellent guard retention and recovery, you can expect solid techniques from this Jiu-Jitsu lover.

The seminar on Saturday, April 20 is reserved for a 30-person limit, for $30 each. It will be held at Ralph Gracie Chino Hills located at 14151 Pipeline Drive, Chino Hills, CA 91710 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

You can either visit the Ralph Gracie academy to pay or you can send the money through paypal to benieldariush@gmail.com to reserve your spot.

For information, please contact Benny at: DariushGuard@gmail.com