Last night I was contacted by a jiu-jitsu practitioner in the ABQ area who wanted to speak to me on condition of anonymity. We spoke on the phone. S/he related that: - S/he has met Mr. Rogers (hereon “Lasu”) and been to a few of his classes/seminar-type things. - Lasu had a personal tragedy and did not practice jiu-jitsu consistently for “many years” - Lasu has been known to give out questionable promotions/degrees for a while. S/he told me a story about Lasu giving a degree to a black belt, who accepted it because he didn't want to be impolite while Lasu was there. The black belt peeled it off his belt and threw it away as soon as Lasu left. - S/he has never heard of Jordan Gregory or encountered him on the jiu-jitsu scene in ABQ, which is a bit odd for a purported second degree black belt (but matches what we see in his social media feeds, where he mostly seems to have trained boxing, MMA, capoeira and other martial arts and stated he had no interest in jiu-jitsu tournaments past the NAGA he claims to have won). - I was curious how Lasu came to be claiming Fadda lineage; did he just randomly pick a little-known lineage thinking no one would ever check? Apparently Kevin Bankens (the ABQ black belt who first called out Jordan Gregory's questionable promotion) eventually began studying under Todd Nathanson. Nathanson's site says he is of Machado lineage, but his Instagram has a bunch of #faddajj #fadda hash tags and shows Edmilson Alves visiting his school, so he has some kind of affiliation with Alves and Fadda jiu-jitsu. My source thinks that when Lasu saw Bankens claiming Fadda lineage, he began claiming it, too. Lasu was reportedly told to knock it off before this thread ever started. - Bankens is a good instructor, a good guy, and a legit practitioner who doesn't want anything to do with Lasu's most recent antics (claiming a coral belt, claiming Fadda lineage when Alves has never examined him, promoting a brown belt to 2nd degree black, etc.) - As previously noted on this thread, most upper belts in ABQ are reluctant to call out Lasu because they trained alongside him at some point. Also, they are concerned that Lasu has mental health issues, care about him, and would like him to get better. - Lasu has a visible TBI. This is why he almost always wears hats in pictures. (My source did not say this, but I would guess it's why he wears hoodies with his gis.) My source did not know how he was injured. - Lasu was reportedly “a beast on the mats” once upon a time - Finally, my source has been told that Lasu did get his initial black belt from Carlos Machado, but that Machado is denying this because of their enormous falling out. I don't know how to square that with Lasu's own claim on Messenger (posted earlier in this thread) that he got his black belt from Tom McGonigal “20 years ago.” I have not verified any of this, so please take it cautiously. Again, I welcome Mr. Rogers and Mr. Gregory to set the record straight if anything here is inaccurate.

Last night I was contacted by a jiu-jitsu practitioner in the ABQ area who wanted to speak to me on condition of anonymity. We spoke on the phone. S/he related that: - S/he has met Mr. Rogers (hereon “Lasu”) and been to a few of his classes/seminar-type things. - Lasu had a personal tragedy and did not practice jiu-jitsu consistently for “many years” - Lasu has been known to give out questionable promotions/degrees for a while. S/he told me a story about Lasu giving a degree to a black belt, who accepted it because he didn't want to be impolite while Lasu was there. The black belt peeled it off his belt and threw it away as soon as Lasu left. - S/he has never heard of Jordan Gregory or encountered him on the jiu-jitsu scene in ABQ, which is a bit odd for a purported second degree black belt (but matches what we see in his social media feeds, where he mostly seems to have trained boxing, MMA, capoeira and other martial arts and stated he had no interest in jiu-jitsu tournaments past the NAGA he claims to have won). - I was curious how Lasu came to be claiming Fadda lineage; did he just randomly pick a little-known lineage thinking no one would ever check? Apparently Kevin Bankens (the ABQ black belt who first called out Jordan Gregory's questionable promotion) eventually began studying under Todd Nathanson. Nathanson's site says he is of Machado lineage, but his Instagram has a bunch of #faddajj #fadda hash tags and shows Edmilson Alves visiting his school, so he has some kind of affiliation with Alves and Fadda jiu-jitsu. My source thinks that when Lasu saw Bankens claiming Fadda lineage, he began claiming it, too. Lasu was reportedly told to knock it off before this thread ever started. - Bankens is a good instructor, a good guy, and a legit practitioner who doesn't want anything to do with Lasu's most recent antics (claiming a coral belt, claiming Fadda lineage when Alves has never examined him, promoting a brown belt to 2nd degree black, etc.) - As previously noted on this thread, most upper belts in ABQ are reluctant to call out Lasu because they trained alongside him at some point. Also, they are concerned that Lasu has mental health issues, care about him, and would like him to get better. - Lasu has a visible TBI. This is why he almost always wears hats in pictures. (My source did not say this, but I would guess it's why he wears hoodies with his gis.) My source did not know how he was injured. - Lasu was reportedly “a beast on the mats” once upon a time - Finally, my source has been told that Lasu did get his initial black belt from Carlos Machado, but that Machado is denying this because of their enormous falling out. I don't know how to square that with Lasu's own claim on Messenger (posted earlier in this thread) that he got his black belt from Tom McGonigal “20 years ago.” I have not verified any of this, so please take it cautiously. Again, I welcome Mr. Rogers and Mr. Gregory to set the record straight if anything here is inaccurate.

