FFMA Review of John B. Will's Seminar-
Wednesday 30th April 2008

By Alan Macdonald

There was a maelstrom flurry of limbs. My mind was in overdrive, trying feverishly to sense the danger to each extremity as one after the other they were held, twisted or manipulated to the tune of the guy on top of me. He was all over me, one second a dead weight, belying his 63 kilos, the next light and slithering to a more advantageous position like a rather calm and relaxed eel. Rather too late every time, you realise what he is up to, but by then your arm/elbow/foot or leg are twanging like a piano wire and you are frantically tapping submissively for him to ease your pain. I sense my breath grunting in my throat from the efforts I am making to throw him off but he’s like a piece of sellotape I’m trying to flick off my finger; remove it from one part of you and it sticks to another. My frustration mounts, which again is playing into his hands, and, Bang!, another choke, bar or mount is performed in double quick, relaxed time and again I sheepishly ask for mercy! In a few short minutes, I am putty in his hands, as my endeavours to throw him off have completely depleted my reserves of energy and I become play dough for him to ridicule if he so wishes. But at no time does he do that; he is a gentleman.

This is John B. Will, an Australian, with a big presence, which belies his smaller stature. His manner is direct and confident and the content of what he expounds indicates the wealth and depth of experience that lies within. He doesn’t waste time on small talk and it is clear where his mission in life lies. And that is in Martial Arts, in particular Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is one of the ‘BJJ Dirty Dozen’, the first twelve non-Brazilian BJJ black belts in the world and he has a wealth of experience in a bewildering array of combat techniques and fighting styles. As a prolific author and teacher, he now regularly travels the world promoting BJJ and commands great respect wherever he goes.

Therefore we were over the moon when the offer was made to Tony, for John to include FFMA in his whistle-stop tour of Europe. Tony had trained with John before a year or two ago and a connection had been made then. Contact was made, a schedule agreed and the big day was on! Part of John’s offer was to spend some time with Tony, Ed Hayes and I in our private training dojo at Tony’s home, explaining and discussing BJJ basics and imparting some of his knowledge of the Martial Arts business to us. Ed and I duly arrived and ‘firm handshakes’ over, I was struck by this bright-eyed (in spite of jet-lag), verbally punchy guy, who invisibly commanded you to listen to him. I could see immediately why he was ‘a big fish in the pond’. He had a surfeit of compelling anecdotal and riveting tales with which to shore up the BJJ conversion tunnel he was driving through our minds. And it was working. We were hooked, inspired and loved every minute of it, and the two hours we spent that afternoon were an all too short introductory flash across our memories.

Giving John some time to relax before the FFMA evening class, we went home and I pondered the impact of some of the things he’d been saying. He talked about intent (something very close to my heart), fighting character (you can train all you like but unless you’ve got it in you..) and empowerment, which is also part of our FFMA philosophy. More on that later. He touched on Martial Arts businesses and regaled us with stories of Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal and many more household names in the MA world. My mind was spinning with avenues, streets and winding pathways of thoughts, mapping their way to enlightened villages and towns of experience in my head and I wanted to travel farther. I got home and began to prepare for the evening class, knowing that a great evening lay ahead.

At the club, we began laying out the mats for the first time. What an inception and a way for them first to be used, a lesson from a top world martial artist. Students began arriving and a quiet expectant buzz emanated from all corners of the room, as hushed voices discussed what may lie in store ahead. John arrived and immediately took command by conducting his own warm up, brief and to the point but synovially lubricating the joints that mattered. He then addressed the very basic tenets of BJJ, commencing with the mount – position of the feet, posting and hooking in all directions and we drilled this for some minutes before he was satisfied we had an inkling of what this meant. He advised – in his Aussie no nonsense fashion – that economy of movement was paramount and that even when we were repositioning ourselves to start a drill again, we should be looking for the most physically efficient way to do so, i.e not standing up to move around your opponent, as this is wasteful and wanton, not intelligent. He also advocated the necessity of ‘relaxing’ in the midst of this mayhem, as the old Chinese proverb says,’ the tree that bends with the wind will not snap’! This also predicates a placing of the body weight, which, used on the chest or neck of the opponent renders him rather helpless, and gives the mounted person the opportunity both to relax, take a break and allow the hapless one below to struggle himself to exploitable fatigue. This point leads me to what John was saying about empowerment – the BJJ system allows a person of a certain weight through their ability, to control a much heavier person. He applied this premise to women in particular and the confidence this can instil. When he was talking about this, I became enamoured of the real value of this system. It was not just fighting or violence, it was a way of life, a spiritual journey. I could see that we were going to be hooked!

Interspersing the routines he was giving us BJJ ‘virgins’ with fascinating small talk, he then took us through the procedure of performing a very basic arm bar. This requires some flexibility and again paradoxically, the looser and smoother your movements, the more seamless the execution of this potential maiming technique can be. As with all movements we have never done before, we were flopping about like fish out of water but after some direction and time to drill, the brain began to cope and command its levers to move in some semblance of order. John called this ‘hardwiring’ the brain, a process that forms autobahns of instinctive thought commands through drilling and training enough. He went on to explain that the more segments we could break each move down into the better, as this created more options to react if we were in a negative position on the floor. All of this of course means that there is an almost infinitesimal plethora of recommended ways of dealing with a particular position we may find ourselves in and there is a constant change to this also, as more and more new and innovative ways of gaining ascendancy are being formulated month on month by dedicated fighter brains.

The physical aspect of the evening ended by John demonstrating how to perform an effective choke. The snaking of the arm around the throat, the need to restrict any space, the pressure of the forearm and bicep on both sides of the neck, it all made such sense and when we were allowed to practice, it was very quickly apparent that sleep would follow extremely quickly. Some four seconds according to John. The ability to speedily slot one of these on with no warning; now that would be empowering!

After the class, John, in spite of his jet lag, was willing to stay and chat and dispense more advice to the savants amongst us. We were pleased that the overwhelming feedback was of a class not to be forgotten, and Tony and I were especially pleased that no cajoling or persuasion is now required to get the whole class behind floorwork. They positively want it!!

The next day I drove John back up to Coventry, where he was to meet with Geoff Thompson the following day. I was pleased to have the opportunity to converse with him and appreciated his sagacious advice relating to Martial Arts clubs. There was much food for thought and many ideas with which we can build an exciting and professional future for FFMA.

So with a whirlwind visit, a legacy has been left, a legacy we hope will grow. We intend to have John back next year to do the same again. Only this time we hope to astound him with what we have learned. We need more hours in the day for good things like this. Roll on next year!!

Alan, Tony and John B. Will

WWW.BJJ.COM.AU Website
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John B. Will's personal blog
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