It's has been about 2 weeks since my last post and man has it been busy! Looking back on the two weeks I am not sure where to even begin, so I guess I'll just dive right into it.
New Place
First off one of the biggest changes in the last two weeks is that Nicole and I moved into the large flat that I am going to be house manager for here with Connection Rio. Our flat is off of one of the nicest streets in Barra only about a blocks away from the ocean. Nicole and I have been venturing out daily trying new places to eat, hangout, or relax. One of the cool new places we found to eat is Koni. Koni is a small Japanese chain restaurant that offers delicious sushi style meals. I had a combo of a drink, one of their Koni Rolls (a wrap made from a nori sheet, rice, sauce, various veggies, and some kind of fish), and an 8 piece sushi roll; all for about 20R (about 10 USD). Being close to the beach has made it nice to get early morning workouts, whether its running, swimming, or doing body weight exercises at the various workout stations along the beach. The flat is above the oldest bakery in Barra, and is right across from 399 one of the most popular patio bars in Barra. It's a great place to have a couple caipirinhas and watch the UFC on t.v. We all (everyone at CR) are excited to get our first guests in the new place, whom will be arriving shortly.
Carnival Happens
Last weekend brought the arrival of Carnival. I had heard before that the city shuts down, but I didn't realize that the city literally shuts down. Everything is closed or on holiday hours and the streets fill with people eating, drinking, and dancing. A large group of us went to a bloco on Ipenema Beach; while New Years in Copa was busy, this was insane. The crowd was huge and densely packed in with everyone laughing and singing away. There are hundreds off these blocos throughout the weekend and in total the CR made a pretty strong appearance at them. One of the more interesting things about Carnival is the attire at the blocos. The women dress up in various costumes, while a lot of the guys dress in womens clothing. It's an interesting sight seeing a 230lb jacked Brazilian, with cauliflower ears wearing a tu-tu. Brazilians are known for being friendly, but it amazes me just how friendly they can be. One night after a bloco on Barra Beach was dying down we met up with Matt (from Canada) and Ivan (from Sweden) and a couple girls from Sao Paulo Matt had met down here. We all went to 399 for some caipirinhas and to hang out. You would have thought that we had known these girls for years, they were super friendly and we spent the evening laughing and having a good time. That night after the bar I went down to the bakery to grab a salgado (a pastry filled with meat and cheese) for Nicole and I had another guy come up and start talking to me asking me where I was from and proceeded to talk with me for about 30-45 minutes about where I was from and about MMA and BJJ. I have to say the number one question I have been asked down here after people realize I am from the U.S. and that I train BJJ and MMA is "Do you like Chael Sonnen?" followed by the statement. "I hate Chael Sonnen." I really don't think Chael should travel to Brazil anytime soon.
Switching up Training
Perhaps one of the biggest changes in the last couple of weeks has been with my training. Andre Benkei is starting up a new MMA camp down here in Rio. Benkei has been a trainer at camps such as American Top Team and Hit Squad. He is running these camps in cycles for people to come in, have a training camp, and if desired fight at the end of the camp. He has brought in some top notch coaches, like "Baboo" Da Silva a long time K-1 Kick Boxing coach in Japan, and Luta Livre and MMA fighter Alexander "Pequeno" Nogueira. I have been helping Jeremy Denardo, a former Div. 1 and 2 wrestler, teach wrestling for the camp and have started training with them full time. Right now there is a large group of Brazilians from the North down here to training for Jungle Fight, one of Brazils largest promotions. The training is tough, but it's excellent. Every week the training has 2 classes in wrestling, 2 nogi sessions, 2 stand up sessions, and 2 sparring sessions. Benkei also is putting the Brazilians through cardio sessions, which I haven't gone to but judging by how tired the guys look after, must be tough. Combine that with throwing on the kimono, and you have one tired Gringo after all that training. The other nice part about this training camp is that all the fighters are light, feather, or bantam weight so they within 15 pounds of my weight. It gives me a great mix of shorter faster guys, and longer bigger opponents and forces me to adapt and change things up. The one lesson I have learned so far is that I need to check kicks. After the first day of sparring I had a nice little limp on my lead leg, after sparring yesterday I am not limping but I do have an assortment of bruises on my legs. Oh well, it's a learning process.
I know I am keeping it brief this week, but I wanted to get a new post up to keep everyone updated on some of the things that are going on down here. Next week I will be back to posting in my normal format with in depth training details and some thoughts on training in general.
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