Archive for month: July, 2017

Had you asked me a year ago that I’d be waking up on the shore of the Pacific, traveling the country, living my dream… I’d probably have laughed in your face. Had you said that I was going to be practicing the sport that I loved while doing so, I’d have laughed harder. 

Waking up in LA was a trip. The City of Angels. La La Land. The Big Orange. Much like I mentioned in the first few posts I made, the vastness of some of these cities can be claustrophobic. So much to do, so little time. 

After training at the Gracie Academy, I decided to spend a few days hanging around the city and exploring. First stop? Venice Beach. My mind raced with the thought of what I could do; swim, explore the sights, meet people, etc. After driving up and down the boardwalk for a few hours, I finally found a parking spot. I left my car, made my way to the beach, and gazed off into the distance. The boardwalk bustled with street performers, tourists, merchants of all types, etc. I met a guy who sold carved out “Hobo” coins; I saw a troupe of acrobatic street performers who coaxed $20, $50, and even $100 bills into huge garbage bags; I even visited a store that sold scrap metal sculptures, including a life-sized “Predator” build. 

 

 

Venice Beach. Santa Monica. Los Angeles. All areas in which reality seems to suspend itself. It was almost inspirational seeing people who truly followed their dreams. It’s as if no matter how old you are, you can become whoever you’ve always wanted to be. Considering I was doing the same (i.e., dropping everything to travel the country and train), I felt like I’d already assimilated into the community.

Before leaving LA, I had one last thing to do: train on the beach. I’ve spent hours on YouTube watching videos of Kron, the Ribero brothers, Rickson, and all of the old school Gracies training on the shores of the Pacific and on the beaches of Rio. I’ve envied that. As luck/fate would have it? I rolled into LA on the weekend of an event that I’d been interested ever since I first scrolled past their Instagram in the summer of 2015: Jiu Jitsu in the Park.

JJITP as a concept is nothing new; it’s literally taking some mats, hauling them into an outdoor area like a park, and getting down to business. That said, Jiu Jitsu in the Park as a business has taken it to a whole new level. They have built an event so well run, so interesting, and JAM PACKED full of jiu jitsu, it’s almost unfathomable.

 

 

After a night spent sleeping on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway, I made my way to the event. When I first pulled into the parking lot of Malibu Bluffs Park, about 30 minutes north of LA, I was taken aback by the sheer beauty of the location. The mats themselves, situated under a canopy of off-white tents, lied no more than 100 yards from the cool, deep indigo waters of the ocean. I approached the registration tent, paid the five dollar mat fee, and filled out my waivers. For five dollars, this open mat format was incredible. I was one the first person on the mats that day, along with another gent, Jeff, from a 10th Planet school not far from Malibu. I was donning my black globetrotters gi (GREAT choice for the blazing Malibu sun, by the way), and he wore the fancy rash guard, shorts, and spats typical of 10th Planet. We rolled, and he swiftly snagged a leg lock. Game on. 

 

 

That was the first of many rolls I had during my two hours training. I trained with guys from all over Southern California: Ribeiro Jiu Jitsu in San Diego, AOJ, City BJJ in San Francisco, and even a purple belt that trained out of his garage in a small town halfway between San Diego and LA. As always, we weren’t strangers. We all spoke a language of BJJ. I will say that I was likely the only person from New York at the event! Everyone who heard I was traveling the country, training jiu jitsu, living out of my car, etc., all thought I was living the dream! It was amazing.

 

 

The day was split up by a few superfights; some kids, some adults, some women, some men. I watched the kid super fight… and was just shocked. I always say stuff like, “If only I’d have started training when I was that young…” And these children reinforced that. Watching the future of BJJ invert, throwing triangles, impolite transitions… it made me feel old. I loved it.

 

 

Now… let’s talk about acai for a second. I’ll admit, I’ve always been apprehensive about a lot of the more “fad” things in BJJ: 10th Planet, Foam Rollers, Vegan vs. Keto, etc. With that, Acai is something that’s always been one of those “Whatever. How good can it be?” Kinda things. Well, like everything I’m hesitant about, I gave it a shot considering they had an all organic Acai stand at the park with the event. Well, here are the results…

 

 

After leaving Jiu Jitsu in the Park, I stopped at a small seafood shack a few minutes up the road from the park along Coastal Highway 1: Malibu Seafood. I had arranged to meet with a friend of my dad’s for lunch while I was in the area, and I’m glad I did! Meeting someone my father grew up with for the first time was awesome; hearing stories about the old man is always fun. He was supportive of this trip from the start, and knowing I always had a support system back home kept me going on the hard days.

