"The only BJJ team out there dedicated 100% to just do cool stuff" |
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BJJ Globetrotters Newsletter // June 2014 |
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| Dear Globetrotters,
What a month! I was getting tired of waiting for my knees to recover after double surgery in September, so I competed a little bit in NAGA Germany. Knees held up fine, but busted my hand, hah! Fortunately, the rest of the Globetrotters kicked ass, and as you can see above, we could celebrate the morning after hang over with style.
Had tons of visitors in my gym this month from all over the world, it is really nice to see the BJJ Globetrotting spirit is still strong and lots of people are traveling by the help of our sport's community.
The Summer Camp is up in just a few weeks from now and things are hectic here to get everything ready. Gonna be a crazy week, can't wait :-)
See you on the mats,
-Christian |
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What you'll find in this month's newsletter:Competition results A bunch of new medals for the Globetrotters, including a gold medal at the Worlds!A Profile of the Summer Camp instructors - Gianni Grippo
- Francisco Iturralde
- Oli Geddes
- Robson BarbosaRaul Secaira: The Guatemalan Globetrotter
Daggi Vinje on BJJ in Norway and Charity Event in the fall
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| | The Globetrotters have been busy competing this month and there have been some great performances. Here are some of the results from around the world. Congrats on all the medals!
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| Jodie Bear won gold in the blue belt division at the British Open on May 18th. Jodie had only been a blue belt for a week, which makes her accomplishment even more impressive. Jodie will be attending the Summer Camp this month. |
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| Ellis Younger also competed at the tournament and won gold. He had four matches and four submission wins. The young Globetrotter has now won 12 of his 13 matches in competition this year! |
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| Summer Camp instructor Kári Gunnarsson won silver in no-gi and gold in the gi in the expert divison at NAGA in Dortmund. Also, the kids team joining took four first places out of four possible! |
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Lennart Steinke and his team competed at the Ansbach Open on the 17th of May - Dirk placed second in his very first tournament
- Alex got silver in the intermediate class
- Katja placed 3rd in the women's open weight
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| The Globetrotters took first place at the Worlds for the first time as Oleg Mostovoi from Moldavia won gold in the white belt division! |
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Bruno Capasso competed at Naples International BJJ Open and came in 2nd in his weight class and 3rd in Open Weight
Bernard Antle won the Ontario open BJJ Championships |
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Got your team patches?
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Profile of the Summer Camp instructors |
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The Globetrotters Summer Camp sold is in only 16 days and although it sold out fairly quickly, there were still a few lucky souls who were quick enough to secure a place. With some top instructors already confirmed, we thought it would be a good idea to introduce some of the high level guys that will be teaching their secrets at the camp.
Gianni Grippo
BJJ Black belt // 6x IBJJF World Champion // 8x IBJJF Pan Am Champion |
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Gianni was an instructor at last years Summer Camp and showed what an outstanding teacher and BJJ player he is. At that time he was widely considered one of the very best brown belts in the world and had won six IBJJF world titles at various belt levels. He received his black belt in January from his instructor, Marcelo Garcia, and has already won gold in the black belt division at the Pan Ams, as well as collecting three additional gold medals as a black belt.
At just 21 years of age, he's already trained for 10 years (I hope you feel as old as I do reading that!). Gianni's game could perhaps be described as 'new school' as he utilizes a lot of berimbolo, 50/50 and leg drags. Training with Marcelo Garcia on a daily basis, he also has some pretty sick back control and chokes from the back! Below is a highlight video of Gianni. Apologies for the crappy music, we had nothing to do with that! |
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Francisco Iturralde
BJJ Black belt // 3x World Champion // 3x Pan Am Champion // European Open Champion // Abu Dhabi Pro Champion // NoGi Pan Am Champion |
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Francisco Iturralde from Ecuador is one of the more exciting young black belts at the moment. He's won several Worlds- and Pan Am championships at the lower belt levels, and has several wins as a black belt as well. Coming from a place that is perhaps not best known for producing many high level black belts, he now trains at Alliance in MMA. He cites Fábio Gurgel and Ronaldo 'Jacaré Souza as his biggest influences. Iturralde is a tall and lanky guy with a great guard but he's equally adept at the passing game. His style is quite playful and he has some great sweeps using berimbolo and leg drags.See a highlight video of Iturralde below and make sure to visit his website at www.sinistrobjj.com |
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Oli Geddes
BJJ Black belt // Multiple time IBJJF medalist |
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| Oli Geddes is probably one of the worlds best known British-born black belts and has been a black belt under Roger Gracie since 2011. Oli has been active in the online BJJ community and some of you computer nerds may have bumped into him on various martial arts forums. Oli has a really good half guard and a wicked loop choke, both of which he showed at last years camp. He's an outstanding teacher and really methodical when it comes to the technical aspect of things. Oli is also an extremely active competitor and is planning on competing in 26 (!) IBJJF tournaments this year. Below is a cool video of Oli explaining his philosophy and how it can be difficult to explain to people what it is you actually do, as a BJJ competitor. |
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Robson Barbosa
BJJ Black Belt // FILA World Champion // Swedish Champion // Grapplers Quest European Champion |
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Robson Barbosa is a Brazilian-born black belt under Ricardo Carvalho, who is a Carlson Gracie black belt. He started doing Jiu-Jitsu and Judo at the age of 11 in Brazil. After only training for a few months he started competing and lost his first five matches. He told himself that if he lost one more time, he'd never compete in BJJ again, but fortunately for him (and the rest of the community) he won via armbar. He now lives and trains in Sweden and is an active competitor. Robson has a really playful style and it's a joy to watch him compete.
