Lloyd Irvin's Martial Arts Academy

You will be able to see the video of my matches
In Brazil on this page. You will also get to see
Some of the things that led up to this point.

Well this isn’t a complete story about my road to winning the 2005 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Championships but you’ll be able to get an idea of my mindset, what I was going through and see how my matches turned out. Excuse me if I go into a rant because I’m having one of my martial arts experiences. Can you believe that I’m still having them after having been involved with Martial Arts since the ago of three years old?

For those that don’t know I retired from competition in 2002 because of a spinal injury I suffered in a judo tournament that almost left me paralyzed. After that I spent about 14 months off the mat. The doctors told me that I would never train again let alone compete again. I received and still have to this day severe ruptures in my C-3 through C7 disk in my spinal column. I’ve been urged to have spinal fusion but I’ve decided against it to this date. I’ve been told that if I sustain one wrong blow to my spinal column that I could be paralyzed for life.

So you can only image my wife’s, my parents and my doctor’s displeasure in my announcement that I would to try to win the World Championships in 2005. They tell me that the risk isn’t worth the reward. Truthfully they are correct but in 2000 I was at this same exact competition, made it to the finals, was winning the entire match and lost with less than 20 seconds left because of an error in my game plan. It was something that has bothered me for the last five years.

I know now what it must’ve felt like for Michael Jordan and Sugar Ray Leonard to return to competition after their prime just to see if they could do it.

TIME TO TRAIN HARD

Well I decided that I was going to compete in the World Championships so it was time to put my training plan down on paper.

I had just lost about 25 lbs doing my www.bodyweightworkouts.com program so I was on point, ready to go.

I had about 2 months to prepare so I wanted to do two weeks of general preparation and then tune it up.

I pulled out my old grappling game plan from 2002 to start to update it www.thegrapplinggameplan.com.

After the first two weeks I went to get a standard doctor check up only to have the doctor say.

STOP ALL ACTIVITY OR YOU MAY DIE!!!!!

My doctor Dr. Gabe Mirkin saw an abnormal reading on my EKG. He sent me to a specialist who told me to immediately stop all physical activity. I told them that I was training for a really big competition and stopping training would prevent me from competing. They said that I could either stop training now, or my heart may stop me from training forever.

Talk about something scary. I was set up to take all kinds of test, stress test, test where they would inject me with radioactive dye and look at my heart and a bunch of other test that I could begin to name.

After all was said and four weeks had passed by with no training, I was now on cholesterol medication and high blood pressure medication. And I was told that my heart has been damaged from me having high blood pressure.

Well that 4-week lay of practically ended my quest for a World Championship.

Until....

MIKE FOWLER DOES IT AGAIN

Mike Fowler told me that he believed that I can do it, and I said I don’t doubt it but I made a promise to myself before that I would never compete unless I was in shape, the reason that I almost was paralyzed was because I competed when I wasn’t in shape.

Mike kept pushing and pushing. Then Finally I said to Mike “ If you go to Brazil and get a medal in the Brown Belt Division I’ll go ahead and compete.

Mike has been doing extremely well in the dojo, better than anyone would imagine but competition is much different that dojo training. There are people that are BEAST in the dojo but are horrible in competition. Mike was getting ready to compete in the biggest jiu jitsu event of his life against the absolute best Brazil had to offer in the brown belt division.

Can you believe that Mike went to the Copa Da Mundo Olympia and not only got a medal, but he submitted his first three opponents in route to winning the bronze medal.

I’M A MAN OF MY WORD

Well Mike had given me no other options. I had less than 2 ½ weeks to train. My body was feeling horrible from the medication but I put a plan together and went with it.

The medication was treating my body so bad that I decided to stop taking the cholesterol medication for a week before the tournament.

So before I tell you about my matches and you get to see the video of my matches I want to tell you about…………….

My Little Judo Story

I first want to dedicate this victory to Rhadi Ferguson because an encounter that we had in 1998 came to reality in this tournament. Let me try to be brief and explain to the best of my ability what happened in 1998. I’m doing BJJ and I hear that I have a fraternity brother in the area that does Judo. Well I’m a hard-core BJJ guy and from what I know Judo guys suck. I mean I’ve been to Judo tournaments as a blue belt and tapped Judo Black Belts from 1996-1998 and the Gracie Judo Invasion tape showed how Judo is no good.

