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BJJ in Moldova

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My Moldovan adventures have now come and gone, and I’m gearing up to take off back to the States, my home and my team. Greg and I wound up hitching a ride from Galati, Romania to Giurgiulesti, Moldova with some older dude with one of the most awesome cars I’ve ever ridden in. Greg was really set on having a sign written on cardboard, and low-and-behold it wound up working. We got to Giurgiulesti no problem, got ourselves on a bus with wifi, and got to Cahul with about an hour to spare before my first seminar.

The training studio in Cahul was constructed in something of an L shape which was a little awkward to work with, but I rolled with it. There were maybe 15 people all together for the seminar, around ⅓ of them being kids. I taught an evolving series, starting out with some very basic, self-defense-specific techniques that I don’t think anyone had really seen before. Then I showed how these self-defense positions evolved into some of the more sporty guards we see in BJJ competitions today. I had to make some modifications for the kids who weren’t quite able to invert in lasso guard.

At the end of the session, Sandu handed out some promotions. He’s officially a black belt now, which of course means that he can finally promote his own students. He first handed out some stripes, then a couple of his kids received their yellow belts. Finally, he was able to award his first blue belts to some of his sandbaggers. I had a tough time with his future blue belts during our rolls after class, so it was pretty obvious that the blue belt was very well-deserved for all of them.

That evening, we went back to Burlacu for the night. Deep down, this was the leg of the trip that I was looking forward to the most. Burlacu is the village where I lived for a little over two years as a Peace Corps volunteer over ten years ago, and I started the first BJJ in Moldova. Sandu was just some little annoying punk kid at the time, so it’s pretty obvious as to the progress he’s made over the years. But I was also pleasantly surprised to see that there had also been a number of positive developments in the village and in the lives of people I had known years ago. Of course there were some sad things that had happened as well, but I’m going to spare everyone these stories as they’re honestly probably not that interesting to the average BJJ fighter.

I will say though, that it was a little disappointing to see that there was no more BJJ in Burlacu. The original mats I had gotten as one of my Peace Corps projects were long gone, and there was unfortunately not much desire on anyone’s part to train jiu-jitsu. I suppose this is only natural though. A friend of mine and former PC volunteer estimated that maybe 1 in 100 programs in Moldova actually reach any level of sustainability, and this is probably fairly accurate. I suppose that I can consider myself pretty lucky to have had the success that I did have. Furthermore, it helped to solidify and reinforce my path as an instructor, and I’m very thankful for my time spent in Burlacu.

After one full day of “doing the village thing”, we got the early-morning public transport to Chisinau. It was standing room only for about a solid hour before enough people got off and we got our own seats. We met up with Sandu at the bus station, and spent the day walking around the city. Not much had changed since I last visited Chisinau over 4 years ago, and this was comforting for me somehow.

My next seminar was set to be held at Sandu’s new gym location in the Botanica section of Chisinau. This team consisted mostly of unsmiling, Moldovan MMA mutant fighters with shaved heads. I’m pretty sure that if you calculated the collective total mass of their cauliflower ears it would be equal to about half of my body weight. I had planned to show a series from the cross sleeve grip from half guard, but I was lucky if half of the guys at the gym had gis on. This factor along with the Eastern European tendency to want to see only the most awesome moves at an unorganized, rapid-fire pace, didn’t make for a satisfying teaching session. Hopefully they were able to get something out of it, but in the end I felt a little discouraged overall.

We got some rolls in afterwards, and again there were promotions. Most of the guys had strong wrestling and/or sambo backgrounds, so on top of being physical specimens all around, these guys were very tough to roll with. I don’t remember being able to tap anybody on the mats that night. Of course I rolled with Sandu and of course he made sure to kick my ass nice and good. Can’t let some punk brown belt beat the black belt instructor, you know.