 

 

Following a quick lunch at Malibu Seafood, I started north. My destination? Well, the place that inspired this trip in the first place: Yosemite National Park. You see, in addition to my BJJ, I cross train with rock climbing when I have the time to do so. After watching the documentary “Valley Uprising” in the summer of 2016 (it’s on Netflix: watch it. Watch it now.), I made the decision to road trip across the country.

I drove north on the PCH from Malibu. For a few hours, I hugged the coast; I watched sea cliffs grow larger, curves in the road become more abundant, and speed limits slow. The scenery was unbelievable. In a moment so typical of a globetrotters trip, I decided to alter my itinerary a slightly; instead of taking the fastest route possible from San Fransisco (my next journey after Yosemite) to Oregon, I decided I’d ride the PCH from south to north. Best decision I could’ve made, but more on that in a later post. I drove north from Malibu into the evening. I blasted the Beach Boys’ “Surfing’ the USA” as I drove, and I felt true joy. 

 

 

As night fell, the road became quiet, and an eerie sense of loneliness fell over me. Traveling alone on the coast in the dead of night… it was creepy, to say the least. As I ascended another hill, coming around a bend, I was stopped at a roadblock: a landslide had shut the road down. Unsure of where I should go, as my cell service had ceased, I stopped at a small motel to ask the best way back to the highway.

“Back 30 miles.”

Damn. It took me another hour to get back to the highway, and another two to get to the rest area I stopped at about two hours outside of Yosemite. As the coast disappeared, farmland did the opposite. I drove along valleys surrounded by farms and cornfields. I woke the next morning, made the two hour drive to Merced, and prepared for four days in the park!

I wish I could put into words how excited I was as I drove through the park entrance. 45 minutes more and I’d be centered in Yosemite Valley: the birthplace of American rock climbing as a whole. I zigzagged along the winding roads of YNP, through huge oak trees and even a controlled forest fire. Then…

 

 

Tunnel View. I drove 4,000 miles from New York, down to North Carolina, up to Tennessee, sat through a tornado, drove across deserts in Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona, then up the California coast, JUST to see this view. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a tear.

For four days, I explored Yosemite. I could do an entire post just about my time there, but I’ll give the footnotes. I sat at the foot of Sentinel Rock, one of the biggest faces in YNP, with a beer in my hand and a bowl of ramen in the other. I sat at the base of 2,500 foot granite walls, watching the sunset bear down on the valley. On my second day there, I spent the day climbing with Peter, a guy whose number I’d gotten from a board at Camp 4. Anyone whose climbed in the Valley knows the importance of Camp 4. We bouldered, and ran up some multi pitch climbs near Lower Yosemite Falls. On my third day, I spent the day solo hiking the Yosemite Falls trail: 7.2 miles round trip, 3,000ft. vertical gain. I sat on the edge of Yosemite Creek, downing a cold tub of Campbell’s Chunky Beef Sirloin soup as the raging waters flowed towards the 2,500 foot drop to the valley floor. I slept in my Jeep on the road by El Cap meadow. On my last day? I touched the bottom of El Cap for the first time. It was June 15th, 2017. Mark my words: by September 21st, 2025, I’ll climb that beast of a rock. 

 

 

I talked about rock climbing and it’s parallels to BJJ in my Joshua Tree post, so I’ll spare the philosophy, but I will say this: BJJ has gifted me with life lessons that I don’t think I would’ve gotten anywhere else. I’m a completely different person now compared to when I started training four years ago. One of these life lessons is this: 

Although pressure can be uncomfortable at times, you can always find a way out. Set your goals, figure out how to reach them, and then do it.

 

 

From Yosemite, I drove west to San Fransisco before going north to Oregon. But that’s a story for another day. Until next time! Oss!

Greetings From Palermo Sicily Italy!