As Bridget mentions, there is probably a deep tragedy / mental health issue behind Lasu's antics, so we have to tread carefully. I don't know Carlos Machado personally. But I DO know vindictive instructors that have completely disavowed their once top students after an ugly falling out. Even to the point where they vehemently denied promoting them at all. This is kind of sordid, in my opinion, and I can imagine it might push a mentally unstable person over the edge (in combination with other personal loss).

Last night I was contacted by a jiu-jitsu practitioner in the ABQ area who wanted to speak to me on condition of anonymity. We spoke on the phone. S/he related that: - S/he has met Mr. Rogers (hereon “Lasu”) and been to a few of his classes/seminar-type things. - Lasu had a personal tragedy and did not practice jiu-jitsu consistently for “many years” - Lasu has been known to give out questionable promotions/degrees for a while. S/he told me a story about Lasu giving a degree to a black belt, who accepted it because he didn't want to be impolite while Lasu was there. The black belt peeled it off his belt and threw it away as soon as Lasu left. - S/he has never heard of Jordan Gregory or encountered him on the jiu-jitsu scene in ABQ, which is a bit odd for a purported second degree black belt (but matches what we see in his social media feeds, where he mostly seems to have trained boxing, MMA, capoeira and other martial arts and stated he had no interest in jiu-jitsu tournaments past the NAGA he claims to have won). - I was curious how Lasu came to be claiming Fadda lineage; did he just randomly pick a little-known lineage thinking no one would ever check? Apparently Kevin Bankens (the ABQ black belt who first called out Jordan Gregory's questionable promotion) eventually began studying under Todd Nathanson. Nathanson's site says he is of Machado lineage, but his Instagram has a bunch of #faddajj #fadda hash tags and shows Edmilson Alves visiting his school, so he has some kind of affiliation with Alves and Fadda jiu-jitsu. My source thinks that when Lasu saw Bankens claiming Fadda lineage, he began claiming it, too. Lasu was reportedly told to knock it off before this thread ever started. - Bankens is a good instructor, a good guy, and a legit practitioner who doesn't want anything to do with Lasu's most recent antics (claiming a coral belt, claiming Fadda lineage when Alves has never examined him, promoting a brown belt to 2nd degree black, etc.) - As previously noted on this thread, most upper belts in ABQ are reluctant to call out Lasu because they trained alongside him at some point. Also, they are concerned that Lasu has mental health issues, care about him, and would like him to get better. - Lasu has a visible TBI. This is why he almost always wears hats in pictures. (My source did not say this, but I would guess it's why he wears hoodies with his gis.) My source did not know how he was injured. - Lasu was reportedly “a beast on the mats” once upon a time - Finally, my source has been told that Lasu did get his initial black belt from Carlos Machado, but that Machado is denying this because of their enormous falling out. I don't know how to square that with Lasu's own claim on Messenger (posted earlier in this thread) that he got his black belt from Tom McGonigal “20 years ago.” I have not verified any of this, so please take it cautiously. Again, I welcome Mr. Rogers and Mr. Gregory to set the record straight if anything here is inaccurate.

response from Mcgonigal MMA

Speaking hypothetically: if an instructor promoted someone to black belt and then later denied ever doing this because of a falling out, the student would have a slam dunk defamation per se case against the instructor or school in question. Defamation per se cases are easier to litigate than regular defamation cases because you don't have to show actual financial harm. I realize this wouldn't stop some unbalanced professors from trying it. But if Mr. Rogers has a black belt certificate somewhere with Machado's or McGonigal's signature on it, he should speak to an attorney.