Overall, the pace of sparring/rolling in every country and gym I’ve been to out here has been very intense. Probably the least-intense gym I rolled at was the Chisinau gym. At the camp in Bulgaria pretty much every single person I rolled with was absolutely trying to murder me; leg locks, cranks, even smother submissions were all good and all applied as if my opponents were in the finals of the IBJJF Mundials. This definitely isn’t the type of pace I try to keep at my gym, but I have no judgements against others who want to train this way. In my opinion, you become far more adept at developing technique and finding creative solutions to bad spots if you just try and change directions when you reach roadblocks instead of blasting through them. But, hey, that’s just my opinion I suppose.

We did some no-gi training the next day, and thankfully I wasn’t the guy in charge. We went over some super fancy ashi garami leg lock transitions, and I got some good, fast-paced rolls in with everyone. We did some dynamic stretching and went over to one of the guy’s house and had a barbecue… if that’s what you want to call it. In reality it was just a fire made with wood from some old furniture with a grill grate set up on some rebar set on some concrete rubble. Easily one of the more bootleg grilling experiences I’ve ever had, which is saying a lot.

We did some weight training the next morning and then we set out to the train station for our 5pm train to Bucharest. We rode all night in our mobile sauna and got into Bucharest at 6 in the morning. It was a little sad to see the train in such a bad state; despite the fact that it was the weekend, probably less than half the cabins even had people in them, and one car was void of people altogether, and unlike the little village buses there was no wifi at all. The train trip over the border is easily one of my fondest memories of traveling back and forth from Romania to Moldova, but I’m not sure how much longer that rickety thing is going to be around.

Our whirlwind trip is almost over. We’ve got to get Greg to the airport tonight, and then I leave out at about 8pm tomorrow night. It’s been really great to be out here again and this is an experience I’ll never forget. I’ll write more on how things turned out later, but the feeling for me now is that this trip is definitely winding down.

1st Moldovan BB_white and black belt

Moldova’s First Resident Black Belt

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It’s really been quite a whirlwind over the past couple days, replete with sleep deprivation, missed connections and uncomfortable car rides. My travel buddy has been holding up remarkably well, and I’m glad to have him along for this trip. I suppose he’s the one who asked for an adventure, and that’s pretty much what he’s been getting thus far. I’ll come back to some more of this here shortly while I still have a little time to write, but let me first highlight a fairly significant milestone in our trip thus far.

Robert Drysdale recently wrote an article about how coaching BJJ actually really sucks. His reasoning is that you pour your heart and soul into your students but in the end you don’t get much back from it. While I appreciate his candor and I do empathize with him on many points he made in his article, in the end, I feel that coaching BJJ really isn’t for everyone. Sure, I’m no Robert Drysdale and there’s a good chance that neither any of my students nor I will ever achieve the competition accolades of Team Drysdale, but I think that if that is your only criteria for success in Jiu-Jitsu as a sport, art, discipline or even lifestyle, then your coaching experience very much might suck in the end.

Not many admittedly amateur-level BJJ coaches are lucky enough to have the opportunity to see their students all the way to black belt. There are still fewer, if any, who happen to be lower in rank than their students when they receive their black belts in one of the most difficult, yet efficient, martial arts in the world.

Two days ago I was able to be present as one of my first students in BJJ reached the black belt level, and I can’t put into words what an incredibly rewarding and non-sucky experience it was. Perhaps it is because I’m actually not a world champion and a BJJ nobody that I felt this way, but regardless, it helped to renew my drive to want to see more of my students doing positive things with their lives, and the lives of others through jiu-jitsu, regardless of whether or not they ever make it to the black belt level.

Bobby and Sandu on the day that Sandu got his black belt

I think what makes this story even better is that Sandu doesn’t want to leave his home country. Who knows how many Moldovan BJJ black belts there are out there in the world? Sandu and I tried to name the ones we knew about, but it’s probably only a small fraction. As I explained in a previous post, Moldovans are absolutely almost everywhere, and many of them excel in their new communities across the globe. What’s so great about Sandu’s situation is that he’s chosen to stay at home and develop BJJ in his own country, in his own community. Luckily, he’s not alone though. There are now probably at least 200 Moldovan BJJ fighters who continue to train and be a part of the development of BJJ in Moldova.

