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Hello Everyone!
It has been an interesting couple of days. The training is intense, the culture is diverse and full of new experiences. I´ve gone to class and experienced new things just about every day since I´ve gotten here.
People have been asking specifically about the training at Gordo´s gym so I´ll start with that.
The training is intense, I leave just about every day feeling like I´ve been run over by a dumb truck. Not becuase they are going especially hard on me, but more because the level down here is INTENSE.
I´ve been training for over 6 years typically every day and two to three times a day for the last year and a half. I´m a seasoned purple belt that competes fairly regularly on the east coast. Before coming to Brazil I hadnt lost to another purple belt in...I dont know...well over a year. I honestly felt like I was getting ready for my brown....then I go to Brazil.
I really like armbars...a lot and I make it a point to use them frequently. I have only gotten two armbars on purples since I got here and only leglocks/kneebars on browns and blacks. (must put in a disclaimer that it was in no gi and they were probably not giving me their A game considering their level vs mine). I spend almost all of my time frantically holding onto guard and scrambling to get back a neutral postion...it´s very frustrating...and humbling to be put back into the middle of the foodchain when you thought you were at the top...picture thinking you´re a Lion and finding out you´re an orange tabby cat....a mal nutritioned orange tabby cat LOL.
With that being said, the people are are extremely nice. I´m not sure if it´s the fact that there are a lot of gringo´s at this gym, or if they are just nice to everyone but the advanced guys go out of their way here to really help out. I havent seen any super secret techniques but the roll time is the best bar none (which is what I needed anyway).
Most classes have between 5 and 10 blackbelts with most of the classes having many more advanced belts than lower ranks. It makes me laugh because the amount of personal time you get with black belts would not or could not happen in the states. I´m still awed by how many advanced belts there are. It would be like taking the top 10 grapplers in North and South Carolina...probably Gerorgia too and putting them all in the same room then telling you to have class together. I can find no possible way that if you trained at this school that you dont go home better. I full heartedly believe that I will go home in the best shape of my life and have much better technique. If I had to assign a value to the training I would venture to say that every day I train here (right now I´m training twice a day) is about the equivilant of a week at home. I´m not saying the training at home isnt good, I´m just saying the training here is great.
As I said I train twice a day right now. I do a no gi type class in the morning and a gi in the evening. I would really like to do the morning gi class also but my body just cant keep up with it. I´m still dealing with a nagging back injury and some other small injuries (I broke my toe and dislocated my thumb). It´s not anything that turning out to stop me from training but it´s really annoying. I would suggest that anyone who comes down here make a goal for yourself and stick to it. I´m not a big party guy but I can see how it would be easy to get caught up in the night life around here. The beer is cheap, the woman are beautiful and it appears the women like gringos. What I´m trying to say is make your training priorities before you come and stick to them like a job. "sorry I cant go out tonight I have to train" type thing.
For those of you who dont know my computer broke, which is mildy annoying considering it was less than 10 days old and now I am having trouble finding a computer to blog with. That is also why some of you are getting phone calls where you cant hear anything. I´m trying to use skype but seeing I cant load an operating system on the computer my mic isng working correctly. So let me apologize for that also.
Two nights ago I went to a bar/club with some locals and while sitting on the bean bag chairs (it was straight out of the 70´s haha) my phone fell out of my pocket and of course someone snagged it up right away and turned it off. It was a bummer considering my computer broke also so it left me without a way to contact anyone. But last night I went to get another one. Advice for anyone that comes down here...keep up with your stuff, dont be a stuipd gringo like me.
Ok, one last rant before I move on to more happy thoughts. I am living in a nice area where I can walk to the grocery store and just about anything else I would need. This topic is slightly weird, but so uncommon that it needs to be addressed. There is sooooo much dog shit on the side walks and road down here that I seriously considered taking my camera and taking pictures of every pile of shit that I pass on the way to the grocery store. I dont even know where all these dogs are coming from and it annoys me. Someone actually let their dog shit directly out front of my door. If I hadnt been looking down and I stepped out into the sidewalk I would have stepped in this monsterous pile of dog poo...it was ungodly big. I honestly had to stop and look at it and wonder if it actually came from a dog or if there was a wandering gorellia dropping duces on peoples doorsteps. Ok moving on....
I´m doing well learning the language. Luckily for me I met a woman down here that is helping me out. Her english is good enough that I can ask her the portuguese word in english and she will be able to tell me, so thats nice. It is also helpful that we can spend an hour on a conversation that would take 10 minutes in the US. It means that I dont have to scramble to entertain her...it´s kind of nice. If I go home fluent in Portuguese (which is the plan) I might just pretend that I dont speak english when going out of my normal circle of people. It´ll provide some comic relief at the least.
Someone had asked me if knowing spanish would help and the simple anser is yes and no. I took 5 years of spanish (two in highschool) and it is really helpful, but please dont think that becuase you speak spanish that you will easily be able to pick up portuguese. The annoying thing is the pronunciation (however you spell that)...it´s completely different...or just different enough that it´s annoying. Where it does come in handy is knowing most of the important verbs. Although the conjucation is different and they are pronounced different you can see a lot of simularities. My suggestion would be to practice when you get here...a lot.
My goal for coming to Brazil was to do the Abu Dhabi competition in 2011. So my main focus has been on no gi training. Unfortuneatly getting a BJJ guy to take off his gi is like trying to pull teeth. There are two no gi classes a week and 3 MMA style wrestling/takedown classes. So there are a total of 5 classes a week offered without the gi. I really look forward to the tuesday/thursday classes of no gi grappling becuase the level in that class is awesome. Like I said before, the amount of high level guys in a class here outweighs the lower level guys, and this is VERY true in the no gi classes. Apparently you have to be a black belt AND a world champion to be in the no gi class (not really but that´s the way it is). The no gi classes have 8 or 10 people and at least 6 of them are blackbelt world champions. I am one of only two people that is not a blackbelt in that class. I definatly think that my no gi is much better than my gi training (probably because that is all I´ve done for the last 2 years) and I have more success but as you can imagine...they are a bunch of ANIMALS. But nothing makes your day like submitting a world champion blackbelt...not that I´ve had many submissions, anyone can fall into a leg lock especially if you´re not used to training them. I have a few pictures of the guys from the no gi classes and I will post them when I get the computer siuation worked out...you´ll see what I mean about the guys being monsters. I´m the guy without the 6 pack LoL.
The instructors in the gi classes speak English very well and can answer any questions that you may have. They are technique text books and they dont appear to even get annoyed when they have to give the directions in Portuguese and then again to me in English. In addition to being nice they are genuinely happy people, like most of the guys in class. I would assume for someone that doesnt take BJJ it would be amusing to look in and see people getting trounced on and everyone has a big smile on their face.
I got a lession in checking out woman also. Not that I felt I needed one, but some of the guys who have been here awhile felt the need to educate me. Apparently checking out a woman like you have absolutley no shame is standard game down here. I dont know how to express it, but it´s almost like visually assutling someone. Donald (the Irisih guy training here) called it "blasting" and gave me the ins and outs of how and where/when to do it. Apparently a man and woman can be walking next to eachother and you can check the girl out...unless they are holding hands. Apparently they put a lot of stake in holing hands and that´s your signail that the girl is taken (I know a no brainer) but it did clue me in and make me think when this girl wanted to hold my hand as we walked...It´s kind of funny.
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If violence wasn't your last resort you probably didn't resort to enough of it
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