Enjoying Sporting Events at CR and Exploring Rio

Sparring at Rio Fighters, while wearing my favorite Senki
rashguard.

It's been a busy week here in Rio, full of fun, good laughs, and great training. Last weekend we had a huge house BBQ full of steaks, burgers, sausages and different salads. Everyone chipped in about 15R and we ate like kings for hours. When the BBQ finally died down we settled around the TV to watch UFC Shogun vs Henderson 2. Watching exciting fights with a group is always a ton of fun because everyone always gets into it and there is a ton of crap talking. This was especially the case this past weekend for Metamoris 3. Everyone chipped in and ordered the live stream of Metamoris, one of our guests has a portable projector which we used to project the event on the back wall of the living room. We rearranged the couches, chairs, and made space on the mats. Guys chipped in for snacks, chips, cookies, pizza, bacon wrapped hotdogs--- you know all the stuff that would fit right in with the Gracie Diet. Kevin, a guest from 10^th planet JJ, created a very in-depth betting system and just about everyone threw in there picks, for winners, submission types, and even what position the submission was hit from. In the end the pool was 55R and Irish John had a come from behind win to get the pot of cash. The event itself was entertaining but what made it was the in house commentary from people hoping to win the cash.

  

Nicole and I also had a chance to explore a bit more of Rio. On Saturday afternoon, we went to Parque de Lage in Jardim Botanico. The park is a huge estate built in the late 1800's by a wealthy European who had immigrated to Brazil. The grounds of the estate is filled with lush green plants, huge trees and quite a few monkeys. The main house is a massive stone building, with huge archways and marble flooring. The center of the house opens into a large courtyard, with big swimming pool in the middle. The old kitchen has been converted into a cafe/restaurant and the rest of the house is used by one of the local university's art program so as you drink your coffee you can watch aspiring artists paint. We got there about 45 minutes before they closed, but we really enjoyed it. After the park closed we walked a bit to the Jockey Club and caught a couple of horse races before heading back to Barra. Even after living in Rio for well over a year, there is still a ton of great new things to experience.

The manor house in Parque de Lage

Training

Over the course of the last week or two I have really started to ramp up my training, getting two sometimes three sessions in daily. A lot of it is official classes, but I am spending more and more time on refining and drilling technique both in grappling and striking. I've been working a lot on my butterfly guard and developing ways that I can using my wrestling to aid and strengthen my submission game. It's a trial and error process on my part, some things work great, others I get burnt on and find my self in a horrible positions or caught in a submission. A lot of the time though I am seeing the potential for things, I have to refine the techniques and mold them into something that will work for me.

Rolling with Milton.

With my striking, I am finally feeling comfortable again. I went through a long period of just feeling out of rhythm when sparring. My feet might work well, but my hands wouldn't release combos. I might be throwing a lot of strikes but my distance was off and I was loosing position. Things like that. It was getting frustrating, but I have been putting in a lot of extra time shadow boxing, doing bag work, and hitting pads, and things are starting to feel good again. I still have a ton to work on, but I am making improvements. After a particularly hard sparring session, consisting of about 6 rounds of kickboxing, some grappling, and two rounds in the cage, Milton said I had sparred the best he had ever seen me spar. That's a great thing to hear after you feel exhausted from leaving it all out on the mats, it makes you hungrier and want to work harder because you know you are making the right improvements.

Lately a lot of my grappling training has been luta livre and wrestling, but in the last couple of weeks I have been making the effort to train more in the kimono. I've been drilling in the gi and on Saturday's I have been going into open mats and sparring the tough blackbelts at Gordo's. The intensity is high and I have been having a great time. I am looking to train in the kimono more and more, because I want to compete as much as possible. I feel great and I really have the competitive hunger again. I am planning on competing in two weeks in the SJJAF Pan Americano Championships. The next couple of weeks I am going to be putting in a ton of work and I can't wait to step back out on the mat and get some hardware.

