Everything’s bigger in….. Dallas, Texas

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After our trip up along a section of the Mississippi we arrived in Dallas, Texas. Straight away the amount of pick-up trucks and cowboy hats on the highways had doubled. We stopped in at the Dallas Galleria a huge shopping mall with an Ice skating rink in the middle. Both Lilly and Kobe were pretty keen to give it a go, but after watching everyone falling over they changed their minds for the time being.

We headed to our Airbnb for our stay here and were very surprised to find that Dave Bravo was our host, a purple belt that trains out of Cobra BJJ. Dave gave us a lot of info about training and things to do in Dallas which was a great.

Best AirBnb host yet…. Dave Bravo

Our first full day in Dallas we headed to the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, this place is huge. We wandered around for a few hours admiring all the different garden displays, it was so relaxing. We loved the massive Wizard of Oz themed Halloween pumpkin display, it was so well done!

Checking out the pumpkin display

Pumpkins everywhere!!

That afternoon we headed to RCJ Machado, Carlos Machado’s Academy. It was such a well setup school that even had a dedicated kid’s area with desks where the children can complete their homework. They offer an after-school program including pickup for over 20 schools in the area which we thought was an amazing idea. Both Kobe and Lilly had a fun time in class with Coach Brad, they have a very good kids Jiu-Jitsu program there. Dee and I took part in the advanced class where Coach Brad covered back positioning and attacks where I learnt some great little tweaks for my game.

Lilly and Kobe in class at RCJ

The next day we headed to Cobra BJJ to train, this is the place that Dave had suggested we come and check out. We were excited to get some NoGi in, as we hadn’t had much of a chance in the last couple of weeks. Lilly and Kobe get really excited about NoGi now, this is something we defiantly must do more of when we return home. We had a great class ran by Sebastian Black and Eddie Ricardo, there was a nice focus on takedowns and passing combinations. We had some great rolls during sparring as Cobra BJJ like most competitive clubs they are starting to already gear up for the NoGi worlds.

Pumped to get their NoGi on

Great sessions at Cobra BJJ!!

Myself and Sebastian Black from Cobra BJJ

We decided to head to the Texas state Fair, one of the largest state fairs in America. They had somewhere in the vicinity of 2.2 million people attend this year’s fair which lets you know just how big it is. We spent the day walking around checking out all the stalls and events, there was so much to see and do. We went and checked out the pig racing where Lilly put her hand up to volunteer before she knew what it was for. She ended up being a pig cheerleader out in front of the crowd. It was so funny and definitely a trip highlight was watching her jump around to get the crowd cheering. Kobe’s face when coming down the giant slide was so funny, he was very quiet after that for a bit as it scared the crap out of him ?. We even got into the local cuisine by tackling a large turkey leg and taste testing all the food we could.

Getting in on the local cuisine

Lilly cheering on the Pigs!!

Us with Carlos Machado

Good times!

Over the rest of our time here we split our time doing Gi at RCJ and NoGi at Cobra. Both academies were super friendly and welcoming to us. Carlos Machado had returned later in the week from doing seminars and was great to spend some time on the mat with him. He is a super friendly guy and was very keen to help us out, he managed in a matter of seconds to give me a few options for a position I had been having some problems with that worked well for me. We spent the rest of our free time checking out parks and just hanging out in Dallas.

-Woody

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New Orleans and up the Mississippi

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The drive from Orlando to New Orleans would take us through 4 states in 9 hrs – Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Our stay in New Orleans was brief, 2 nights in fact, so we unpacked our bags to the Airbnb and headed to the French Quarter for dinner and some sightseeing.

Trip Advisor had great reviews for a restaurant called Gumbo Pot but upon our arrival we discovered it was closed. So, we decided to go for a stroll to see if there was somewhere else close by.

As we walked up Saint Peters St pass Jackson Square where we passed many buskers, some of whom were doing magic shows and others whom were reading palms and telling fortunes

Thankfully we came across the Gumbo Shop- a beautiful quaint restaurant, that was very busy – which we took as a good sign.

Post meal destruction

We took one look at the menu and were happy to see the “Complete Creole Dinner” option, allowing us to try a variety for meals without having to spend big dollars on multiple “entrée’s”. Much to our surprise Lilly and Kobe loved the Gumbo and Jambalaya as much as Adam and I did, so much that I will attempt to cook a Gumbo once we are home again.

New Orleans is more commonly known as a city to visit if you want to party, but all of this is really contained in one Street – Bourbon Street.  This makes sightseeing easy, knowing where not to go if you’re not up to partying.

As we walked around the French quarter the next day I loved admiring the buildings with their gorgeous shutters and balconies and the kids enjoyed looking at all the Halloween decorations in the doorways. We loved walking through the streets looking through the art stores and gorgeous boutique stores listening to the Jazz bands that were playing in the streets.

