Nogi at Rio Fighters and Training Wrestling--Oh What a Life

Some of the guys on Sundays BBQ.

Sorry guys I was a bit late with this weeks post it's been finished for a couple of days I have just been on a mad dash so far this week. enjoy!

There is something to be said about being able to type at your computer poolside in the middle of January. Back home in the U.S. they have been getting hit with record low temperatures and feet of snow. I am sitting here 8:30 at night in a pair of board shorts. It's hot enough that I'd probably would be sweating if it wasn't for the cool summer breeze. It was a relaxing day here at the CR house. It started off with longboarding down to to get a breakfast of fresh fruit and acai. From there we went to the local farmers market, picked up food for the week. After going for a quick swim when we got back to the house some of the guys fired up the BBQ and we had a house churrasco. Now I am just sitting here by the pool, relaxing and thinking back over the week.

At Rio Fighters in Humaita.

Week in Training

On Monday I headed into Flamengo to get some longboarding in with Dennis. While in Zona Sul I took the opportunity to go check out Milton Vieira's new gym Rio Fighters. His new gym is still getting some finishing touches but has already started its pro MMA training and some of the other classes. The gym in located in Humaita, so I left Flamengo and skated over to his gym (I'm getting to know Rio pretty well on my Bossa Board) to train luta livre. Even though his gym isn't quite finished it still is very nice, the main mat space is large (with another mat space being laid down soon), the cage is up, and the locker rooms are great. Once fully up and running it will be one of the more modern gyms in Rio. Milton is a black belt in both luta livre and BJJ, which translates over to a very technical and aggressive style of grappling. For the technique portion of the class we covered an arm drag to the back from butterfly guard. Once on the back we covered several transitions from the back to an arm-in guillotine and a leg lock. Milton broke the techniques down so you knew each little detail to pull it off. That said, he stressed drilling it as quickly as technically possible to get a proper feel for the attacks. The rolling was very competitive. Transitions and submissions were constantly flowing and there was very little time spent in static positions. Rolling with Milton is always a great (and humbling) time. He is well versed in submissions from all angles and just when you think you are going to be able to advance your position you find yourself caught in a submission. His style has a way of making you uncomfortable so you have any opening you see you try to exploit; the thing is this opening is there because he allows it to be your just falling further into his trap. I always come away from our rolls with a better understanding of grappling out of the kimono.

Helping guys with takedowns at the house. Photo by Carol Marinho.

The other highlight of training this past week was meeting up with my friend Antoine Jaoude and getting some great wrestling training in. We met up and Antoine took me to the first highschool in Rio to have an official wrestling team. The mat space was large and modern; it's great to see the sport of wrestling growing here in Brazil. At the school we met up with a group of other guys, who were either wrestlers or MMA fighters (or both). I showed a couple of series and then Antoine showed a few as well. While the focus was many on Olympic style wrestling, Antoine showed some great wrestling for MMA that I had not seen before. It was a series involving takedowns from the clinch and dirty boxing. We got in some live wrestling, and man I felt rusty. Not sloppy but I just wasn't pulling the trigger on my attacks and my timing was a bit off. That said I kept good position and in the end started picking it up. Antoine gave me some good tips and pointers after training, which is always nice. Sometimes when constantly teaching others it can be difficult to grow yourself so it was great to be learning again and have people there to make corrections in my technique. Working with Antoine is always a great time and I can't wait to go train with him again this next week.

The rest of the weeks training was a mix of MMA and gi training all of which was fun. It really feels like I am coming into my own style-wise learning how to best integrate things to fit into my game. It's hard to believe we are almost already two weeks into 2014, but if the past couple of weeks of great training and experiences are any hint at what the year will be like 2014 is going to be one amazing year!