Hello! I finally made it to Palermo, after the longest day in transit I’ve had to date. I’ll get into the whole debacle and giant mess I got into traveling to Palermo in a minute but first let me just say that the Island of Sicily is amazing and if you’re heading to Italy you must head down and visit Sicily as well! The sun, the sights, the food and most importantly the people, Sicily is definitely on my list of places to visit again! Now let’s go over how I got there and the trials I went through. It’s a long story so bare with me.

Casablanca Airport And The Luggage Debacle… 

Like I said earlier, getting to Palermo was one long, hard trek. I’ve dealt with over nights, rough rides and not sleeping before and they were longer travels but this was worse than those for the stress alone. I left the hotel in Marrakesh early in the morning, it was still dark when I got to the airport. I had a short connection over to Casablanca then from there to Rome and then to Palermo. There was a 8 or 9 hour layover in Casablanca and if I had saw that (remember I had to book the ticket in a hurry in order to make my flight to Morocco) when I booked it I would have just taken a later train into the Casablanca airport instead, but then I wouldn’t have this adventure to tell you about. So I check in at the airport in Marrakesh and the steward for Royal Air Maroc tells me that while I’ll have to re-check in at Casablanca my luggage will go on and I’ll see it in Palermo. That alone sounded some warning bells. I should have stopped and packed a day bag right there before sending my luggage away. I usually always pack a day bag with a gi and a days worth of clothes in it to carry onto the plane, but I guess being tired and not having any traveling problems lately I had my guard down.

I made the short flight over to Casablanca and was looking forward to finding somewhere to grab breakfast, as I hadn’t eaten yet, and working away on the blog. Little did I know the shit storm I was about to walk into and how that little simple plan would not work. As I needed to check in with the new airline, Alitalia, I didn’t have my connection ticket to head into the lounge area, instead I was briskly told ‘No! Get out of line! Go!’ As he pointed back towards the end of the line. After some confusion it seems there was another hall to go down in the opposite direction where the connection check in desks are. I got all this from other people in line as the security guard checking tickets just kept repeating ‘No! Go!’ I make my way to the connection desks and ask around about where I am to get my new ticket and continue on. The connection area seemed mostly run by Royal Air Maroc, who told me Alitalia would be there soon to give me my ticket, so I sat down and waited, and waited…

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram you might remember me posting as the day went on how upset I became as the idiotcracy built up. I waited for a few hours, asking different stewards if they were Alitalia or could help find them whenever a new airline showed up, only to be told ‘no, you have to wait’. Finally I asked the manager of the connection area, a manager from Royal Air Maroc, if he could help me since all I wanted to do was find a place to sit down and have some food. It was now 11 and I had been up since 5 to make the flight, I had been sitting there since 7:45. The manager told me there was nothing he could do, that I would have to wait until an hour before my flight, which wasn’t for another 6 hours or so. When I asked him what I was supposed to do to get some food he responded with “It’s not my problem. Our airline did our job of getting you here. Now you’re someone else’s problem. There’s nothing I can do.” Or rather there was nothing he would do, after all that would involve caring for your costumers. I can’t believe that Royal Air Maroc is supposed to be a ‘4 star airline’ with this kind of costumer service. I was also told by someone else if I went over to the passport control and customs that I would be let out and then I could go around to the front desks and sort out my ticket problem. So I set off to do that.

I get to the passport control area and wait in line for a long time. When I finally got to the front I explained my case to the passport security guard about just needing to enter the front of the airport. Apparently this was a big problem as the authorities at the Marrakesh airport stamped my passport, meaning I had left the country. As far as the passport security guard was concerned the only way I could re-enter the country, which is what I needed to do in order to exit the airport and enter again through the front, was if the customs agents were to cancel my exit stamp. I don’t why I couldn’t just get the passport re-stamped for entering and exiting again but either way I was sent over to another line. This lone was shorter, with way less organization as the agents in their offices didn’t seem to care about anyone problems or want to deal with them. When I finally got the attention of one of the agents I told them my situation. Another agent came in to listen and they both started asking me questions. ‘Where is your plane ticket? Where are you going? What is you problem?’ They didn’t seem to understand my situation and I tried several times to explain. Finally they tell me they can’t reverse the stamp and I can’t leave the airport since my passport has been stamped for exiting the country. When I asked what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to go for food I was told “Just go up and around” so I left their office and searched for this ‘up and around’ staircase.  As I walked the hallways I realized they meant go through the connection area, which I couldn’t do since I didn’t have my connecting ticket, which I couldn’t get since the airline didn’t have anyone at the connection area and no one would call them for me. I was stuck in a loop of stupid uncaring and unhelpful people.

