So it has been a while since my last
blog update, sometimes you just get busy with life and don`t get a
chance to sit and write down all the details. Over the course of the
month there was a big change in the house as well. A lot of old faces left and a lot of new people arrived. It`s always sad to see friends
head back home, but it is also nice to know that I have life long
friends all over the world. Currently there are people here at CR
from Russia, U.S., U.K., Scotland, Ireland , Canada, New Zealand,
Germany, France, and Sweden. Needless to say its a diverse crowd--but
its also a fun one. It’s never a dull moment, and at the end of the
day there is almost always an amazing or hilarious story to tell.
We are in the middle of the Rio
“winter”. Basically here winter is a more rainy time of year,
we will have 2-3 days that it rains and then a week to 10 days of
beautiful warm sunny weather. It's not blazing hot like it is in the
summertime, but it is still perfect temperatures to head to the
beach, longboard, or hike. The nights here get cooler you may needc to throw on a long sleeve shirt,
but for me it means a great nights sleep. Being used to feet of snow
back home it's still weird to think of this as winter, but I'm not
complaining one bit.
After the World Cup atmosphere died
down, everything thing in the City went back to normal incredibly
fast. This includes the tough and technical full time training
schedule. While I still train a bit in the kimono, my main focus has
switched over to MMA, or more importantly rather fighting/competing.
I have been spending a lot of time outside of my normal training, working on my footwork, striking, and refining
technique with Dennis. He is really helping push me to the next
level. I am taking all of this great work and applying it at my training sessions at Rio Fighters. Combining the skills I have been working on with the
awesome training and instruction from Milton Vieira and my training
partners I have felt a huge step up in my game. Milton is actively
looking for fights for me and I hope to have good news soon.
On the coaching side of things, again
everything is going great! I am amazed at the progress some of the
fighters have made in their wrestling game. Honestly it's almost a
little scary at how well some of these guys have integrated takedowns
and defense into their game. I am looking forward to watching more
and more of the fighters I've been working with compete and finding success using the things I have been teaching them. On a cool note a
couple of weeks ago a crew from the T.V. Channel Combate came in to
film the wrestling class I teach at Rio fighters. One of the hosts of
the show participated in the training as the crew filmed. One of the
more hilarious moments came as the host was sweating and breathing
heavily and Milton told him that it was only the warm up. I'm not
going to lie it was weird seeing myself on T.V., but it was awesome
too. It was one of those moments were you can see your hard work
paying off. Bellow is a link to the footage check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?index=1&list=UUaZY_c71TTugtIMKGlPtsmg&v=Tw9-XjU0F00&app=desktop
That's about it for this week, I just
wanted to give people an update and to get back into the swing of
writing up my blog, next week I'm sure I'll have more great
experiences of living the dream here in Rio!