Yes, former instructors can be very vindictive after a split, but Lasu needs to come clean and start over. If he did that he would gain back some integrity? It would help him. Some people can't be reasoned with.

So it looks like he was a decent athlete with some natural skill that invented a back story and joined an association, had a falling out, and went off the deep end. The sad part is, if he was a decent athlete with some skill, he'd be a legit Machado or Alves black belt by now I'd guess. A legit black belt from guys like that puts you in very esteemed company, as opposed to the shit show its developed into. That's just a shame. I'm sure every person here has done some dumb shit they wish they'd get a do over on during there 10 plus year or so path to black belt. I sure as hell have. I wish this gentleman would just come clean, test with a legit instructor, and proudly wear whatever belt his instructor feels is appropriate. Hell, even after all of this shit adn him wanting to fight me, I'll help the guy out if he wants to come clean. I don't want to speak for anyone else, but I'm sure there many other black belts here that would do the same. He'd definitely have to cop to his bullshit, but I'm willing.

On the one hand I feel very sorry for him and some people who knew him personally, said he had blackbelt level skills back then. I think Mr. Bankens , who trained with Lasu several years ago, before he split up with him and affiliated with Todd Nathanson and Mestre Alves, mentioned Lasu Rogers had a „personal tragedy“(I think his wife died- read it on his FB account), which kind of burned him out. Personal tragedies are of course very, very sad and everybody deals different with this kind of things. Some are able to move on and some get knocked down by this. On the other hand, then why doing this weird stuff, like claiming to be affiliated with a mestre, who never trained with him , the weird 7th degree coral belt story and promotions from brown directly to a 2nd degree.

Yea I agree the tragedy is sad but like you said don't fraud people . He's going above and beyond to to lie. Notice in his message to me I asked who he got his black belt from.... he responded he started training with Tom Mcgonigal; but NEVER said Mcgonigal or anyone else gave him his black belt. He is very calculated

Yea I agree the tragedy is sad but like you said don't fraud people . He's going above and beyond to to lie. Notice in his message to me I asked who he got his black belt from.... he responded he started training with Tom Mcgonigal; but NEVER said Mcgonigal or anyone else gave him his black belt. He is very calculated

I'm a few states away, but I shot him a FB message basically saying if he wants to admit to his B.S., I'd do anything I could to help him get sorted out and legit. I'm a 43 year old hobbyist. I'm not a world champ, I don't have a huge school or a fancy affiliation , but I'm IBJJF registered and worked hard for over 10 years to get my black belt. If he wants to come clean, I'll help the guy out. If he wants to continue the charade, that's on him I guess. I've made mistakes and been through some low times in life, so I feel for the guy. Ball is in his court.

I'm a few states away, but I shot him a FB message basically saying if he wants to admit to his B.S., I'd do anything I could to help him get sorted out and legit. I'm a 43 year old hobbyist. I'm not a world champ, I don't have a huge school or a fancy affiliation , but I'm IBJJF registered and worked hard for over 10 years to get my black belt. If he wants to come clean, I'll help the guy out. If he wants to continue the charade, that's on him I guess. I've made mistakes and been through some low times in life, so I feel for the guy. Ball is in his court.

I honestly hope he takes you up on it

Same. If he's as good at rolling as some people say he was back in the day, I hope he straightens all this out and legitimizes.

I feel like it takes more than being good at rolling though. Can he perform a technique correctly and with appropriate leverage and body mechanics, or was he just a better athelete than others of his skill level? Can he apply his weight in positions, can he posture correctly, etc. It's all probably moot anyway, I don't see him responding positively.

I feel like it takes more than being good at rolling though. Can he perform a technique correctly and with appropriate leverage and body mechanics, or was he just a better athelete than others of his skill level? Can he apply his weight in positions, can he posture correctly, etc.