Birthdays, Concerts, and Leg Locks

Another week down in beautiful Rio! This past week things finally “quieted down” and it was business as usual here. All the gyms were back to their normal schedules and packed with top notch blackbelts and/or fighters hungry to train after Carnival. You couldn't ask for better weather this week, the days are hot and filled with sun but as the Rio summer begins to wind down the nights are cooling off and are very comfortable. By comfortable I mean I can finally sit outside in a pair of shorts and be able to relax without sweating.

It's been a fun week both on and off the mat. On Thursday Nicole and I went to a Jack Johnson concert down at HSBC Arena. Jack Johnson has always been one of our favorite artists, so when we heard he was coming through Rio on his South American Tour we knew we had to go. We had a great time, and Jack played all of our favorite songs. Being there in Rio listening to him play was really a special occasion for the both of us. Early on it our relationship we spent a lot of time listening to Jack Johnson and talking how great it would be to travel and live somewhere tropical, so it was a really nostalgic moment for us. There were a surprising number of gringos there, many of whom walked up to Nicole, with her bright blue eyes and blonde hair, and tried to ask questions in horrible Portuguese. We must really be looking like we have mastered the city if people think she is a Brazilian. On Saturday afternoon Nicole and I went to one of her friend's mothers surprise birthday party. It was a day full of fun and there was a ton of delicious homemade Brazilian food to eat. When we left they pretty much had to roll me out of their house. They even sent us home with a big batch of chicken estrongenoff, which several of the guys in the house and I have been working our way through. It was really nice to be welcomed with open arms into the family and to make new friends. Plus it gave me a chance to work on my Portuguese as well. Other than Nicole's friends most of the people there spoke little to no English, so I had to either try to speak to them in Portuguese or just stay quiet. By the time we left my mind was a bit burnt out from talking and listening, but overall it went well. When we got back to the house their a large group of guys were seated around the TV watching the UFC 171. They quickly made room on one of the couches and I settled in the watch the main card of the event. Overall it was a great card with an even better main event. By the end of the fight between Johnny Hendricks and Robby Lawler guys were up on their feet and yelling at the TV. All in all it was a great day!

Coaching at Rio Fighters. Photo by M. Vieira.

In the gym training this week has been, as always, great. Like I said above with Carnival being over everyone returned to training with a new vigor. With everyone training hard it was impossible to not train hard as well. I have been coaching wrestling at Rio Fighters for two months and it's awesome to see how much the wrestling of the fighters there has improved. These guys are tough, hard working, athletic, but above all else they are extremely open to learning. Everything I teach they, try ask questions, and they are always hungry for more. In the next couple of months a few of these guys will be fighting, and it will be great to see them perform.

Teaching some technique.

One training that really stuck out in my mind was training leg lock defense. One thing I that surprises people who roll in an MMA setting (and myself included) is just how many leg locks some of these guys will go after. I'm not just talking about straight ankle locks or toe holds, people will go after knee bars and heel hooks and seize on any opening. This is something that at a lot of places around the world is viewed as almost taboo. I remember I when rolling back home, unless I really trusted the person to know what they were doing, I would tap to heel hooks attempts and ankle locks fairly fast. Down here though, at least in the MMA and luta livre world, its a different story. I had a very decorated black belt explain it to me like this. A leg lock is just like any other position, you have to work both the offense and the defense to get comfortable with it. He said when people refuse to train the positions because they view it was dangerous that they leave themselves more open to injury because they have not learned how to properly defend and counter them. Milton taught the class and showed some excellent technique. He built the techniques around several leg lock situations that he saw while watching the UFC Fight Night that had taken place the weekend before. He used situations that were fresh in our minds and used those as reference points. He even covered some leg lock defense and counter work from 50/50. The defense work from 50/50 was good, but the counters were mind blowing. He showed countering to straight armlocks and some transitions from there. You know it was good stuff when you have about 7-10 blackbelts staring open mouthed at the technique. In rolling that day I was able to use some of what I learned, as some of the guys were feeling extra leg-locky that day. Overall within the world of leg locks I am feeling a bit more comfortable with the positions and as I was told I am approaching it as just another set of techniques needed in the world of grappling. I still tap fairly quickly in some situations, but that is more from knowing when the guy has the submission locked in tight rather than out of being uncomfortable with the position.