Walking around New Orleans

New Orleans is also famous for Beignet,  a doughnut covered in powdered sugar, but rather than wait in a rather long que at the very famous Café du Monde, our Lonely Planet Guide book had informed us the Beignet Café just around the corner and it would have no line at all and plenty of seating. We were delighted to try out this delicious treat with a nice coffee in a quiet café with fast service.

mmmmm…. Doughnuts

As we walked around we found ourselves at the dock of the Paddle steamers Natchez & Queen Creole and decided to take a lunchtime cruise on the Queen Creole along the Mississippi River. The cruise was very informative of the origins of New Orleans and the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 which a stop off at the site of the battle. Much to our delight lunch would be more Gumbo.

Paddle steamer

I would love to come back to New Orleans again – there is so much history and character that I think you could spend days just discovering it.

After our stay at in New Orleans we were headed to Dallas Texas, but rather than the interstate we drove along the Mississippi River till Baton Rogue on our way to Natchez. To break up the hours of sitting in the car we are always looking for things to see and do along the way. We found a hike to a waterfall in the Clark Creek Natural Area in Woodville. This was a beautiful hike with lots of steep climbs and stairs. We hiked for 2.25km and we came across a little creek, Kobe declared his despair of “walking this far, for this!”

big canon!

We made it to Natchez in time to watch a gorgeous sunset at our Hotel which is alongside the Mississippi River. After a nice southern breakfast of biscuits and gravy at the hotel we were headed to Shreveport via Alexandria, as we had discovered that in Alexandria was a petting zoo that we knew Lilly & Kobe would love.

Sunset over the Mississippi

We had told Lilly and Kobe that we would be stopping soon, but with the hike still very fresh in Kobe’s mind he was very concerned that we had found another hiking trail and was not excited, that was until he seen the sign for “Gone Wild Safari”.

Well trained

feeding the animals

Once in the park, we brought some feed for the animals and stepped aboard the repurposed school bus to head out on our tour. A guide drives you around the park and tells you about the animals they have there. And stops frequently for you to feed the animals from the bus. On the first stop a very friendly camel stuck its head in the bus window scaring Kobe, Lilly lost her feeding cup to a very zealous antelope wanting more than she was offering. Kobe loved that the long-horned bulls would come up the window open their mouths and put their tongue to the side, so you could just poor the feed into their mouths. As we drove around we got to see Bison, Kangaroos, a Zorse (a mix between a Zebra and a Horse), Ostrich, Llamas, pigs, Deer and Giraffe and many more. Kobe and Lilly loved seeing the Prairie Dogs and may have even tried to sneak up on them to try and catch one, but those two aren’t very stealthily a trait they must get from Adam?.  I think Kobe was definitely happy with this stop, we continued up to Shreveport where we would rest before heading to Dallas the next day for some Jiu Jitsu.

-Dee

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Brazil part one: A short nature detour before heading back to the mats

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After a few months on the road, we finally reached the motherland of BJJ. Even though we loved our time in beautiful Cuzco, Peru, after several weeks struggling in the high altitude and thin, chilly air we were dying to reach Brazil and breathe deep the warm, oxygen-rich ocean breeze and bask in the sun by the beach.

Our entry point was Foz do Iguazu, the incredibly immense waterfalls that exist at the border of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. I had gotten really sick the night before flying out of Peru, so unfortunately my first welcome into the country was a bit less pleasant than I had dreamed. Even more so because Alessia had accidentally booked accommodation on the Argentinian side of the border, not the Brazilian side like we had planned, and we had only noticed the day before arriving (you had one job!). We decided to make the most of it and see the falls from Argentinian side – which turned out to be lucky for us as they offer much more impressive views where you can get right into the mouth of the falls. Words cannot describe how epic they are.

We crossed into Brazil the next day (it was a relatively pain free process to cross the border from Argentina to Brazil by taxi/uber) and I instantly felt like everyone I saw walking down the street had a BJJ t-shirt or massive cauliflower ears. Or it was just my imagination but whatever. We didn’t really have any plans other than making our way to Rio to spend a month in one place and training intensively, but at our hotel in Foz do Iguazu we met a guy promoting tours to the Pantanal region. The Pantanal is an immense tropical wetland renowned for its wildlife – we’d heard that if you want to see animals, you don’t go to the Amazon, you go to the Pantanal. With Alessia and I both being weird animal lovers, we signed on immediately and the next day took a 24 hour bus ride which was surprisingly comfy but still disgustingly long and tiring.

We stayed for 4 nights at Pousada Santa Clara, a privately owned lodge in the Pantanal where we did daily trips by foot, car and boat into the wilderness to see the local wildlife like Caymans, Capybara, piranha, all sorts of birds and our favorite – the local bush pigs who were everywhere (not very exotic, I know). While we didn’t see as much as we would have liked, those were a few very peaceful days for us to just relax in nature and have some delicious local food. Being in the middle of nowhere, we weren’t able to train so instead we focused on yoga practice (well mostly Alessia, while I watched from a nearby hammock surrounded by various animals like I was their god).

After the Pantanal, we couldn’t leave the region without seeing Bonito – an aquatic wonderland where we went swimming with huge fish, jumping off waterfalls in Estancia Mimosa and snorkeling along the Rio da Prata in the bluest, crystal clear water we had ever seen. Again we had showed up without booking anything and it happened to be a Brazilian holiday, but we got lucky and were able to do everything we wanted to do. It turned out there was a BJJ gym right around the corner from our hostel but being the holidays it was closed. 7 days without Jiu Jitsu, we were starting to feel a bit uneasy.

