Keenan Cornelius recently stopped by an open mat session at Victory MMA in San Diego and brought along several of his teammates and students as well, even getting some rounds in with Jocko Willink. The resulting footage is interesting to watch, because Cornelius is one of the best grapplers on the planet and Willink is one of the most popular figures in the BJJ world. Both men have served as an inspiration for current and future generations of aspiring young competitors for very different reasons, and they’ve both been training BJJ for a lifetime already.
Cornelius is easily one of the most successful American BJJ competitors of all time, winning a pair of IBJJF no gi world championships and an impressive four medals across three ADCC world championship events. He hasn’t competed in a while, as he’s been focusing on the development of his team at Legion Jiu-Jitsu and awarding his first black belt. Willink was never a top competitor at any point, but he’s a BJJ black belt under Dean Lister and he’s still in fantastic athletic shape for someone in their 50s.
The pair weren’t the only people training at the session though, as several of the best athletes representing Legion Jiu-Jitsu were there as well, like Sloan Clymer and Miha Perhavec. The two gyms are actually reasonably close to one another, or at least it’s not an unreasonable trip to make once in a while.
The footage of Jocko Willink rolling with Keenan Cornelius in training was originally uploaded to the official Instagram account of Victory MMA in San Diego. Cornelius also shared the same footage and added his own comments, where he also recognises the huge contribution that Willink has made to the sport and how much of an impact he’s made on many young men:
“Here’s 3 minutes of training with Jocko at [Victory MMA San Diego] so cool to meet such an effective entrepreneur warrior speaker manufacturer black belt, product designer gym owner father etc. This breadth of competency is a goal I think he’s inspired millions of young men to pursue.”
