Ok. Short version: I was bouncing around martial arts forums in around 2002 and people kept talking about this guy called Royce Gracie. I was doing a striking martial art at the time, so wasn't interested in anything that meant I couldn't try those cool flying kicks I'd been working on. It took four years of reading, discussing and watching lots of old UFCs, but eventually signed up at the Roger Gracie Academy in 2006. (very) long version: http://www.slideyfoot.com[...]round.html

P.S our own stories converge slightly with Donal Carmody I believe. We had him for a brief time in our college club in Dublin along with his brother Paddy. Excellent grapplers and great guys. Thanks for sharing

I had been a big martial arts movie fan since a kid, but never took up anything because I was stiff as wurtzite boron nitride (I have never been able to lift up my foot hip-height... still can't) and generally hated sports (thanks, school) being more of an art nerd growing up, so I figured I'm never gonna be able to do any of the kicking stuff and thus martial arts are not for me. However, when I moved literally across the street from a martial arts academy at 30 years old I decided now I have to finally go & try something out. (I could see the gym sign from my kitchen window.) I was planning to take up boxing (seemed simple enough for a guy with serious athletic & flexibility issues) but the friend who I managed to talk into joining with me had a conflict with the schedule of the boxing beginners' class. So we went to 'submission wrestling' instead. I don't think I had much knowledge about BJJ prior. He quit soon, I'm still at the gym 8+ years later.

Martin Aedma who became Estonias first BJJ BB in 2010 started out as Priit's student and was the first Estonian to totally say 'F this TMA bullshit, I just want to do BJJ.' (that was around 2002 I think. He trained with Priit until 2006 (?) after which he moved to Tartu and became our club's head BJJ instructor until he left to Finland in 2014 (?).

Noone of us has a background in wrestling :D BJJ came first for all of us. Me and Martin just practiced quite a lot of wrestling and with University wrestlers during Uni. Martin even got a silver medal in Freestyle Nationals. I participated once but got my arse handed to me.

Wasted 6 years of my life doing Aikido, thanks Steven Seagal. Above the Law was awesome though, I wonder if it has aged well? Anyway, an Aikido friend rented UFC 1 after it came out on vhs. We saw what Royce did and pretty soon ended up paying $250 on ebay for Gracie Basics tapes. After a few training sessions we started tapping out fellow Aikidokas with ease with extremely sloppy armbars from mount. Garage grappling after Aikido classes started to become a thing. I even remember popping my buddy's ankle through some variation of a heel hook. All that soon came to an end when sensei caught on about what we were doing after class so we had to find ano Class was 6 of us including 2 mma fighters, one of whom went on to have quite a career.

Oooh I'm wondering now. Go on. Drop that name!!

Seen UFC 2 in jr high and kept up since. Parents got me Gracie Basics for Christmas one year then started training at the Lions Den in Tulsa in the late 90s. Was always hovering over Mousels and submissionfighting.com during those days. Never was a Sherdog guy. Anyways training took off in the early 2000s and I’ve always kept up with the online community since then

Nice, old school! As you mentioned Gracie Basics, that reminds me of something I asked many years ago now, when I first reviewed them ( http://www.slideyfoot.com[...]asics.html ). I’d love to hear any anecdotes you might have about watching and learning from the original Gracie Jiu Jitsu Basics tapes back in the day, and especially how you view the tapes now, with the benefit of hindsight. :D

Rorion was always an excellent teacher. He also had excellent Clinch timing.