Carnival Happens

Carnival Music Truck at a bloco.

It has been a busy few weeks here in Rio. And this is the first time in the last two weeks I have had a chance to sit and write up a blog. You may be wondering what happened? Carnival happened. While it officially lasts for only 5 days it's pretty much a week and a half long affair. A lot of my time leading into Carnival was spent training or welcoming a ton of new guests to CR. When Carnival did start I did make it to a few blocos on Barra beach, and spent some time celebrating with friends For those who don't know Carnival blocos are the staple of Rio Carnival. They are large street parties/ slow moving parades that are scattered throughout the city and at various times. They can vary in size and theme. Some are smaller traditional blocos for the family and others are huge and crazy. How crazy? Real crazy (some blocos attract 50-100 THOUSAND people). Most have live music of various kinds and lots of dancing. Another common theme for blocos are dressing up. This year was my second go around for Carnival, last year in 2013 I was less than impressed with Brazilian standard for costumes; it was pretty much cheap version of halloween. The girls mainly dressed as cats and the guys in drag. This year though the Brazilians really redeemed themselves. I saw Mario and Luigi's, blind futbol refs, indians, a beach singer (with his girlfriend who was dressed as a campfire), doctors, and smurfs. That was just the guys. For the women's costumes there were belly dancers, snow whites, police, angry birds and less than inventive girls just in their bikinis.

At the beginning of a bloco in Barra

The blocos I went to were smaller, about 5-10 thousand people. I didn't stay the whole time but both lasted about six hours, with the huge buses with live bands playing music slowly making their way along parade route. Both of the blocos I went to were along the beach so at any point during the day I could just duck out of the crowd and jump into the ocean to cool off. While I had a lot more fun this year at Carnival there are definitely a few downsides. One major downside is that training can be limited to downright non-existent during the 5 days. Most training sessions will be open mats and you aren't guaranteed to have a lot of people there to train. But that's where being here at Connection Rio helps. Even with the city being on a 24/7 party schedule for Carnival there were guys in the house who either wanted to drill or roll here on the mats. While most of the academies were closed at least 3-4 days of Carnival most guys only took one day off the mats. Don't get me wrong though there was plenty of time for guys to go out and have some pretty hilarious stories in the morning. Including someone who paid their bar tab in a club by giving them a sock full of money. We got this story (and a whole lot of other ones) after he showed up the next afternoon when he came staggering through the door with only one sock. The moral of his story is if you tell everyone at the club you're a millionaire be prepared for a millionaire’s bar tab.

After training at Bope HQ

Another major downside to Carnival is the traffic. Because there are blocos throughout the city a ton of the streets were closed off. This left the bus routes messed up and trying to get form point A to point B in a vehicle a very time consuming. For example on Saturday I met up with Antoine and Dennis to go train at BOPE HQ. The trip itself should have taken about an hour but because of having to change routes because of blocos took close to two hours. The trip took longer than expected but it was definitely worth it. While at BOPE we trained with the CO and a couple of his guys. The training was relaxed but competitive. We rolled several rounds of submission grappling starting both from the knees and from standing. There were several tough luta livre and BJJ blackbelts there so the rolling was top notch. After grappling we did a couple of rounds of boxing and MMA sparring. The focus was more on movement and technique than hard sparring, which was good to get timing down and to try new things. I have to say it's a pretty unique feeling to be training and look over and have about 10 guys in full tactical gear and assault rifles watching and nodding. After about an hour and a half the training wrapped up and we slowly headed back to Barra trying to weave our way around the blocos.

Overall I had a lot more fun at this years Carnival. I knew what to expect and how to navigate the city better and I think that is one of the reason why I enjoyed it so much more this year than last. I had my fun in the sun, relaxed at the beach, and got in some great training. This is what being in Rio, embracing the BJJ lifestyle is all about.