Well this fraternity brother is named Rhadi Ferguson. The first day that we trained together it went basically like this. He throws me and I tap him. He throws me and I tap him. This went on for quite some time that memorable day. Many times after he threw me I was on the ground telling him to come to the ground, while he told me to stand up. I said, “well I already stood up with you and now we are on the ground, come down here”. We would argue back and forth for a while with him eventually him coming to the ground and me tapping him.

After training I laughed at how easy it was for me to tap him. Then he said something that I’ll always remember. He said the “You would’ve never had an opportunity to tap me in my sport because after I threw you the match would’ve be over” He then said “ I don’t do BJJ, I do Judo, when I’m training my goal is to throw you, after that I can care less what happens”.

I then said imagine if I could throw like you and you could fight on the ground like me. Then it was like a light bulb lit up in the room. Of course things didn’t happen that quickly but hopefully you get the idea of where I’m going.

I got so intrigued into how he was able to stop me from even touching his gi, controlling my movements, I was hooked. He wasn’t like the Judo guys at the local events I’ve attended. And until you workout with a really high level Judoka you’ll never quite understand what I’m talking about but hopefully as a respected BJJ Black Belt you’ll just trust me on this one. There is a special science in Judo.

Then he gave me the formula that changed me from a 100% guard puller to a multidimensional Jiu Jitsu player. He said the everyone that knows how to throw does his or her specific throws from a specific grip. If you can stop them from getting their grip then you can stop them from throwing you.

Then began my instruction in the art of grip fighting, the art of controlling your opponent’s grips and getting your desired throwing grip. I was hooked on the science of grip fighting. I got so good at grip fighting in 1999 that people in the jiu jitsu community started calling me a judo guy, which at the time I took as an insult. I was a pure BJJ guy that had just learned how to grip fight; the funny thing was that I didn’t have one single throw that I could do. I only knew how to grip fight at this time and I got called a Judo guy.

A NOTE TO MY STUDENTS (Rhadi didn’t give me these grip fighting powers with some magical waive of the wand. These are the same exact techniques you learn everyday in class, but the difference is that I took it on my own to make sure I practiced them to the point I was a master at them. How many times have you practiced a grip fighting sequence that I’ve shown you on your own outside from the class? We’ll when Rhadi showed me a new grip fighting sequence I would do it on my own outside of practice an absurd number of times. But that number doesn’t seem absurd now. Remember, the first 40 hours of your work week are for survival and anything you do over that is for success.)

I thought to myself that BJJ matches don’t start on the ground and that they start standing up. We’ll if you are standing up what is the best art for standing throws with the gi? Of course it’s judo and sombo. But then it dawned on me that most BJJ instructors don’t know Judo or sombo so they can’t teach it. Then I finally learned some throws and won two National Judo Championships with what I knew. Now I guess I could really be called a Judo guy, but the BJJ game is played both standing and on the ground. So unless you want to spend your entire life pulling guard you MUST learn to thrown or at least grip fight.

If you look at some of the most successful BJJ fighters of all time they all have a solid Judo game. The likes of Royler Gracie, Leo Veira, Fabio Gurgel, Saulo Rebeiro, Jacare, Margarita, Marcio Feitosa, Amaury Biteite and the list goes on and on

WELL LET ME GET TO MY POINT

This World Championship was won because of my ability to grip fight and throw. Of course I could have a game plan to pull guard but with my spinal injury I prefer not to be on bottom getting stacked with a possibility of injuring my neck.

MY GAME PLAN

My game plan in a nutshell was simple. Get my grip, control the movement and get one of my throws. Once I got the throw, put my opponent to tap. The most important part of this game plan was to pull guard the very instant my opponent got a dominate grip on me. If my opponent got a grip that he would be able to throw me then I wasn’t going to take a chance of injuring my neck. I promised my wife that.

MY GAME PLANNED GOT MESSED UP DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT

When my brackets were announced I received a call from a friend to tell me that an American on the other side of my bracket named Eric Williams had won this division in 2003 and had got the silver in the Absolute division the same year was competing this year. He stated that Eric was a National level College Freestyle and Greco Roman Wrestler.

