Martial Arts Wellington 272 Taranaki St GSW BJJ NZ: Legends

Legends – GSW Connections

Over the years GSW has had some amazing BJJ exponents come to our school. For the full story of GSW, read the GSW Story >>
Below are some of the people that have influenced our training and given us inspiration and direction. First and foremost is John Will. John has been our coach and inspiration since the inception of GSW in 2000. Through John we have had the privilege of hosting BJJ God, Rigan Machado. Our association with Will / Machado Australia has also given us access to some to the regions most well know and respected BJJ Exponents, including, David Meyer, John Jensen, Elvis Sinosic, Doug Meijer and Tahi Burns.

July 2010 we were privileged to host Richard Norton at GSW for seminars.

Recently we were had the pleasure of starting Kiwi Icon, Tana Umaga on his BJJ journey..

We have also had the distinct pleasure is hosting and attending seminars by Royce Gracie, Tony Eduardo and Steve ‘Sugapop’ De Silva

Robert Drysdale

In December 2010 we had another BJJ Legend on our mat. Robert Drysdale is a BJJ Black Belt, 6 time BJJ world champ with over 90 competition titles and the 2007 ADCC Absolute Gold winner. Robert arrived in Wellington on the day our new mats finally turned up from China. Which meant that we could host him in the new Wellington location. He ran 2 seminars for us, Wednesday night was a No-Gi session and Thursday was a Gi session. (Photos Below)

In a stunning coincidence Roberts first BJJ instructor was Steve da Silva, the same guy that gave Geoff and Ko their first taste of BJJ. Even more stunning is the image of Steve on this page was used by Robert in 2006 for an article in a Japanese magazine about his instructors!
Flickr set from the No-Gi session
Flickr set from the Gi session
Flickr set from Roberts Chopper excursion to the south coast