Training and Dinner With Carlson Gracie Jr.

I just got back from a training seminar led by 4th degree black belt and the "Prince of Jiu-Jitsu", Carlson Gracie Jr.. What an incredible experience and honor! The seminar brought out many students from different academies and several of Charlotte's finest law enforcement officers, most of whom train at Alliance Jiu-Jitsu of Charlotte.

Afterwords, I was invited by my professor, Luis "Sucuri" Togno to go to dinner with he and Carlson Jr. While much of the conversation was in Portuguese, I did have an opportunity to discuss a number of topics related to Jiu-Jitsu. In addition, Sucuri asked me if I would like to go to Brazil with some of the students next year to train. I suppose the hard work and dedication to the art is translating nicely for my instructor, and I truly appreciate what he has already done for me.

All I can say is that I continue to be pleased and excited about the whole experience. For those people who are seeking some solid, tangible real-world martial arts skills and live in Charlotte, I have nothing but positive things to say about Team Alliance of Charlotte, and would highly encourage you to give it a try.

So for those people that are curious how BJJ relates to the security world, let me quickly summarize why I think my experiences in BJJ is relevant to the security world:

BJJ is a gentle art of fighting, and while books like Sun Tzu's Art of War draw parallels to business, management, etc., BJJ is all about leveraging your knowledge with the least amount of perceived effort. I have witnessed first hand the seemingly impossible odds of a 150-pound fighter tear into someone with 50 to 60 pounds. Initially, with a wrestling background, I thought I could outmuscle my training opponents. In the security world, it is not the one that has the high-tech technology running on autopilot that defends the shareholder value, it is the one that has the ability to effortlessly transition from "move to move", a concept known as Defense in Depth. As an ethical hacker, I have been able to circumvent my client's perimeters protected by large, expensive systems, and I have been halted by some inexpensive, modular systems. Therefore, it is all about the leverage, not the muscle in many situations.

I hope the readers of this blog will bear with me when I seemingly go on these tangents. While my primary purpose for blogging is to educate readers regarding information security and technology, it is important to note that we draw conclusions as a result of the culmination of our life's experiences. There will be plenty of time for straight security talk, and I promise I will try to keep the tangents to a minimum, or at least draw the parallels to the spirit of this blog.

Best Regards...