I have terrible problems in my school with my Greco Roman wrestlers with certain throws. If I even try it on them they pick me up like a baby. So I had about 48 hours to write up a new gripping game plan for a Greco guy and try to learn it. This is of course if we both made it to the finals. My friend said that Eric will make it to the finals for sure. All of my attention had now turned to a game plan for this Greco Roman wrestler. The reason being out of all styles Greco Roman Wrestlers give me the hardest time. Well I was well versed in training with Greco guys, so I made up a perfect plan to deal with him, I just didn’t know if I had enough time to make it a part of my game.

MY FIRST MATCH

I’m going to keep the descriptions of my matches real brief.

My first opponent came out to an enormous amount of cheers from the crowd. I didn’t know what to make of it, but from experience they were all members of his team or he was a crowd favorite. He had a very arrogant look on his face and he attacked me like I was of no danger to him.

From our very first gripping encounter I felt that he wasn’t strong on the grips at all. So I played like I didn’t know anything about the grips but maintained a grip that would prevent him from throwing me but allow him to think that I was a weak competitor. He was growing in confidence and then all of a sudden I started to feel.

Tired Beyond Belief

I couldn’t believe that my gas had ran out. I was completely spent. I was out on an island all by myself with nothing in the tank. Lucky for me that at Team Lloyd Irvin we train to dig deep into our gas tank. I knew that this guy couldn’t grip with me so I decided that if I don’t put him down now that I’ll probably never put him down.

Rhadi’s Knee Tap

While at my stay at the Olympic Training Center with Rhadi he introduced me to a World Class Wrestler named Melvin Douglas who had gotten him to work a technique called the knee tap and Rhadi started to master this technique.

He showed me and I started to show my students . Mike Easton was our first team member to hit it in a competition and when I told Rhadi he said that the key is the pull on the lapel to set them up.

WELL I PULLED THE LAPEL AND THEM
BAM!!!!!

I pulled off my first knee tap in a competition. I must admit that I had been having success with it in class but it worked like a charm.

Click the video below to see the knee tap that I hit in Brazil.

Click the play button below to see the video.

If you cannot view this video you may need to download Windows Media Player

After that my opponent was down two points and needed to desperately attempt to take me down, his method of choice was the double leg take down. On his very first attempt I was able to sprawl hard and pan cake him over.

After that he tried again, and once again I was able to sprawl, pan cake him and get the cross body position where I worked a choke that forced him to tap out.

Click here to see the video.

After the match I could barely stand. I went over to the rail and hung my body over it. I don’t even remember whom I was talking to but all I remember is saying “ I can’t believe how tired I am”

I finally managed enough energy to walk back to the waiting area where the lady told me that I would be up in one more match. I couldn’t believe it.

I went to get a massage on my forearms and after about 10 minutes my wind came back. Lucky for me there were two matches before I came back up

MY SECOND MATCH

In this match my wind felt fine but my legs had that rubbery feeling in them.

My second opponent was Ricardo Penheiro, he’s the instructor of my Friend Cassio Werneck, had a stone cold look on his face, we touched hands and started our match.

Now his grips felt really strong, he had good controls, good hand positioning and everything.

I was really worried about how everyone in Brazil was doing the wrist break right off the grip, so I was very cautious about this.

At one point I lost dominant grip and he had a superior grip. I was getting ready to pull guard but all of a sudden I got my grip back. We kept playing like this for a while and I never tried to break any of his grips. I know he was feeling really safe so I switched my grips up and ………….

I NAILED A PERFECT KO UCHI GARI TAKE DOWN

After the take down I noticed that the ref held his left hand up that would signify that my opponent had been awarded the points. I asked if I had been awarded the points and he said yes.

After that my opponent pulled guard. He was trying to sweep me while I was trying to pass when the time ran out.

THEN THINGS TOOK A TURN FOR THE WORSE

I lined back up thinking I was getting ready to get my hand raised in victory and the ref raised my opponent’s hand in victory.

(Look at the confused look on my face)

I was like what is going on?

I was in shock!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe that this was happening, I looked over at the score table and sure enough the two points were on my opponents side. The ref didn’t speak English enough to be able to explain to me so I started looking for someone who could speak English. I saw Roger Gracie’s father on the side watching my match and ran off the mat to ask him to help me. He was very hesitant to interject until he realized how desperate and sincere I was.