Unable to fix my situation I was brimming with rage and sat down waiting, trying to use the shitty airport internet to figure out a way to solve this problem, away from having to talk to anyone. As I sat there, going on 8 hours with no food, no ticket and no help I noticed people who were being deported were being fed. They were being kicked out of the country and because they were waiting for a few hours they were given a hot meal and water, but me, I could rot there and it wouldn’t be anyone’s problem because, after all, Royal Air Maroc had did their job of getting me in this situation. As I was sitting there, furious at the shitty airline and my shitty situation a member of the cleaning staff had noticed I’ve been there all day. He asked me why I was still there and I told him, perhaps a bit over zealously, and told him how I had been sitting there with help or food all day. His answer was simple “Do you want food? I’ll get you some food” and with me giving him some money he left to get me some food from the cafeteria. That’s right, no one who’s job is it to help the customers at the airport, not the stewards, the managers, the passport of customs guards or clerks or anyone of the dozen or more people I talked helped me the slightest, it was the cleaning staff that did that job for them. As far as I know he may have been the one to tell the Alitalia airline I was down there too.

I was sitting and eating the fried rice and fish he had gotten me that I was ever so grateful for I heard an announcement that my flight was loading. I quickly went over to the managers office and asked them to call up and let Alitalia know I was down there, stranded without a ticket to get to my flight. They actually responded with “I can’t help you, it’s not my airline” that’s right, the staff of Royal Air Maroc at the Casablanca airport were willing to let me miss my flight on the the principle that ‘their job was done’ when they stranded me at the airport 8 hours ago. In fact one of the stewards was questioning their manager not helping me at this point, so it was becoming clear that the managers were seen as assholes by more than just me. This is when finally a steward from Alitalia showed up. He ran down and quickly got on a computer to check me in and print off a ticket for me. As this was going on he asked ‘Why not just leave the airport and come in through the front like you were supposed to?’ First off, supposed to? when the hell was the memo of this apparent list of proper actions coming out, because I was never given any instructions on how to get my new ticket what so ever or this whole shit show might have been avoided. I gave him the full story of why and how I was stuck down there. Apparently this is an on going problem at the Marrakesh airport of them stamping passports for connections that don’t require it, effectively blocking them from being able to spend their layover in any comfort and even potentially blocking them from making the connection. As for my dealing with the managers of Royal Air Maroc, the steward’s reply was “Wow! What a piece of…work!” As he looked over at them and just shook his head in disappointment. My ticket was printed and we were off, the Steward actually took my bag and raced me to the gate where the plane was waiting for me. I was the last on the flight. My long struggle to get out of the shit hole that a shitty airline had put me in was over. It would be clear sailing, or flying, from here on out. Or so I thought…

The plane landed in Rome, late. My connection had started loading almost 10 minutes before I landed. I was going to have to make one of those mad dashes across the airport you see on movies. As I got off the plane ready to make this dash I saw that there were stewards waiting with signs of my next flight number on it. They were, as I suspected, there to escort us directly to our waiting flight. Or so the said. The stewards guided us into the airport to the customs area and got us to the front of the line, after that they just stood there. I thought maybe they were waiting for the rest of the people making the connection, but as it happened they were just standing there, their work was done, it was now up to us to hurry across the airport. The stewards told me which gate I was supposed to go to and I was off, it felt like the airport went on forever as I raced across it to finally make it to the proper gate. Luckily everyone made the flight and we were off on a short flight to Palermo to finally end this long day of traveling. We landed and I messaged my host, Ruben, that I would be out soon. Soon ended up being a bit longer than expected. I exited the plane and made my way to the luggage pick up area, only to wait, and wait, and no backpack showed up. I was not the only one, as it happens about half the the people who rushed to make the connection, from my guess, also lost their luggage. I was quite mad at first that this would happen when allegedly my bag was sent directly off to the destination, but while in line waiting for a long time to finally report my lost bag I had cooled off and just wanted the day to end. I made my report with all the information I could give them and left Ruben’s number as a contact as my phone was out of data or minutes.

