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From Rick Young:

My start in grappling came in 1975 when my first instructor, Shaun Shanley taught me some basic Ne-Waza and some wrestling moves along with punching and kicking. He also taught me some Judo throws which from the very beginning I valued because I saw him use them to devastating effect in the street. His instructors were; George Kerr now a ninth dan Judo, Jimmy Delaney a third dan Judo with exceptional throwing skills and an absolute monster on the street and Maurice Allan who was a superb wrestler and who won the 1975 world Sambo championships in Russia. I have since had the privilege of training with all of them and they are all world class.

In 1984 on my first trip to Los Angeles I attended a Larry Hartsell seminar which was all clinch and groundwork. I trained with Sifu Hartsell consistently from the mid eighties to the late nineties and he has been a major influence on me. I owe him an enormous amount of thanks. At the same time from the JKD direction Guro Dan Inosanto has always stressed the importance of the ground game and has always encouraged me to continue my training in grappling. Between 1986-88 I trained Judo but stopped because of a niggling knee injury.

I was first exposed to BJJ in 1989 when I went to the Smoky mountain camp in North Carolina were everyone was talking about this family who said they could beat anyone with their style of Jiu-jitsu. This was of course the infamous Gracie challenge. I met Erik Paulson at this camp and he told me he was taking privates from one of the Gracie brothers and said that when I got to Los Angeles I should try to get a private lesson. I did as he said and got a private from Royce. This was at the Gracie house I think just before they opened their first academy in Torrance. I remember all sorts of guys in kimonos walking around, one of them I now know was Rickson another was Rorian, I also think Royler was there. On the same trip I started training with Erik Paulson who is just on another level completely from me. Erik is one of the most knowledgeable grapplers around and in my view is really underrated. He is a massive influence on the way I train and teach.

In the next couple of years whenever I visited Los Angeles to train with Dan Inosanto I trained with Rickson, Rorian and Royce this was because Paul Vunak one of my instructors at the time took privates from all three and I just joined in. I rolled with Rickson maybe 6 or 7 times but in all honesty I didnt have the skills to give him any problems at all so it was hard for me to gauge just how great he was. During one class though in the summer of 1993, just prior to the first UFC, I did roll with Rickson, Royce and Fabio Gurgel who Rickson introduced as a world class black belt. Rickson rolled with him and proceeded to tap him constantly. He did the same to Royce but Royce was tapping twice as quickly as Fabio. I mention this not to downplay either Royce or Fabios abilities but just to give some perspective on Rickson. Rickson was always nice to me and when I went to his house to interview him he was really polite and made me feel at home and welcomed. In 1995 I started to go to the Machado school primarily because Rickson was away a lot when I visited L.A. I trained with Rigan, Roger, John and a little with Jean Jacque. In 1997 Rigan gave me my blue belt.. All of these men in their own right were and are awesome Jiu-jitsu players.

Just to backtrack a bit in 1991 I started practicing Judo again and began taking private lessons from Marc Preston, a world class Judo player with great Ne-Waza skills. Marc taught me a lot about position and balance as well as some strong techniques on the ground. I trained with Marc privately 3-4 times a week for around 4 years while at the same time training with Billy Cusack and his squad at the Edinburgh club. I actually took a job on the door to finance my privates with Marc- he was that good I didnt want to miss the opportunity of training under him.

I lot of the Guys I trained with were British internationalists and strong in Ne-Waza. Billy taught me a lot about the ground and really helped me mentally prepare for gradings or hard sessions. In 1995 I visited Japan to train at Tokai University which was an amazing experience. Apart from getting thrown relentlessly I had some great groundwork practices out there notably with the great Kenzo Nakamura. Because of the Edinburgh clubs connections in the Judo world I got to train with a massive amount of world class Judo players who I usually got the chance to roll with and learn from. I owe a lot to George Kerr, Billy Cusack and Marc Preston for giving shape and direction to the way I train and how I have developed. I trained Judo with the full time squad at the Edinburgh club until it closed in 2004.

Any way in 1998 my friend Rob Lock told me about a BJJ instructor who had started teaching in Birmingham. It was of course none other than Mauricio Gomes. Dave Briggs had also mentioned how good Mauricio was to me when I taught courses for Geoff Thompson and Peter Consterdine. In 1999 I asked Mauricio to come up for a couple of seminars and immediately liked both him and the way he approached the art. This was also the first time I met Roger who even at blue belt level and only seventeen was just awesome.

In 2002 on my third trip to Brazil I was talking to Mauricio and said I would like to start again in BJJ and go as a white belt under him. I hadnt seen Rigan for a long time and really didnt have a relationship with him so I thought it better to start all over again Mauricio kindly gave me my purple and gave me permission to teach BJJ. Up until this point I had been teaching the classes as Ne-Waza and Combat submission wrestling as I didnt feel I had enough knowledge to be teaching a complete BJJ class. I am extremely privileged to have Mauricio as my instructor and feel very grateful to be taught by him. In my opinion he is the best teacher of BJJ I have ever come across. More importantly he is one of the nicest human beings I have ever met. I also have to thank Braulio Estima who is Just a tremendous individual both on and off the mat and he has helped me immensely in improving my game.

In August 2003 Mauricio gave me my brown belt and in October 2005 he presented me, Marc Walder and Jude Samuel with our black belts. It was great to attain the Black belt but to be honest I still feel like a beginner in the grappling arts and see the black belt as an indication of a decent level of proficiency from which you have to build on and develop your skills, not to sit back and admire the view.

I am also very aware that there are many, many blue, purple, brown and black belts that have more skill than me and could whoop me on the mat but I know that if I am constantly training and improving then I am ahead of the game and being the best that I can be which hopefully I will be doing until the day I die.

Croming - if possible, could you get Arlans to post his memories of jitsu in the early days here?