Training at 10th Planet SF With Denny Prokopos
First off, let me say that I've been wanting to train with all the members of the 10th Planet since my jiu jitsu journey began, so I would have been happy to train with any of you. With that said, I can't say enough good things about Denny, his instruction, and his students. One of the perks of working for BJPenn.com is that I'm afforded to opportunity to train with such great people, and Denny was no exception. It was truly and honor and a pleasure. I just got back from another trip to California, as I have to travel out there quite a bit, and I wanted to share my experience with Denny and 10th Planet SF.
We started with an hour of a private (I believe he went nearly 90min anyway :D), and he went over various drills. I'm only a 14 months into this, and a lot of things are still new to me, so this was very good. As we continued, Denny asks if there was anything specific I'd like to go over, but in my mind there's just so much, that he could pick anything and I'd be very happy with it, but Denny went a step further and tailored the chain of techniques based on my body type, and what worked best with what I already did. We did not get a chance to roll at the end of the private, but he asked if I wanted to stay for the class, and we would roll then. So of course, I stayed to learn more.
So we start the class, and immediately the drills we're doing were the ones that Denny was showing me, so I dove right in this time and felt way more at home with what we were doing. It was like the entire private had prepared me for the class. I can't say enough good things about the students who train there as well. All of them were very helpful with details on things I might not be sure of. When it came time to roll, all I can say is that the level of technique in that room is TOP NOTCH, and everyone there was very cool. I actually have a bad jaw injury, and everyone there was respectful and worked around it. I wish I could give you some sort of breakdown of my rolls with Denny, but with my meager experience, it simply consisted of me getting crushed repeatedly :D Such a great, professional, yet laid back/fun environment that Denny has going on there though. I will definitely be going back to train there, and we'll be looking to get him as a guest for BJPENN.com's "Just Scrap Radio" which is debuting on April 17th with none other than BJ himself as the debut guest (Renato even cameo'd the podcast intro!) For sure I'll be keeping the 10th Planet voice nice and loud over on BJPenn.com, and I can't wait to move to Cali to make 10th Planet my permanent home :)
Thank you again Denny, Eddie, and all of 10th Planet!