I simply said this to him in a very worried and sincere voice “ Please help me, I don’t know what is going on and I don’t speak Portuguese, I said that, I understand bad calls happen but this isn’t the case here. I took the guy down, got awarded the two points but they gave my opponent the two points, I then said even if they didn’t give me two points there is no way that my opponent would have two points because he never took me down.” I then said “ something is going wrong here and I just need your help” He looked at me and knew I was telling the truth so he told me who to talk to.

I went over to tell the guy he advised me to speak with but by the time I got over their the ref had come back to get me and my opponent said “Man don’t worry, you won the match” I was thinking to myself “why didn’t you say that at first when the ref raised your hand in victory” I realized one of our teams black belts in Brazil named Guigo had been on the sideline the entire time explaining my case for me. Talk about a sigh of relief.

Click here to see my takedown and the entire ordeal.

In the end I realized it was all my fault, maybe it was my mat rust but when the ref raised his left hand for the points I should’ve been aware enough to look at the table to make sure I had been awarded the points but I didn’t.

In the end it had all panned out and…………….

5 YEARS HAD PAST AND I’VE MADE IT TO THE FINALS AGAIN!!!

This time I was on a mission. This issue has haunted me for the last five years. I was up against a very good opponent and I knew I had my work cut out for me. I went to the waiting area, and started an intense mental preparation regime to get ready for this match.

I didn’t get to have Fowler scout any of my opponent’s matches because I didn’t know what he looked like in the beginning. But I remember walking out for my second match seeing a group of guys looking at me, with one in a gi that looked to be in the super pesado weight class, I said hello and his response was in English so I assumed that was Eric. And I was correct.

My game plan for this match was simple.

When the match starts, stay low to avoid a hard double and get my grips. I decided to go with a non-traditional defensive grip so I could avoid the take down but that would allow me to see what grips he used and to see what side he was fighting from. I also decided to fight lefty to throw him off. ( I normally fight as a righty) and stay in dominate position with the grips.

I figured that he would bully me around but I had absolutely no idea how strong he would be. When we first locked up I put it all on the line since this was the finals and Eric just pushed me off the mat like I was a baby.

I couldn’t believe it, so I came even stronger the second time and he seemed to push me off the mat even easier that time. So I had to look at the positives at this point. If someone is pushing you off the mat they are always set up for a seionagi or a sa si. So now I figured since I couldn’t stop him from doing it that I would act like I was trying to stop him but let him continue to drive me off the mat to build his confidence.

This was much easier because it didn’t waste any of my energy trying to resist.

By this time I had unlocked the combination to his gripping strategy.

We both got advantages taken away from us. Then Mike Fowler called out 1:30 left. I looked at the scoring table to see Eric was winning by an advantage. It was time to turn up the heat, so I switched up my gripping sequence completely, I achieved my primary throwing grip, then Eric did something that made me switch back to lefty. I had a left sided over grip so I drove into him, like planned he met my force and drove back into me pushing me off the mat but this time I wasn’t going to go off the mat, I side stepped to the right, stepped in two o’ clock and hit a picture perfect……….

Sasai Tsuri Komi Ashi... The Creator Of Judo, Jigoro Kano, Would’ve Been Proud Of………

It was up, up and away as both of Eric’s feet left the ground, I left the ground and landed in a perfect cross side control.

Eric said “Man that was a nice throw” I said “Thanks”

IT WAS LIKE DEJA VU

Since I retired in 2002 I knew I would never compete again so everything that I did for training was more geared for my own personal reasons. Although I got labeled as a Judo guy I was only good at three things.

1.    Grip Fighting
2.    A few throws
3.    Knowing how to deal with getting bullied around the mats.

For six years I spent my entire life having Rhadi bully me off the mat, drive into me, club me, maul me. Rhadi used to always show me what to do after he did anything to me to help me counter it the next time.

You see Rhadi had to make sure that I got good at defending his style of attacking because since I was his main training partner, the better I was at fighting against him in Judo the better training he would have.

Eric’s pushing style was perfect for me because I’ve spent a lot of time fighting against this style.

But let me get to my point.