When we were back in grey London planning our trip to South America, we had imagined spending countless days at the beach working on our tan after training. Now, several months into our trip in South America, we could count the number of days spent at the beach on two hands. So by now we were unsurprisingly very keen to get some time for sun, sand and surf – so our next stop was Ilhabela where we could hopefully also get some training in.

Ilhabela is a small island off the coast of São Paulo, famous for its pristine beaches and natural beauty. It’s a popular getaway for well-off Paulistas and so was a little out of our price range, but we decided to splurge a little. We rented an Airbnb on the north western coast of the island in a small town called Viana. As we hadn’t trained for a week and a half we were dying to get back onto the mats, and luckily for us there were a few gyms on the island. We ended up training several days at a school run by a super friendly black belt named Jefferson Viana. We learnt some cool new tricks (both gi and no-gi) and had some great rounds with his friendly team. Their gym is inside a hotel resort with a killer pool and a view of the sea nearby – Jumping off one of the piers near the school for a refreshing dip after training, we finally felt like we were in Brazil. We also spent our time exploring the various beaches and waterfalls on the island (although coming from Bonito and Iguazu Falls, it was a little harder to impress us after that!).

After a lovely week in Ilhabela, we took yet another bus to São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil. We were staying at the house of Marcelo, a friend and teammate from back in London who travels back and forth between Brazil and the U.K. He wasn’t in the country when we were there unfortunately, but he kindly allowed us to stay at his house which he shared with his instructor in São Paulo, Marcio Catenacci, a NS Brotherhood black belt under Murilo Santana. Marcio was an awesome guy who was always full of energy and enthusiasm, constantly working whether providing functional fighting personal training classes to some of São Paulo’s rich and famous, or teaching at his gym in Bodytech.

Bodytech was one of the most incredible facilities we had ever seen – it was like a city itself with a full sized Olympic swimming pool, tennis courts and a luxurious spa area with sauna, hot pools and a jacuzzi. Not to mention the mat area was large and pristine. Marcio’s team were all super friendly and welcoming, and his classes were full of interesting drills and great sparring. Many of the classes were focused around sweeping options from Single-Leg-X which fit into both our games nicely.

We also spent a lot of time training at the NS Brotherhood headquarters in Aclimacao. On our first day there, we ran into Leandro Lo as he was on his way out. Alessia may have gone into shock and turned into a teenage groupie for a few moments, she may have even drooled a little (she’s a bit of a fan). Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to share the mat with Lo as he was headed to Finland for ADCC (sorry Alessia!). Instead we had several classes with Alemao (Wellington Luis) who was an incredible teacher and showed us several nice moves and concepts – from pulling guard, to elevator sweeps, lapel techniques and some very useful tricks to get the second hook in from the back.

Sparring at NS Brotherhood was always very high-level and competitive, but still friendly and everyone was welcoming. Alemao would expect you to warm up by yourself before class and would jump right into the techniques. He would usually show 2/3 techniques per class and would give you plenty of time to drill the techniques (about 8 minutes straight per person) which we found super helpful as it lets you really feel out the technique thoroughly. He would also personally pair people up for rounds (something which seems common here in Brazil but we weren’t so used to), which meant we got to roll with a great variety of people in each class, from white belts to black belts, but all roughly the same weight.

Alessia also found a great yoga studio nearby; so every morning she would wake up super early to go to class, then we would head to training at either Bodytech or NS Brotherhood headquarters in Aclimacao, and then again at night time. It was pretty exhausting, and in between we would nap or try explore some of the city, but São Paulo is HUGE. You need to take cabs or public transport everywhere if you don’t have a car. It has amazing options for food but a lot of them were a bit out of our budget, so we took advantage of having a kitchen to cook as much as possible and save a bit of money.

The best part about Marcelo’s place was the fully matted living room – I couldn’t imagine living without one of these now. Every day Alessia and I would just spend some time drilling, trying out new techniques or sparring, and sometimes Marcio would come and show us some cool moves and give some advice.

Marcelo came back from London on our last day in São Paulo, so we were able to hang out a bit and get one last session in on the mats at Bodytech. We were really grateful for the place to stay and for His and Marcio’s help in getting used to São Paulo, as well as all the great training we were exposed to.

We left São Paulo wishing we had spent more time there, as there were so many other incredibly gyms we would have liked to try out as well: Demian Maia’s, Alliance, Cicero Costha etc. But we had booked a month’s accommodation in Rio to train already and were committed to that. We’d love to come back and spend a couple more weeks in São Paulo before we get kicked out of Brazil though (visas etc), so stay tuned.

Next stop, one month living and training in Rio!

Marcus and Alessia

@marcust.bjj

@alessiabjj

Dusseldorf Germany

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Hello From Dusseldorf Germany! (20-25 June 2017)

I last left you with me having an amazing time in Heidelberg with the Jiu-Jitsu groups there, that I would visit again during the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp, while staying at a not so amazing motel. After a quick train ride up to Dusseldorf I was ready for a change in pace. The ride was uneventful but I did pass through Cologne and got to see a small piece of the beauty of that town. I would like to visit Cologne some day and see more of the sights there, it really was quite the tease to only pass through it on a train.   