At the Bugaria BJJ Camp on the day that Sandu got his black belt

So, back to one of my other students: I really can’t say enough about how flexible and easy-going my travel buddy, Greg, has been this whole trip. He’s really turned out to be a valuable asset and not just a tag-along partner on our Eastern European adventure. He’s done everything from being smashed into a back seat in a vehicle for hours at a time, to haggling unsuccessfully with surly train ticket people, to getting almost eaten by Romanian street dogs and everything in between. I knew very little about Greg before we set out on this adventure, but I’m glad that he’s the one who’s with me (although I do miss my wife of course ;)).

All right. I’d love to expound on some of the adventures we’ve been having, but we’re going to need to be setting off on yet another exciting Eastern European past time: international hitch hiking. Greg has been fairly insistent on his desire to hitch a ride with random people, so today we’re setting out to snag a ride over the Romanian-Moldovan border. We’ve made it to the border town of Galati, Romania which is where I’m writing from right now. We have a loose plan of wandering down the road with our hand extended (and not the thumb, as is the custom here) flagging cars down and crossing our fingers we can get to Cahul in time for my seminar tonight.

Team Burlacu with their newly minted logo and tshirts. This is the team that Sandu coaches.

I’ll be conducting two seminars in Moldova, one in Cahul and one in Chisinau, and this will be my first-ever paid gig. Sandu’s charging roughly $3 per person, so I guess you could say that stuff’s getting pretty serious for me now. But, this is all contingent on us getting through the border, presumably not hitching a ride with some sort of high-level smuggler or something. So this has to be it for me for now. Stay tuned!

Sozopol

Sozopol, Bulgaria

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Finally, this is officially a travel blog. It only took roughly 44 hours to get from my home in Asheville, to our first BJJ travel destination in Bulgaria. All of my flight connections happened remarkably as-planned, as did our bus connection in Bucharest to get down to the Black Sea coast here in Bulgaria. My sketchy-looking passport got me through all the borders with flying colors, so I’ve naturally grown a little more confident in its powers. My trusty travel buddy had one hic-up, but luckily he wasn’t delayed too long and he’s here with me.

Black Sea coastal town of Sozopol, Bulgaria

We arrived just in time for the no-gi class this morning, fresh off an overnight 9-hour maxi-taxi ride down the Bulgarian coast. Unfortunately we weren’t able to make it for the camp headliner yesterday evening. Now it’s solely up to the Romanians to help us take our BJJ games to the next level. I had fun drilling and rolling with some new people, but honestly the jetlag and overall lack of a good night’s sleep is dragging me down, man. I can’t wait to sleep in a real bed tonight; I’m having a difficult time keeping my eyes open while writing this blog despite doing all I can to get my circadian rhythms in check, like drinking plenty of water and getting some sun exposure.

The beach in Sozopol, Bulgaria

My former student, Sandu, brought 4 of his students down from Moldova with him. I’ve had the opportunity to roll with one so far and he’s really good. It’s been over 4 years since I’ve rolled with Sandu, and he’s a lot better now too; lots of new, good stuff he’s added to his game. I’m looking forward to gi training tonight as my no-gi skills are admittedly sub-par.

Our hotel with the Bulgarian and European Union flags flying high

Our accommodations are fairly basic yet comfortable. The view out our hotel room window leaves a bit to be desired, but at least we’re only a 10-minute walk from the beach. I’ll be doing some hard-core hand washing of all my training clothes for the next week and a half. I’ll consider myself fortunate that I at least have a shower and lukewarm water to work with. I’m not sure I’ll be so lucky in Moldova, but we’ll see. More on that later. Time to put my gi on!

Girls BJJ Program in Burlacu

Katia

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Katia’s story represents one of my many failures in jiu-jitsu. As the old adage goes, “you either win or you learn,” but I can’t help but feel that we actually lost something in this case, and as a result, I feel like this loss was far more profound than the lesson learned.

