New BJJ Black Belt - Olympic Silver Medallist Ray Stevens

[J Sho]

I understand Roger graded Ray Stevens up to Black Belt in BJJ recently prior to going to Renzo's to train for his mma match against Yuki Kondo.

Congrats to Ray who is a fearsome player on the mat. i hear his stand-up is quite good too 

[adamfromessex]

CONGRATS
MET RAY A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, SEEMED A REALLY NICE GUY-BIG LAD TOO.
-THIS IS WEIRD I SAW A COMMENT HERE AND THEN I DISAPPEARED, I THEN ADDED MINE, SO MINE WAS IRRELEVANT SO I DELETED- WEIRDDDDDDD

[CGJJ]

Ray is me and Dickie Martins Judo teacher and won a silver medal in the Heavy weight division of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

He has trained and taught at the world famous Budokwai for most of his adult life and was the person responsible
for introducing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to the club some 9 years ago.

This responsibility has born the fruit of bringing together some of the U.K.'s top Judo and BJJ players to train together
and exchange ideas and styles.This exchange has been extremely beneficial to both camps,and continues to be,although elsewhere
in the World the 2 sports have not been able to interact with each other with quite the same freedom,this freedom is largely
down to Ray Stevens encouragement and work in the U.K.

Always training BJJ whenever possible,as well as running his Judo sessions with 50 % ground work Ray
is a very very strong BJJ fighter,with influences from the renowned Judoka Neil Adams,but many years ago when
Mauricio Motta Gomes began running Gracie Barra classes from the Budokwai and introduced Ray to his son Roger Gracie an extremely
hard working partnership began with Roger showing Ray the inner workings of his families BJJ system and Ray showing Roger the finer details
of competitive Judo.


Ray has always welcomed BJJ players from all clubs and camps to his Judo sessions at the Budokwai and holding a BJJ Black Belt is natural for a man
as skillled and tough on the mat as Ray.

Ray i salute you and everything you have done for our great sport in the United Kingdom.

Simon@Carlsons

[dave coles]

Congratulations to Ray, a fearsome Judo player who I had the pleasure to train with on numerous occasions many years ago (subsequently getting my pilots licence) 

[insearch]

I dont know the guy but getting a BB off Roger is a fantastic achievement and having the foresight to bring BJJ and Judo together in the same place and at such a high level speaks volumes about this individual.

[dave speedy]

thats awsome another black belt in the uk 

[Mason]

Fantastic news. I recall attending some sessions at the Budokwai in the late 80's when Ray and Neil Adams were on the mat training, superb athletes.

[TRIBULUS]

Huge congratulations to Ray!

He's also running a club in Wimbledon nowadays, the website will be up soon.

www.raystevensjudo.co.uk

[TRIBULUS]

[Rob T]

Congrats!

[Fighting photographer]

Awesome news, more UK BB's!!

Fp

[truemanc]

Well it dose not suprise me, years ago Royce visited the the Budokwai and was saying Ray was good then... this was about 2000... so it was when Chen was there..... I would imagine Ray was no slouch on the ground when he was in the Olympics.... so training with Roger is not going to hurt his over all game I would think he would get the black fast with his background and openminded attitude.... I bet Ray is a tough sob... I mean there is no weekness... olympic judo level and very good floor work.

The Budokwai sounds like a grappling mecca.

[Gonzalez]

Super Cool !

[prowla]

Congratulations to Ray... 

Would this be the first black belt Roger has given?