NEWS ARCHIVES 2001

Visit to the Gracie Camp

GRACIE CAMP SPECIAL RENZO GRACIE FROM 10 TO 17 NOVEMBER 2001

Just finishing my studies and having some free time before start working, I decided to do what every brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner would love to do: go to Brazil for training! Having no contact in Brazil and knowing nothing about how to organize such a trip I decided to visit the Gracie Camp. I chose the Gracie Camp because everything is organised for you. Three days after I send the application form on their web site I had an e-mail telling me that there were no problems and giving me payment details(now the Camp accept secured online payment). I also sent them several e-mails to ask questions and always had quicks answers. So everything was well prepared and the enrollement is very easy. Here we go!

In the Rio airport a member of the Gracie Camp staff was there to pick me up. I found him immediately among the crowd with his Gracie Camp T-Shirt! After one hour by car listening to some brazilian funk music and speaking with my driver I finally came to the camp. My first impression was great...the Gracie Camp is very beautiful, luxurious and calm.There were only three students in the Camp: a greek guy, an american guy, both blue belt under Renzo, and me. A typical day begins with a good breakfast at 9.00am, then a technical training session in the dojo of the camp with Renzo. Renzo taught us some no-gi technics and answered all our questions. He also watched us sparring to find our weakness and correct it. Renzo demonstrated some intermediate positions as well as the posture and correct position of the body when applying a technique. My skills increased a lot, good posture can definitively change your whole game!

After lunch and before the afternoon training at the famous Gracie Barra Academy, we all used to have a nap or watch some videos. Between the training sessions their is always something to do in the camp, you can play ping-pong, baby-foot, watch a video (there are a lot of good tapes: BJJ competions, UFC, Pride...). You can also called abroad for free, surf on the Internet or watch satellite TV. Technologicaly speaking the Camp is well equiped. Renzo himself used to spend some time with us in the camp. It was nice to watch with him his last fight in Pride against Michiyoshi Ohara. Renzo commented on his fight and also gave us his opinion on the other pride fighters. Renzo loved playing ping-pong too and we often played hilarous matches with him. The Camp was also a great opportunity to meet some Gracie family members : Ralph, Robson, Carlos Jr, Igor, Kyra, Reyson, Roger and a lot of other Gracies. But also other great fighters like Soca.

Going to the camp I was curious to taste the famous Gracie diet and was a little bit afraid of that. It was delicious! Claudio, the cook, is awesome. At every meal we had an abundance of food, a lot of fruit juice and some curious but delicious food I had never heard about! I never felt uncomfortable or heavy after the meal and always had the energy for good training. For sure I'll miss the food. The Gracie Camp staff was very nice. Reinaldo was always available when needed and you can ask him everything. With our driver Marcelo we came to see the famous Christ of Rio, went for shopping, to several beaches... Claudio the cook really is great and if you don't like something or need something else he will do it for you. All these guys are also very good in jiu-jitsu and don't hesitate to put on the gi to roll with you and explain some position whenever you want! So in the camp you can focus on training and not worry about anything else. At the begining I hesitated, because I found the price expensive...but you certainly get value for money!!

Many thanks to Alexis(debretalexis@hotmail.com) for the report and pictures

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By James - First off, HUGE thanks go out to Chenzinho for bringing Marcio over for the seminars and putting in the hard work to put it all together As for the seminar itself, simply fantastic.It started off with a light warm-up, and armbar and knee on stomach drills, then onto the first techniques which were self defense escapes from a headlock. After that, we moved onto more sport orientated moves. We weren't overloaded with move after move, instead Marcio showed a technique, then a variation on the same technique, which hopefully means that they'll stay in my sieve of a memory

 

Overall, a great seminar. Anyone who's thinking of going to next week's one up north, stop thinking and go! Marcio's a fantastic teacher, really approchable, and one of the nicest guys you're likely to meet. If he's good enough for Ray Stevens (top Judoka), then he's good enough for us! Big hello to all the sfuker's who I met up with, and sorry to any I missed.

The Bad Boy cup was held in Gothenburg Judo club and the whole thing was arranged by SBJJA-Gothenburg.Great job by those arranging it!

Rolle and his crew made the whole thing happen quite smoothly.There were competitors from Norway,Sweden and Poland and we also had a visitor from the US competing for HILTI BJJ-Jason Brudvik(former King Of The Cage Winner).The level of competition was good with many well known competitiors.the fights were exciting with a lot of commotion and shouting amongst those watching.

The best team award was given to SBJJA,just beating HILTI BJJ by taking gold in the absolute class-a division that almost turned into a sparring match between members of SBJJA since only 3 fighters outside their team signed up!All in all the event was a lot of fun and all fighters fought at least twice because of the way the matches were organised.This way all fighters got some experience out of the competition instead of disappearing after their first loss.

 

After winning both Pan American and World Championships as a bluebelt,Roger received his purple belt. Naturally he scooped the Pan Ams again this year as a new purple belt and then just recently won the Gold Medal at the Worlds.