As the visit went on there would be more work to do online to track my bag and finally find it. It took a week to get and I wasn’t staying in Palermo that long, so I didn’t get my backpack back until Naples. Without me packing a day bag to carry on with me that meant I was without any training gear and only had the clothes on my back for this visit. This of course meant I was only training in no gi for the next few days. Once I got out of the airport and met Ruben he drove me around the town to see a bit of it and we grabbed some pizza. My first slice of real Italian pizza. It was pretty good, and little of the city I saw that night was beautiful, I could see that after all the shit I went through I was going to be alright.

The Sights!

While I was staying with Ruben and Andreina it was a whirlwind of sightseeing and training. The usual day would start with them taking me out somewhere to see the city, then straight to class, then off to more of the city, eating and meeting with friends. Ruben was constantly setting up plans to show me another place around Palermo and we even set out to Trapani, a city an hour away, to train with their friends and sister club there and show me more of Sicily. Here’s some pictures I took while out seeing this beautiful place, I’ll try and label all the places the best I can.

The landscape was awesome to see as we drove around, the hills and mountains that surrounded the roads and buildings were impressive to a visitor like me. So I took a few random pictures while we drove around.  

When I was in Trapani I was brought to this amazing town that’s built on top of a mountain and has all sorts of castles and churches and the best possible view of Trapani and the coast. Erice. If you’re visiting Sicily you have to come out to the west side and visit Palermo and since you’re already that close you might as well go visit Trapani and Erice.

And of course Ruben brought me to the beach to see the beautiful view and crystal clear water.

I have many more photos for you to see at my Flickr account, check them out!

MatSide BJJ Palermo

Ruben, who is a purple belt, runs the MatSide BJJ Palermo club which is in an old school gym that also has wrestling classes by an Olympian who competed and won in some competitions in Canada and all over back in his days. The wrestling class was full of take down techniques, some of which I’ve seen before but there were all kinds of small details I was being shown to make them better. One thing I’ve learned on this odyssey, one of many, is that I really need to work on using my body and body weight better. The re-occurring strong points for wresting take downs and control is using your full body as a force to keep them from moving any other way than you want. small things that help keeping your weight on them or into them. These details I’m still learning and trying to work on as I travel, I really do believe training in different classes like Judo, Wrestling, Catch-As-Catch-Can, or Sambo only help build a stronger, more complete game

For Ruben’s classes there was a common theme he would work on, with working on the base movement and adding to it or going over the options from that movement or position. As I was visiting we were going over various open guard passing movements, one class was working off stepping into the open guard and sitting in a combat base position, capturing a leg. Ruben and I had a lot of fun bouncing ideas back and forth as we trained, he’s always thinking and studying what positions he gets into from what movements. The rest of the club is a wide range of different styles and skill levels, all were very enthusiastic and eager to train and roll. Some had experience in other martial arts and were new to the ground game like Benny Cannata who is an Italian boxing league champion who is now training for MMA at MatSide with Ruben, he’ll be a killer ground and pound artist in the next year for sure. It was a good training with everyone, I had to be on my toes all the time because each person was so different. In the end I really enjoyed training and rolling with everyone, I learned a a lot about my own game as well as made some good friends.

Mad Monkey Academy/MatSide BJJ Trapani 

One day Ruben brought me out to train for a noontime class then after lunch he and another student hit the weights for an hour and then we met with Andreina and other clubs members and all piled into the car and headed to another gym to train at that evening in Trapani. The Mad Monkey Academy, which is the MatSide BJJ Trapani club, is in the Wolf Fighter Trapani gym which is a primarily kickboxing gym. The gym is set up with puzzle mats covering the entire floor with some heavy bags along one side and a boxing ring in the corner. The class for Trapani seemed a lot younger, many kids who were newer to BJJ. The class there is run by a blue belt who trains under Ruben and they were more than happy to have us show up and teach. Ruben was showing more of the open guard to combat base that we were working on, having played with some things earlier that day we had new tricks to add and show this eager class ready to soak up any details. Nadir, the blue belt, and I worked together going over the techniques. He’s a bigger guy and we had similar traits and a similar style so it made perfect sense to work together and exchange tips. Lucky that I had been working on the techniques earlier that day and troubleshooting them working for me so I was able to help him out and give some pointers.