My First (Only) Hostel in Germany

The Globetrotter I would be visiting was unfortunately busy with work so I ended up staying at a hostel, the only hostel in town as it happens, it was right in the middle of town and about a 15 minute walk from the city’s main train station. At first during the week the hostel was quite quiet and I met a few people from all over, a young Australian waiting for papers to meet her family vacationing in London, an older Asian who kept to himself but was there on business and apparently had done quite a bit of traveling himself (he had a very detailed journal/scrapbook I saw him show some other guests), and a street performer, Ruben The One Man Band from Sweden who always had his GoPro filming his adventures. Then the weekend came..

On my way to the hostel I passed this intersection, it made me think of Mario Kart, I was on the look out for turtle shells whizzing by, luckily there were none.

Friday brought a completely different group of people, one group of very condescending Americans who kept referring me to being from ‘Canada: Our northern state’ and not one, not two, but three groups of bachelor parties, one in particular who figured the entire block should be listening to them blaring a song they would be yelling and singing over and over the entire time. To say the least my stay at this hostel went from pleasant to WTF very quickly on Friday. I left Sunday morning for the train off to my next destination and saw the most puzzling thing. A concert band marched up to the front of the hostel, complete with tubas and accordions, and with the band leader announcing something in German about the hostel (I made out the name of the hostel being called but that’s it) they played some Bavarian sounding tunes for a few minutes then after another announcement then marched away to their next destination. I have no clue what that was about but I did have a good laugh at the thought of the hungover bachelor parties waking to someone else’s music, having a taste of their own medicine, as I left the hostel.

Hostel humour. I may get one for my place once I’m done traveling and actually get a place, whenever that will be.

The Sights of Dusseldorf Old Town

I had quite a bit of time to myself during this visit so I decided to go out and explore and see some of the Old Town area that both Daniel and the hostel staff had told me about. I loved seeing the old buildings in that area of town, you really got the feeling of the town being around a lot longer than the impression that the rest of the city’s modern concrete skyscrapers gave. For my Canadian friends or those who have been to Quebec City and Montreal and walked around the Old Towns there this is same feeling, like walking back in time when you see some of the streets. Unfortunately my photos don’t do it justice.

I don’t know what this building is, or where I ran into it but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Some of the statues around the Old Town area.

An art installation outside the art museum, it’s a wall made of protest signs.

Training with JF73D

Daniel trains at a few clubs but mostly is at Judo Freunde 73 Düsseldorf, or JF73D which has both BJJ and Judo. For BJJ they’re under Prof. Youness of Team Youness Bjj Düsseldorf who I did not get a chance to meet, I believe he was away when I visited. The club rents a big mat space in a school, if I’m correct it’s actually the school’s Judo club room, in any case it was a nice big space with change rooms and showers but it was all inside a school with no signs so without Daniel bringing me out to the gym I would have never found it on my own.

The club itself was small, only 5 or 6 people made it out for the class I trained at, with the instructor a purple belt. Everyone seemed a bit shy, maybe because of language barriers, but still welcoming enough to a new face passing through. We went through a thorough warm up and some great techniques, the instructor’s own experience in both Judo and traditional Jiu-Jitsu was evident in the warm up routines and the details he focused on while demonstrating the techniques. It was a good class working on sweeps and I was looking forward to rolling with everyone there but I ended up having to sit out after while with a pulled muscle, the hardships of always traveling taking their toll on me at the least opportune time.

The club, thanks for a good training guys!

A few of us went out for food after class and I had a blast listening to their stories of how they got into Jiu-Jitsu and their adventures in training so far, if it were in better conditions, and if I had my camera with me, this would have been an awesome interview to have, just random conversation about our Jiu-Jitsu experiences while eating at a local restaurant. Video or not it was a great way to end the night after some good training. 

Daniel Meertz

Daniel was my contact for Dusseldorf, a fellow Globetrotter who has done some traveling himself and even been to some of the spots that I have visited with other Globetrotters hosting me. Whenever he wasn’t working Daniel took me out to see the city, like to a water park to enjoy a refreshing a dip in a pool in the summer heat. He also brought me out to eat the local cuisine in Old Town, where I tried a ‘pork knuckle’ which wasn’t much my thing but I’m happy to have tried it and know many who love them. Even when Daniel was busy at work as a firefighter he was more than happy to respond to any of my texts and tell me of places to go eat at or sights to see.

The pork knuckle, or Pig’s knuckle, literally just a cooked knuckle, or hoof.

Thanks for everything Daniel!

Finally one day we set up my camera at his place and did an interview on his experiences as a traveled blue belt who’s passion for Jiu-Jitsu is so strong even an injury sidelining him for a year wasn’t enough to make him quit. Thank you Daniel for all that you helped me out with for this visit, I hope we meet again someday!

To watch the video, or if you want to watch my previous interviews and travel videos, head over to Panda’s Odyssey YouTube Channel. While you’re there show some love, like, comment, share, maybe even subscribe if you haven’t already. Thanks!