Roger was getting bigger and stronger and brown belts were getting nervous..They can now all breath a sigh of relief as we congratulate him on his promotion.

Congratulations!

Dojo Ranguin in Cannes, France on a very warm weekend in June was the setting for a Seminar with Nelson Solari, 2nd Dan under Carlson Gracie.I arrived on the Saturday morning about 30 minutes prior to the commence time and was pleasantly surprised to not only see new faces but also to see more blue belts than white. A rarity in Europe I guess at the moment. David Giorsetti was also there, and would be assisting Nelson in the technique demonstrations.

The seminar commenced with a brief introduction and then some standard BJJ warm up exercises followed by some guard passing techniques. This I found extremely useful as it is probably my weakest area (along with escapes, reversals, positions and submissions!)We started with a basic closed guard position and then went on to cover open guard passes, spider guard passing and then gaining position straight after the pass. After we'd all become proficient at guard passing we worked on some more positional escapes and gaining positional dominance once the guard was passed.

The morning session was finished with split rolling sessions. First the Blue and purples rolled with each other while the whites watched and then the whites rolled while the more advanced looked on. This I found interesting as normally everyone rolls together so it was nice to be able to watch to more advanced guys and see if anything could be learned from them. 2pm came and the morning session came to a close and it was off to a local restaurant for the Mediterranean Lunch. The Evening session commenced at 5pm and consisted of two hours of rolling, interspersed with Nelson giving talks on combat strategy. This was all done with the emphasis on rolling to learn and not rolling to win. Sunday Morning came and the warmup seemed a little tougher do to the aches and pains sustained in the previous days sessions. The format was the same as the previous day, some guard work and positional moves to gain or retain dominant postions followed by some rolling at the end of the session, this time more of a mixture of beginners and advanced rolling with each other. This time Nelson also joined in.

Overall it was a very enjoyable seminar, given in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere to an enthusiastic audience. I'm already looking forward to Nelsons return to Europe this Autumn.

I went down to The Open Form Gym last night where David Giorsetti is preparing for the Mundials.The Gym itself is run by a former world Champion full contact kick boxer and current Blue belt BJJ (I forgot his name though) First impressions were really good, once through smart reception and into the gym itself there is a boxing ring in the corner, permanently fully matted, with three hanging punch bags of varying size. The gym had a real feel to it though, not like a clean new age type place, a place for real training, not posing, a bit like the stereo typical boxing gyms in rougher neigbourhoods.On the back wall there are lots of boxing posters advertising events of the past and some MA posters from Magazines.

On the opposite wall, numerous photographs of David, including him rolling and posing with Helio, Carlson, Royler, Royce, Bustamante, Belfort, Pardoel, Fabio Gurgel and numerous others. A really impressive collection. David was telling me that he went along to a BJJ seminar in Paris as a Karate Blackbelt. There he met Remco Pardoel (not sure but I think it was a Royce seminar). David Rolled with these guys and then took off his karate black belt and threw it away. He has been training BJJ and Vale Tudo ever since.

On to the training and after a killer warm up (for me anyway) in the 90 degree heat we went on to working transitions from the side mount into finishes and counters to escape attempts. Some really good and workable techniques that I hadn't seen before.Then we rolled. I rolled with one of the blues to start with and held my own although I am very very sure he was going easy on me. I just tried to concentrate on remaining loose and using technique not strength. Then I rolled with another blue and managed to tap him using one of the techniques I just learned. Again, though I know he was going easy on me and was still tapping me about once every 30 seconds :-) Next was Fabien, Davids Brother. I hung with him for 10 minutes only tapping twice...he had got his hands in his belt though !! Stefan was next on my 'to conquer list' a white belt, we rolled using the techniques we just learned and managed to work them very well.

That was me finished and after renewing my membership to "the puke club" I sat and watched David choke out one of the bigger guys at the club, kind off like watching the early UFC's and seeing the smaller man prevail. My team SFUK shirt seemed to weigh much more than a few grams when I got changed but after opening a few boxes of SFUK gear, all but one or two of the guys left the gym wearing an SFUK T :-) There are four more lessons before the Mundials and I intend to make the most of all of them!! - Simon Glynn/SFUK France

On the 24th of June 2001 at the Latchmere Leisure Centre,London,the fourth Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Open Championship took place with 70 fighters of different weight, belt, age and sex. The event had fighters from abroad, Norway and Brazil. The Championship ran smoothly with all the fights starting and finishing to schedule. The event was covered by the photographer Ana Bebolo and the announcer was Marcus Vinicius. St. John's Ambulance supplied the first aid and Thomas Fan osteopaths were present.

The event was sponsored by the UK Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Association. The event was promoted by Anaconda's instructor and President of the UK-BRJJA Mr Chen Moraes. The fighters in the tournament all demonstrated good sportsmanship, discipline and harmony without accident. One hundred people in total attented the Championship including fighters, officials and spectators.

The Association would like to thank the competitors for coming to test and further their skills and abilities in a unified event.