I had a few matches with some of the class after class. the kids were eager to impress the visiting blue belt and were gunning for me, luckily they had little experience so I just worked defense, letting them get take down or a guard pass and then working from there to sweep and attack. One big thing that I noticed was the lack of grips and control, they’re were so set on passing or attacking they wouldn’t time the time to set the position or fully control me while passing my guard. That’s something that comes with time and is been a big topic I’ve been working myself during this journey. Grips and controlling techniques are key and I love seeing new ways to control someone and work my slow Panda climbing game. I work on all the grips I can while rolling so when someone misses controlling my legs and goes straight for wrist grabs or try to run around my guard I notice it. Now I do anyways. I guess since my mind is always working on controlling and grip techniques my awareness of the training partners grips and controlling techniques.

After class Nadir and some of his students as well as the whole group from Palermo went out for food and showing me around the city and more food and more sights and next you it was 4am. It was one seriously long day but amazing at the same time, I got so much training in and meeting great people and seeing some great places and eating good food, all in one day. It’s not something I could do often but it was a blast! As we were walking around Trapani Nadir was telling me of the history of the city and the sights, as well as telling me what we would see tomorrow. It really wished I had a proper camera and could take night pictures that night. I stayed that night at Nadir’s and the next morning we were off to show me more sights before heading back to Palermo, I’ve got to say Nadir made me really feel welcomed, thanks for the tour, the food and the hospitality!

Thanks again everyone I met in Palermo and Trapani for all the great times, and thank you Ruben and Andreina for everything you have done looking out for me and making this an amazing visit!  

I was off to catch the ferry to Naples, but Ruben wasn’t able to join me there as he had new guests arriving to pick up at the airport at the same time. Andreina gave me a drive to the harbour, it was rush hour so we had a few set backs getting there but I got on the boat just in time. Shortly after leaving Sicily for Naples I get a text message from Ruben, it was a screenshot of a message he received from the airport that my bag had finally been found and landed in Palermo, now on it way to Naples. After a crazy trip to Sicily and a whirlwind of a visit, which was way too short, I was off to see some amazing sights and re-unite with my backpack, but that’s another story.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a few major countries occupy the spotlight. Brazil, of course, tops the list, but the U.S. receives a lot of attention as well. Japan is often in the conversation for obvious reasons, but it doesn’t get nearly as much attention as the first two. And recently, we’ve started to see a little bit more love for Russia’s contributions to grappling, but that is still relatively small.

For the rest of the world? Well, they often become footnotes in the culture of BJJ. Designers and gym owners are quick to reference the major BJJ countries in artwork and in products, but the smaller scenes, where jiu-jitsu has just recently started to blossom and make a difference in the communities there, are overlooked.

That’s one of the big reasons we love traveling with BJJ Globetrotters. We get to visit these great jiu-jitsu communities and meet people that might never be on the cover of a magazine but are doing amazing things for their students and training partners and have incredible stories to tell.

Greenland is one of these places. The people who call Greenland home are hardy. The country is rugged with difficult winters and short-lived springs. With limited natural resources, even basic foods like beef need to be imported. And like many native groups, Greenland has its share of social problems and challenges that are made even more difficult by the sometimes harsh environment.

While I spent time with friends and great people I couldn’t help but feel desolate. Roads ended at the city limits, and the only ways of reaching other towns was skimobile, boat, or plane. Alcoholism and suicide are huge issues there. We were warned that the government is trying to fight by incredibly high alcohol tax.

It’s not all bleak though. The local culture is rich, and the injection of BJJ has brought some new hope as well. After apologizing for his poor English, a gentlemen we promoted to blue belt on the last day of camp told us how he has been struggling with alcohol abuse since he was 12. And now in his 20s, BJJ is the only thing he has found that helps him stay sober.

The sum of these experiences laid the tinder for a new gi, and we needed a certain globetrotter to create the spark.

Once you have done the legwork of perfecting your cut and sizing, designing new gis is pretty straightforward. You pick the weave, pick the color, decide on stitching and accents, and choose what patches or embroidery go where. With a talented designer, you can do complete this process in a few days, and any subsequent changes are made after the factory produces a sample.