When everyone in the Judo World only thought Rhadi could throw one of his favorite techniques to one side, I knew differently. In practice he always practiced his throws to both sides. He said “it’s going to take me about 2-3 years to get this throw to a point where I can hit it in competition, so I might as well start practicing it now to surprise their asses one day”

So for years he practiced his throws. And in (I think it was the US Open) in the finals.

RHADI HITS A LEFT SIDE SEO NA GI!!!

Against Marc Barnes I think it was to become champion. Everyone was in shock because they never even knew he could throw to that side.

So for the last three years just for myself I’ve been practicing everything to my left side because my BIG SECRET had always been that….

I NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO ANY THROWS TO THE LEFT!

This was my big secret that I kept to myself during my competition career. I didn’t know how to do one single throw to the left. All my time and effort was spent on developing right-sided throws and learning how to only grip effectively to the left to make people think that I could throw to the left so they wouldn’t exploit my game.

You see when I didn’t have any throws at all in the beginning and only knew how to grip fight. It was because I would grip a person down so hard that they would think I had some throws and just pull guard. That was my entire strategy. Little did they know I had no way to throw them at the time. If a person was better at gripping than me back then I would pull guard in a heartbeat.

So now I had added a left side-throwing arsenal to my game plan but it had never been tested. But for the last three years I had done my left side drills. I was known for my right side sa si throw and when Eric forced me to go left with his drive the lights went off.

When I say the lights went off I mean, when you practice a technique as much as I do, when the right opportunity presents itself and the timing is right a light goes off letting you know “TO GO!” I had never done this throw in competition before, I actually never even made this one work in class but the light went off, I saw it and went for it.

I’m very proud of that throw because once again it proves that my training philosophy is still solid. Through my method of drilling that move, even though I had never done it before I was able to pull it off against a great opponent like Eric Williams.

You can check out the throw yourself by clicking below

After the throw Eric put me back into 1/2guard where I was trying to work my signature move. I got my ½ guard control grip, went to my position and here it comes, the wrist is getting ready to come so I can catch the Kimura to finish the match, if he just moves it over a little bit I’ll catch it and then.

BAM!!! I GOT THE KIMURA!

I caught the wrist, went over to secure the Kimura and I knew the match was about to be over until I heard Mike Fowler scream at the top of his lungs…..

MASTER LLOYD THERE IS ONLY 20 SECONDS LEFT, DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE, LOCK DOWN THE ½ GUARD PLEASE!

And in what seemed like a movie where a person in a matter of seconds is taken back to relive a moment in there life where they made a bad decision and are given another opportunity to correct this mistake I had a flash from the past.

In the last 20 seconds of my match in the finals in 2000 I was winning on points when I decided to go for a triangle choke but missed. This decision cost me the match and it had haunted me for five years.

Kid Peligro always told me” Lloyd you always want to try to make everyone tap, here in Brazil you need to play smart and do whatever you need to do to win. Go ahead and go for your submissions but don’t do anything that can cost you the match”. Then he said “ In the end the only thing people remember is who the Champion was” This was back in 1999-2000 when he told me that.

I also remember getting an email from Ryan Hall wishing me good luck and he said at the end not to go for any triangles with 20 seconds left.

So for once I listened and played smart. I thought that if I get swept going for this kimura I’m going to lose a match that is already in the bag. So I completely released a full-blown kimura to go to our standard ½ guard lockdown to claim the victory.

In the end after nine years of training I can finally call myself a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu World Champion.

I want to thank all of the competitors in my division and thank Eric Williams who was a super nice guy for being such a great competitor.

I had injured my knee during my first match and decided not to compete in the Absolute Division, I’m happy to find out that Eric Williams won the entire Absolute division later on in that day. Congrats to Eric for a job well done.

Overall I was happy with my performance although I showed horrible signs of mat rust. I could’ve used some warm up tournaments to shake the rust off but I’m glad it worked out.

I’m a little bit disappointed that I couldn’t get my throws quicker so that I could have more time to work on the ground, my submissions and transitions were pretty much on point and I never got a chance to show that.

In closing I just want to thank GOD for seeing that I didn't re-injure my neck again and getting me home safely.

Now I can finally retire in Peace. I would also like to thanks the guys from BJJ Boulder for the video footage.

PS. I didn't do this alone. I had lots of help. Click Here to see a special World Championship Thank You.