When I started the BJJ program in Burlacu, Moldova in 2006, the only interest we were able to garner with any reliability was from pre-teens. Initially after hearing that my Peace Corps assignment would be Moldova, I’d had dreams of training sambo in some sort of post-Soviet, long-abandoned bunker with some of the best, yet long-forgotten legendary sambo and judo fighters in a long-forgotten part of the former Soviet Union. Much to my chagrin, I was stuck, once again, working with kids.

Traditionally, curiosity and interest in BJJ and other fighting arts has always come primarily from boys and from men. It was (and is) no different in Moldova. Even after I successfully jumped over all the necessary hurdles of getting mats to the gym and getting permission to run a free BJJ program, the only people who showed up were the kids, and more specifically, the boys.

Boys - the majority of my BJJ students

A few months in, this all changed. Some of the older girls in some of my health education classes started to express interest in training BJJ, but they were reluctant to train with the boys. This was understandable, and I wanted to foster their interest in jiu-jitsu, so I decided to create a separate training session for the girls in the village: I had 3 days a week where I trained the boys, and 3 days a week where I trained the girls.

The girls’ classes were predictably sparse compared to the boys’ classes. Many of the boys wanted to train more often, but I really wanted a girls’ program (as is the case in many countries, Moldovan women tend to get the short end of the stick in life when compared to men, and if anybody really NEEDS to be training BJJ it’s women). My daydream visions of training with Igor Vovchanchyn (look him up, kids!) in a former iron factory were soon replaced with myself, matside at the IBJJF Worlds, coaching the first Moldovan blue belt champion of any gender in the finals.

Little girls on the first day of school in Moldova

On good days, I would have up to 12 girls on the mats at one time. On bad days, nobody showed up to train at all. The training itself was a little more talkative. A little more casual. And, inevitably, a little less jiu-jitsu was happening during training. But, whatever. Whatever gets people on the mats, right? I could have cared less if girls were showing up because their friends were there, or they just wanted to create a girls-only type space, or if they just wanted to listen to the dishy American guy with his awkward accent try and explain the efficacy of distance control. I think that in the end, it was just something new and different that was available to help break up their otherwise uninteresting day in the village. But, we were getting girls on the mats!

A kids class with a few girls even!

One day, the only girl who showed up to train was Katia. Katia was my (ca. 15-year-old) next-door neighbor in the village, so we had a good number of positive, informal interactions with each other. She was always a bubbly, positive, enthusiastic person to be around, and she was a welcomed presence in my BJJ classes. At this point, I had been working with kids for about 2.5 years, and under normal (American) circumstances, I would have known better than to find myself alone somehow with an underage girl, no matter how unremarkable the situation. But, I thought, “this is not America… and it’s just Katia anyway”. It was then that I made the fateful decision to continue with our session.

I don’t remember exactly what we were working on when the school groundskeeper/security guy walked into the gym, but everyone reading this post most likely knows that BJJ looks much different than karate. He didn’t say anything and we continued with the lesson and went home as usual.

The next day, the gossip mill was churning hard. Still to this day I have no idea what this guy said to whom, but all I know is that starting that day we had no more girls’ BJJ in Burlacu. I remember confronting the security guy about the alleged incident and he swore he didn’t say anything to anybody that would have been taken scandalously. This is what he says, of course. At the time I remember feeling a little relieved, as I would no longer have to hold these seemingly trivial classes that were taking time out of my afternoons of texting my girlfriend and playing solitaire on my computer. With hindsight being 20/20 though, I feel like I lost half of a generation of people who would have otherwise gone on to shape the path of their nation’s BJJ journey.

Katia with me on Burlacu Sports Day when I won a sheep

Even though jiu-jitsu effectively ended for the foreseeable future for all girls in Burlacu on that day, Katia, luckily, has gone from being a bright, bubbly high school student to being a bright, bubbly mom and librarian in her husband’s community, not far from where she grew up. We’ve continued to correspond to some degree over the years and as most teachers can tell you, it’s a very rewarding experience to see your former students doing well in life. I’m hoping to get the chance to go visit Katia while I’m on this trip and at least catch up.

Katia and her family present day

Stay tuned!