After a short stay in Dusseldorf it was time to venture off to Hamburg, where I would meet Ana and her club Nexus Fighter, then be kidnapped by her daughters, but you’ll have to wait for that adventure.

Off to Hamburg, with no place to sit on the train.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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Orlando – Great training and People

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Leaving Miami, we headed up the centre of Florida to Orlando, we opted to take the smaller back roads up around Lake Okeechobee to see more of the Florida countryside. We had only planned to visit Orlando for about 4 days to visit some friends and get a little bit of training in.

Upon arriving in the afternoon, we dropped our gear of at our Airbnb and headed to Disney Springs to meet up with the Elam family. They had just moved back to the USA from living in Australia for a number of years most recently in Newman where their children had trained Jiu-Jitsu with us. It was great to see familiar faces and the kids were so happy to see each other, telling stories and running around the different shops.

Checking out Disney Springs

Sitting on Captain America

The next day we headed to Gatorland, a park filled with Alligators and other wildlife. We ended up spending a full day here as it was so much fun, you can get a bag full of hotdogs that you can feed to the Alligators. We all tried our hands at Alligator wrestling which was a lot easier that some of the rolls I’ve had on this trip, they pretty much just lay there and let you sit on them.

Kobe Gator Wrestling

Lilly Gator Wrestling

The following day we decided to get some training in, we headed to Orlando Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is where 9x World champion Bruno Malfacine trains and teaches. We all took classes and had an absolute blast, both Dee and I felt though we had learnt so much in just one class. Bruno has a very simple strategic way of teaching complex concepts. We were also both lucky enough to roll with Bruno, that in itself was an experience, we rolled for 10min and I think I only saw him twice. The rest of the time I just saw flashes of his Gi as he moved around me. That night we went home and decided we needed to extend our time here and we also wanted to catch up more with the Elam Family.

Rolling with Bruno

We spent the rest of the week training with the Alliance team at Orlando Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Both Lilly and Kobe loved it there, they were always playing around with Bruno and the guys. It was also great to see someone of Bruno’s calibre spending time teaching the kids classes. Jonathan Satava was also visiting from Marcelo’s in New York. Bruno had Jonathan teach one of the NoGi classes and he taught some north south choke gold! Some great details that I will be defiantly taking away from his class and adding into my game.

Lilly and Kobe with Bruno

Awesome class

Me and Jonathan Satava

Saturday had come around and after training we were contemplating what to do on Sunday. At around midnight we made the decision that we would go to Universal world. We had already done Disney and as we only had a day Universal seemed the better option. The kids were already asleep so we set the alarms to wake us up in 5 hours. Now waking them in the morning felt like Christmas they had no idea beforehand that we were going to go, they were absolutely ecstatic.

Jaws!

We ended up spending 12hrs there between the two parks, we all had a great time walking around and riding all the rides. We managed to avoid all the big roller coasters as Lilly and Kobe were not that excited about them, pretty sure they were still having flashbacks from the Guardians of the Galaxy ride in Disney California. Overall we were very impressed with the parks. Kobe absolutely loved Jurassic park and Lilly the Harry Potter rides and areas. At about 4pm the Florida weather kicked in and the rain started bucketing down, this unfortunately closed a few of the rides but we continued to walk around and ride what we could. At the end of the day we were very wet and exhausted! we had walked a little over 20km, seen and done so much. It was a great day and the kids won’t stop talking about it.

Jurassic Park

Transformers

As Monday rolled in we headed back to training, Lilly had also been doing the kids striking classes while we were there. Lilly can’t seem to get enough of training, I swear she would roll all day if we would let her. Kobe is also super keen to train all the time but when his class is over he is happy just to kick back and play on the side of the mat. The team at Orlando BJJ was great we had some of the best training there so far on the trip and were welcomed where we felt part of the team. After our last session at Orlando BJJ we headed off to Wekiwa Springs a natural spring one of the guys at the club had recommended. It was so good after training as the water was freezing as it bubbled out of the large crack in the spring.

Cool Kids class

Us with Bruno

From the spring we headed over to the Elam’s for dinner, the kids had a great time fishing in the pond that was straight out their backdoor. After a great dinner they introduced us to the messy art of pumpkin carving. Kobe lost interest in the first 5 minutes so I  ended up finishing it for him, Lilly had a great time doing it.  We worked out Dee was the best person and scraping out the insides of the pumpkin……It was probably more the fact that no one else wanted to do it so we just kept praising her so we didn’t have to hahaha.

Messy Pumpkin carving

End result!

Orlando was super cool, one of the perks of having an open itinerary for this trip is that we could extend our stay there and not miss these opportunities.

-Woody

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Rolling and railing west

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I thought the team in Moscow was big. Turns out Serbia is the real home of Europe’s largest grapplers.

In mid-September I began a rail journey across Eastern and Central Europe, starting in Greece, then heading to Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and Czech Republic.

Kimura Jiu Jitsu Academy in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, was my first stop. The club is located in the bottom floor of a gym with a weights room above and crossfit below. It’s a super well-equiped and maintained site with murals and plenty of staff.

