Part One of our interview with Dan Strauss – The Raspberry Ape
We're so stoked that Dan will be heading up our Men's BJJ Camp in Portugal 10-14 September 2026. Strength training expert and longstanding BJJ black belt Dan has just set off on a few months BJJ tour of Asia and Autralia, to be followed by a summer in Europe.
Dan’s a man of varied talents, having been in the jiu jitsu/ grappling world since he was 15. He’s a highly respected figure in the sport having won multiple international competitions and taught over 250 seminars around the world.
In recent years he’s been a regular commentator for Polaris and Cage Warriors and has developed the Ape Academy focused on strength training, particularly grip training. Here are some highlights from our chat:
Rare Savage: We're obviously really excited you're coming to head up our camp and we've had a really positive reaction from everybody we've spoken to so far. Our camp is a small exclusive group of 12 residential campers and then maybe 10 locals that come along just for the classes. What do you think the advantages are for guys attending a smaller camp? And what are you most looking forward to?
Dan: I've been fortunate enough to teach on a number of camps, and I've taught at the biggest camp in the world BJJ Summer Week with 700/800 people with classes of 200- 300 people. and it's great. It’s in Sardinia and the whole place is basically inhabited purely by the jitsu people everywhere. And that's so cool.
But I've also done a similar camp to yours in the UK, where there were 10-12 people. And I loved it. It’s great, because you get to have a deeper connection with the smaller number of people. With the smaller camps, you're really able to bond with everyone as you're around each other so much. I think that's really nice. It's a very different experience. And I'm really looking forward to it.
Rare Savage: How would you describe your teaching style?
Dan: I like to focus on the simple stuff for teaching seminars and camps in the sense that I always want to approach it as ‘How can I create the most improvement in an individual in the shortest amount of time?’ So that’s actually very different to how you would teach if you had someone for a year or six months or 10 years. It’s a different style of teaching. So it’s conceptual, it's detail orientated, but at the same time, it's also explorative, focusing on practicality and application. if I teach a two hour session I want someone to end it feeling like they’re a better grappler afterwards. If they don’t then my job has not been successfully executed.
Check out the camp info via and book via the link on our Home page