Henry Akins – White to Blue

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Summary

• Henry Akins – White to BlueWhy are BJJ black belts who’ve been training 10, 15, or 20+ years burning all their training notes and focusing only on the material Henry Akins teaches?

• “If you’d like such solid fundamentals, you make black belts feel like white belts, then you need to start with Henry Akins’ White to Blue Belt program right now.

• The story of Henry’s Jiu-Jitsu journey is amazing, and reads like a template for Joseph Campbell’s “Hero’s Journey”.

• And to understand how it all happened, there’s an old saying that sets the stage perfectly: There’s an old saying.“In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.” Well, Henry had no idea just how true that saying was.Because when Henry started a massive seminar tour in 2014, there was no way he could have known that the last 19 years he’d spent training under Rickson Gracie would have led to something so incredible.

• But before we get to that, it’s worth mentioning how this all began.Remember when I said Henry’s story reads like a template for Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey”?Well, what I meant was, 23 years ago, after spending a week training with Rickson, Henry was so profoundly impressed with the incredible knowledge he was learning, he decided to leave everything he knew back home in Oklahoma…His home…His family…His friends…He even broke up with his girlfriend, because he knew in his soulhe had to do this.Mastering this beautiful martial art called “Jiu-Jitsu” was his calling.And the rest of his story reads like a martial arts film.There’s even a short documentary about it online.But the highlights are: Henry is so dedicated, he becomes the school secretary for Rickson, and regularly spends 60-70 hours a week in the gym for almost two years straight.During that time, Henry becomes Rickson’s fastest blue belt in history, earning his promotion in only six months.Six months was incredible because it was absolutely unheard of for Rickson to give anyone a blue belt until they’d spend at least a solid 2 years with him.To this day, nobody has ever even come close to achieving their blue belt with Rickson so quickly.Why?Because, besides being one of the most conservative belt promoters in Jiu-Jitsu history, Rickson was teaching at a time when it was believed a blue belt in Jiu-Jitsu should be able to defeat a black belt in ANY other martial art.And Henry earned every bit of it, taking on challenge matches even at white belt.What a challenge match meant was: when people walked in off the street, wanting to test their mettle against the Jiu-Jitsu fighters, an informal MMA fight broke out right then and there.And it was up to the students to defend the honor of the gym.And to defend the honor of the gym, Henry was happy to take on the challenge.