Guillaume the coach is brilliant, he was very welcoming and even did the lesson in english for my benefit. The class was very thorough with detailed warm ups, followed by takedowns, drills, techniques and rolling.

The team has a lot of big guys, I was arm-rest height for most of them, but they were super technical and did not need to rely on their pressure or weight. There’s only one thing scarier than a big guy on the mat – that’s a big guy who rolls like a small one. 

IMG_4735.jpg

Next was Jungle BJJ in Split.

These guys are a pretty new club, very warm and welcoming. It was a team of mostly white belts but super motivated and hungry to learn. Their gym offers a number of combat sports and wrestling was happening when I arrived.

IMG_4995.jpg

My final stop was Hungary’s Carlson Gracie Team in Budapest.

It’s a large city, so I expected a strong team, but they surpassed my expectations. They are super professional but also really good mates.

Everyone who came through the door greeted each other with a handshake, kiss or hug. Not a small undertaking, when there are 40 or 50 people on the mats. There was a lot of smiling and joking but total focus when training began.

The gym is a large hall, white and very clean, located in the corner of a sports park. It has a vast floor covered in mats marked out for wrestling. There was a strong team of women who traded partners, guided and translated for me. The techniques we worked on where closed guard passing, very clever, slow and heavy, which is what I appreciate. 

IMG_5316.jpg

If you’re a travelling women wanting to roll I would highly recommend this club. I couldn’t get over the kindness they showed each other and myself, one of the girls even dropped me home afterwards.

This Tuesday I land in London for my biggest test yet – picking a team not for a casual roll – but the one to become the next full-time home for me and my pink gi. 

Miami… In the Aftermath

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We have been up to so much and having heaps of fun, I’m a little behind on the blog so there will a far bit coming soon! here is our time in Miami.

We began the journey south to Florida after leaving Charlotte. We spent most of the day driving down the east coast through North and South Carolina and stopping for the night in the small coastal city of Brunswick in Georgia. We stayed in a small Airbnb cabin for the night to break up the trip, this is where the world’s greatest game of family UNO took place. I won every game, but don’t ask Dee and the kids because I’m sure they will lie and say something different.

In the morning we continued south to Miami, upon driving through the city you could still see some of the devastation that hurricane Irma had left just 2 weeks before we arrived. Down trees, power lines and missing roofs were common sights along still flooded streets.

The next day we headed to Miami Fight Sports, this is Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu’s academy. On the way there we were introduced to Miami’s terrible traffic…. 50 min to travel 15 miles, thankfully we always leave very early to get to training. Lilly and Kobe took part in the kids NoGi class which was a little quiet with only 3 other children in the class, this didn’t stop them having a great time. Dee and I took part in the Adults class which was absolutely packed. Unfortunately, Cyborg was still in Finland following ADCC so the class was run by Denis “Deninho” Mitchel. It was a very cool class filled with half guard passing strategies.

Lilly and Kobe warming up for class

Packed Adult class

Kangaroo jumping

The following day we hit Miami Beach and ended up walking around where we found a nice little juice bar and got the best Acai bowls. It was very hot in Miami and with all the water still around the humidity was very high. We found that a lot of the attractions and parks where closed as they were still cleaning up after the hurricane, so there wasn’t a heap to do while where there. We took Lilly and Kobe to the Miami Children’s Museum, they had the best time! We all enjoyed the interactive exhibits and I’m sure both the kids learnt a lot there.

During our stay in Las Vegas we had trained with David Avellan, he had told us about his school in Miami that his brother Marcos is now running. We decided to go and check it out and headed to the Freestyle Fighting Academy, we were quite surprised to find out that it is a 24hr MMA and fitness gym that even had grappling classes at 11pm. We immediately clicked with everyone there and as David recommended we train there we warmly welcomed. We ended up spending the majority of our training time in Miami here. The kids had a great time training in the packed classes with coach Che Moreno.

With coach Che

We ended up doing a lot of NoGi which Dee and I were quite happy about seeing as Miami was so hot. Jason Soares ran all our classes while there which was fantastic as he was able to take over where I had been with David in Vegas on the Kimura trap. I got so much out of training with Jason and the guys at FFA and was very glad we followed David’s advice, as to be honest we would have never really headed there otherwise. If you are looking for some solid NoGi grappling in Miami look no further than FFA.

Dee and I with Jason

Learning the finer points

On the weekend we decided to head to the Everglades National Park, we couldn’t enter from the side that we wanted as due to Hurricane Irma the water level in the park had risen to where the water was now over the park entrance road. We opted out of driving another hour to get around the other side of the park and decided to check out the Everglades Safari Park that was still operating. Upon arrival we boarded one of the tours and got to enjoy the park tearing around on a Airboat. When the tour ended we got a quick alligator show where Kobe got one of his wishes, which was to hold real Alligator, Lilly was pretty stoked as well!

Airboat Selfie

Dee and Lilly

Holding an Alligator!!!!

We thought about cancelling the Miami trip but we’re very glad we decided to head there as we had a great time!!

