Summer Days in the Rio and Coaching/Training at Rio Fighters

Some of the CR crew with Milton Vieira.

Another week down in beautiful Rio de Janiero! Today is a bit atypical weather wise, for the first time in nearly a month it is overcast and even raining at times. The rest of the week was nothing but sun and hot temperatures. The temperatures this week were in the upper 30's to low 40's so when not on the mat or working I spent a large portion of my time in the pool. It is nice that whenever it gets just too hot I can just go outside for a quick swim. There have been frequent daily trips to both Barra and Joatinga beaches from everyone in the house. We have a couple of guys at CR who surf frequently back home and they used the weekend downtime to surf fix up a couple of boards ride here in Barra. On Saturday Nicole had some friends over and after they cooked some delicious Brazilian food, everyone got in the pool. With a few Brazilian girls in the pool it didn't take long for the rest of the house to suddenly “decide” to go for a swim. Before we knew it about half the house was relaxing and joking in the pool. That night a few guys went out to one of the clubs while a group of us stayed in to watch the UFC fights at the house. 

I really like these weekend opportunities to get to know people better. Over the course of the week I am out training or working on a project and many of the guests are training so while we talk and hang out we might not really get to know each other. The weekends are different, people aren't saving energy for training and things are a bit more relaxed for me as well. It makes a great time get to know other people. For example there is an Irish kid here who trains a lot and spends a lot of time resting up for training, but on Saturday he really came out of his shell and is one of the most hilarious guys in the house. He had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard at the things he was saying. 

You never know when a pool party will break out at CR

Week in Training

On Monday a large group of us from CR headed down to Humaita for Rio Fighters first official luta livre class. While there has been pro MMA training going on, the gym did not officially open until Monday. There were around 30 guys on the mat for the inaugural, many of which were luta livre black belts. The class started with a long warm up of running, calisthenics, and BJJ specific movement drills. We covered a pass and then a couple of attacks from side control. The techniques were taught with great detail and I was able to pick up a few new things I think will work great for me. The rolling was competitive and faced paced. The guys weren't mean or dirty, they were just plan tough. You had to fight for every inch, everybody had a very never never say die attitude and refuse to accept a negative position. It actually reminded me a ton of a wrestling practice, so in other words I felt at home. I had a very fun roll with a luta livre black belt that sent us from one side of the mat to the other. I used my wrestling very heavy to pressure him and he responded back with attacks of his own. Right near the end of our roll I attacked the head from side control, he hipped out and changed the angle and I immediately felt off balance and in trouble. I made my normal adjustments but realized I suddenly couldn't get my arm back and the next thing I knew I was in the craziest wrist-lock and I had to tap. All I could do was just sit there for a second dumbfounded and say “boa, boa submission” (good, good submission).

Me with some of the guys in the house.

As you might have guest from my earlier posts, I am training full time now at Rio Fighters. In addition to that I am happy to also say that I am the wrestling coach at Rio Fighters. I am teaching there two days a week and training there everyday. The gym is a great fit for me. The style is very aggressive yet technical which allows me to really embrace my wrestling mentality and learn to adjust it towards luta livre, BJJ, and MMA. After every training session I walk out of there tired but feeling great because I know I made improvements over the course of the training. Being there training just feels right. Milton said part of the reason he wanted me to coach/train there was because my style of coaching and wrestling compliments his style of grappling, coaching and fighting. He wants fast paced hard practices for the wrestling classes, with a college wrestling intensity. Another cool thing is when I am coaching Milton is just another one of the guys training, he is there to train hard and learn.