That’s how it works most of the time. The gi I am about to show you had a similar design process, but instead of it taking place inside an office or coffee shop, we were on a boat off the coast of Greenland on a whale-watching trip. I never thought I would ever be in Greenland, much less design a gi there. It all started with a message from my friend Christian Graugart.

He was arranging a trip to visit an old student that had started a BJJ school in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, and wanted to bring some black belt friends with him. A few brave souls volunteered, and after some serious flight searches, we ended up in Nuuk. I wrote a blog about our epic layover in Reykjavik here and the Greenland trip here.

If you haven’t heard about Christian, he literally wrote the book on BJJ travel and nowadays spends his time planning amazing BJJ camps all over the world. Hillary and I have been to 9 out of 27 of the camps, and are trying to hold on to our top 10 standing in the camp high score list.

Christian usually makes camp gis and suggested that we make a collaboration project. His biggest stipulation: We had to have an inverted polar bear.

Most of the design work was done aboard that boat while we waited on whale sightings. Weave was an easy choice. It’s usually pretty cold there, so a 550 GSM pearl weave felt right. Both of our gis usually have shoulder embroidery, so those were a given. We used the polar bear art done by Hillary instead of the usual panda and incorporated Christian’s BJJ Globetrotters logo. For the ribbon, we got Christian’s usual designer to etch the epic landscape was saw from the boat. For the final detail, we took inspiration from the colorful national outfit as a shoulder liner for the inside of the gi and added the Greenland flag.

This was a unique design experience. And as we prepare to launch it tomorrow (7/14/2017), we are excited to report that the fledgling gym we visited in Nuuk has doubled in size since last year. We are sending the guys from Nuuk some uniforms for their club and sharing with you the story behind the gi. There are thousands of powerful jiu-jitsu stories that have yet to be told, and in future gis with Christian, we hope to tell at least some of them.

 

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BJJ Globetrotters X Inverted Gear Collab
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The Balkans, what a fantastic part of the world!

But how did we get here?

Last time we wrote we were in Krakow, Poland, about to head on a tour of Auschwitz. For those who haven’t been, it’s a heavy day but well worth it. 

From here we jumped on a train to arguably the most beautiful city in the world, Prague. With its incredible old town, cobble stone streets and of course Charles bridge, it was great fun just getting lost here. Now there are a lot great street performers around Europe, but Sven from Sweden takes the cake. 

We also tracked down the narrowest street in the world (apparently). 

Budapest was our next destination, where we stayed a few days longer than originally planned, this was mainly because we met a great bunch of people who helped show us what Budapest was like at 4am! We did manage an early night to get up at 3am and watch the sunrise overlooking the parliament building . Even threw in a cheeky photo shoot with a Gi and rash guard.

A stop over in Pec (southern Hungary) we booked ourselves an apartment with no one else to influence us to party! Here we found a gym to do some open mat, was good to have another roll! 

Two days later we are in Croatia! Zagreb, Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik (No spoilers you Game of Thrones fans… Katherine is half way through reading the books!!) Of course we made the most of being on the coast with as many swims as possible. The Croatian coast was a great place to chill out and get away from the heat. 

Mostar, Bosnia was our next stop, where they are known for the famous Mostar bridge. This thing is 25 metres high and people are crazy enough to jump of it! I must admit that the idea entered my mind, then exited as soon as I saw a local make the jump! Mostar is a small but very pretty village, and home to the most difficult cobble stone street I have ever walked on. If you find yourself in Mostar, be sure to visit the sniper tower, this used to be an old bank that in the war- (1992-1995) was destroyed and became a sniper tower. From here and around town you still see bullet holes covering buildings. 

Next stop, Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. After an interesting taxi ride we found ourselves at Waterfall Niagara. This is a local swimming spot with a restaurant and a small water fall, perfect to get away from the heat!

It was in Podgorica that we began to realize the further south we went, the cheap things got. A pint of beer was now sitting around 1 Euro, and we found a large pizza (which was delicious) for 1.5 Euros. That’s a far cry from what we pay in New Zealand.

Albania was our next destination, and were we in for a culture shock. However, this place turned out to be one of the most amazing places I have ever been.

As we are still traveling through the Balkans, I will leave the rest of our story for Part 2.

One very exciting piece of news is that we are both going to the Heidelberg Camp at the end of August! Cant wait to see you all there!!

Cheers,

 

Jamie and Kathey