-Woody

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Back to Basics in Bulgaria

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Travelling across Asia and Europe for the past seven months and constantly switching gyms has been amazing. It’s allowed me to experience tons of variations of high-level techniques, spar with amazing training partners and even pick up a few secret moves. But, it’s also destroyed my fundamentals.

I practiced acrobatic De La Riva to X-guard sweeps in Bangkok for a week, switched to drilling single leg variations in Belgrade, and then tested my rubber guard at an MMA gym in Prague. I’ve added tons of new tricks to my bag. But over the past few months, I started to notice I was having more trouble than normal in sparring. I was screwing up basic combo setups, pulling off a simple hip heist and even escaping white belts’ loose side control. All my cool new techniques are useless If I can’t get in position to use them or even keep myself from being tapped every 30 seconds.

 

Working with White Belts at Twisted Jiu Jitsu

I needed to settle down, find a good gym with dedicated training partners and work the essentials. Luckily, I found Twisted Jiu Jitsu in Sofia, Bulgaria. Their fundamentals noon class fit perfectly with my work schedule and I came in 2-3 times a week for all of September. Back home, I’d consider that slacking but it was much more regimented than my past few months of catching flights, partying and getting over injuries.

I was usually surrounded by white belts and occasionally a blue or two would show up. It was exactly what I needed.

I was also able to meet up with a fellow BJJ Globetrotter Robert Barker at Twisted Jiu Jitsu

Working with new BJJ athletes let me focus on the things like hip control, creating the space I need to move and refresh my simple sweeps and submissions. Also, as every higher belt knows, training with and teaching a less-experienced partner really helps you focus on the small things that make simple techniques effective even against experienced grapplers.

Easy taps during sparring was a confidence booster for sure, but even more helpful was identifying the mistakes they were making and realizing I was doing the same thing. These rolls really helped me tighten up my game to were it used to be before all this travel.

At the end of the month, I felt much more secure in my abilities and felt safe reverting to more basic techniques when they were needed. Sometimes you just need to stop trying to learn Youtube worthy moves and just get back to the foundation those techniques are built on top of.

 

October 2017 newsletter

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Heidelberg & Mannheim Germany

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Greetings from Heidelberg & Mannheim Germany! (15-20 June 2017)

The train rode up to Heidelberg from Friedrichshafen was an enjoyable one, watching all the fields of hops and apples and pears pass by as we whizzed through the beautiful country side. Once I got to Heidelberg I had to take another train, only about 10-15 minutes long, to the next town over as I couldn’t find a place to stay in Heidelberg itself that was within my price range. In between Heidelberg and Mannheim there is a small town of mostly industrial areas called Friedrichsfeld, this is where i stayed in a cheap badly run motel. I had originally planned to stay in Heidelberg and had found the perfect Airbnb in town but a problem arose when I tried booking it. Apparently my account had been suspended.

I think this whole problem might have gone back to when my credit card had fraudulent charges on it when I was in Spain. Charges were made to Airbnb and Expedia and although those charges were ultimately reversed I think maybe Airbnb traced that card back to my account, even though it was other account the charges were made from, and suspended my account to be safe. This is all just my own personal theory as it took a week for Airbnb to get back to me and the only thing they said that it was suspended in error and I should now be able to use my account as normal. Of course by this time the perfect listing was gone and nothing showing was within my price range for the visit. This led to me looking at Mannheim for available places and given that there were other summer events going on during my visit there wasn’t much out there. That’s how I ended up in this small industrial town in a motel whose staff were only around for 4 hours a day and was full of loud party people who sat and drank and smoke directly outside my window until late every night.

To Airbnb’s credit I sent them an e-mail explaining that because of their actions, and failure to notify me of suspending my account so that this error could have been caught and fixed sooner, I now had to spend a lot more money on my visit. To which they replied with a coupon to make up for the extra spending, a small coupon at first but when I told them how much it was costing me in the end they actually went the extra mile and gave me a coupon that covers the full difference. That is far and beyond anything I would expect from any hotel or online booking company so I will gladly stay as a customer for them, thank you Airbnb for going this for me. I’ve held on the coupon and look to use it when I get to Australia or New Zealand, where the exchange rate for me is not so good and I could really use a free place to stay.  

Wandering Around the Cities

Because I was staying outside of town, stuck in middle of either, I didn’t get out and wander too much but I did manage to take a few photos of both Mannheim and Heidelberg while I was out either using the free wifi at Starbucks in Mannheim or doing laundry at the one laundromat in Heidelberg.

The Wasserturm in Mannheim. An old tower from the last 1800’s.

The park behind it.

The Neckar river that runs through Heidelberg.

A pretty cool water fountain I found In Heidelberg.

The Neckar with the Heidelberg Castle in the background.

A night time shot of the castle, I actually took this during the Globetrotters camp.

As usual I have more photos of my visit that can see on my Flickr Account.

Training in Mannheim – SDS Academy

The first gym I was able to visit was in Mannheim at the Spiros Defense System or SDS Academy which has Kickboxing and Kung Fu and other martial arts styles as well as BJJ. Spiro himself is a tall lanky guy who is really fit and runs a tough class. He was happy to have me visit and welcomed me in and showed me around the place. The building has 2 floors and a basement, I only went up to the second floor to use the toilet and don’t remember what else is up there but the main floor was all mats and bags for kickboxing and other classes. The basement was also all mats and where the Jiu-Jitsu classes were held. The other classmates were pretty quiet and I didn’t talk too much with them until end of class when one of the guys passed me on the street and gave me a ride back to where I was staying and even showed me where was good to grab some food, but in class there wasn’t too much talking, we were too busy training.

Spiros had a very active warm up and drilling class sections for class. I can’t remember when the last time I did so many crunches and sit ups in one class, I would have to go back to basic training in the military. I got through it though and my De La Riva and X-Guard sweeps are better for it. I did over work my groin and hamstrings though and I could only roll once before I had to stop and just watch. Thanks for the hard class and tight techniques Spiros, until we meet again!

Training in Heidelberg – Team Choco

One person I talked to a lot about planning my visit to Heidelberg was fellow Globetrotter Ruadhán, an Irishman living in Germany who trains everyday at both clubs in Heidelberg. To say this guy is in shape in an understatement. The main club Ruadhán trains at is Team Choco BJJ Heidelberg which is primarily a no gi club. The club trains in a downstairs room inside a community center, or I think it was a community center, maybe it was a college building. I met Ruadhán at the main station and he brought me to the club, and given traffic we were in a rush so I just followed him downstairs to the class and honestly forget where exactly I was.

The guys were all welcoming of a new visitor, and although they were all young athletic students none of them went too hard running circles around me. We trained some chain movements and worked some take downs that night. I find take downs are covered a lot more in no gi than gi and for a lot of lower belts getting into gi competition that’s where they suffer because of the lack of training in them. I myself use a lot more no gi style take downs for my game simply because I have more experience training them. During rolling some worked from standing and tried the take downs we drilled in class live. I also went a round or two with Ruadhán purely just working grips and controlling techniques which fun to do and also a lot of work, Ruadhán is a fast mover and it was all I could to do to try and keep up. There was another class starting up after we were done, I believe it was a wrestling class, but I was too tired to keep up and participate in that so I called it a day. It was great meeting the club and finally getting to train with Ruadhán, thanks for the great training guys, and thanks for all the help Ruadhán!

BJJ Heidelberg

Another club that I trained with, and actually hung out with the most, was BJJ Heidelberg. The head coach is Ben, a blue belt who’s far over due for his purple, through Ruadhán I met him as well as Mina and Jan and the rest of the club. Before ever making it out to training I spoke with Mina about meeting up in town and showing me around. As it happens, one of the many events seemingly going on at the exact time I was visiting was the big summer party at a fortress called the ‘Handschuhsheimer Kerwe’ involving food, mainly sausage, fries, salads, and lots of strawberries.There were all sorts of strawberry drinks, some alcoholic some not, and as we entered the place we were given free drinks of it and could pick up more at the night went on. I don’t what the party was in celebration of, it was mid summer so I don’t think it was for a good harvest, but no matter the reason it was a lot of fun to be a part of. There was a dance floor and music being played, once people got enough drinks into them it filled up and it was very amusing watching some people really get into the songs. I especially found the one shirtless air guitar guy who was oblivious to the girls wanting to dance with him as tried giving the most realistic air guitar performance he could a captivating show. After the first night out of meeting everyone at the party I now had new friends to look forward to training with.

At the Handschuhsheimer Kerwe with the club.

Mina and Jan also hosted a BBQ over the weekend that I went to and met more of the club like Quentin, a huge American living in Germany who may be a white belt but his knowledge and experience in sports and as a sports trainer (check out Coach Q’s page!) give him the ability to soak up and process the techniques being taught and dissect them faster than anyone else I’ve trained with. Training with the group was fun, the club held classes in a community center that had a huge wrestling  room so they had all the space they could want to train in. They were killers and I was kept on my toes playing defense with them all. The techniques we train were a fun chain, Ben was great at coaching and with Quentin as my training partner we were able to make everything work for us big, not so flexible Jiu-Jitsueros. There was a great energy with this club, both on and off the mats, that just fueled them to keep going, talking all night at the party, rolling all night at class. I had to stop at class during the rolling because I just couldn’t keep up with them. It was great training with them but they were machines and I was wore out. Maybe that was their plan all along, bring me out to a festival and over to their house and feed me full of wonderful German meats so I’m slow and unable to defend against them. That sounds like a good explanation and I’m sticking with it! Seriously thanks so much for everything guys, it’s always a pleasure training with you and I hope we see each other again soon! And thanks again for the tasty burgers Mina and Jan!

After having such a great time that while staying in a motel I really didn’t enjoy I still left wishing I could stay another week and hangout with everyone it was time to move on. At least I had the BJJ Globetrotters Fall Camp to look forward to as it was held in Heidelberg and I was able to see everyone again, but you’ve already read about how awesome an experience that was (read it again here). I packed my bag, jumped on the train and headed for Dusseldorf to meet up with a fellow Globetrotter, Daniel, to train with his club, but that’s another story.

Until next time,

see you on the mats!

OSSS!!

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