Below is a fun match from the Copenhagen Open in 2009 which showcases a bit of his style - the confidence on the feet, which comes in large part due to his Judo background, and the playfulness. He's also known to have some very sneaky cross chokes, so the ending is fitting. |
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Raul Secaira: The Guatemalan Globetrotter |
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Hey Juan, thanks for taking the time! Could you perhaps tell me a bit about how you got started in BJJ?
Well its been a very nice experience, I started training back in 2000 in some seminars with master Royce Gracie.
You own a gym in Guatemala, Secaira SFA, correct? Is the BJJ scence big there?
Yeah I have a gym here in Guatemala and everyone is welcome to train with us. In Guatemala the BJJ culture started a couple years ago, lately it has been getting stronger and more people getting involved .
You recently did some training in El Salvador, where you got the chance to meet Juan Miguel and fellow Globetrotter Luis Beers - what was that like?
Yeah I had the pleasure to travel to El Salvador and train with Juan Miguel Iturralde (Older brother of Summer Camp instructor Francisco Iturralde) and Luis Beers. They are very nice people, Juan Miguel is a great teacher explains very nice and detailed. It was a very nice experience to roll with Luis too he’s a very nice friend along with the guys from Alliance in El Salvador.
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Have you done a lot of travelling to train? What places have you visited?
Yes , I've had the blessing of traveling to train and for some fights to Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras.
Why did you decide to become affilliated with the BJJ Globetrotters?
Well I decided to affiliate to the BJJ Globetrotters because we have the same philosophy of training with other guys no matter what team they belong to, because in every gym you train you are gonna learn something different and have the chance to know great people too.
What's your favorite thing about BJJ?
Well they are many things, but the most important right now, that makes you a more humble person, gave me the opportunity to know great people and share something with my wife, something she supports me 100% because she trains and competes too.
Anything else you want to add - do you have anything to say to the other Globetrotters?
That its great to be a BJJ Globetrotter and share the same passion with so much people, and whenever they want to come and train in Guatemala they are more than welcome.
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Daggi Vinje on BJJ in Norway and a Charity Event in the fall |
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What's the BJJ scene like in your area?
BJJ is not that big in Bergen, but it is growing for sure. We have two BJJ teams in the city, and a few other martial arts academies that offer nogi grappling and mma classes.
Apart from in-house team competitions, there are no BJJ competitions in Bergen. Hopefully someone will take on the responsibility and get something started (I´m hoping that Christian Sloper reads this..)
How did you hear about the BJJ Globetrotters?
I read Christians book and really liked his take on things. After finishing the book I sent him an email and asked if he wanted to do a seminar in Bergen. His response was simply "yes" and he came over and did a weekend seminar for us. After getting to know Christian and learning about the BJJ Globetrotters, it was obvious that I had to be part of the awesomeness (and I guess you have to be part of the team to wear the best looking rash guard in the history of the universe).
As far as the team being part of the Globetrotters, Bergen Grappling is a really easy going team with no acceptance for BJJ politics and we don't have a black belt (yet). So the BJJ Globetrotters is a perfect fit for us and it allows our members to travel for BJJ and compete all over the world. Christian has done 3 seminars in Bergen so far, and hopefully he would like to come back and visit us again soon.
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Have you done any BJJ travelling? Do you have any planned in the future?
I have done a little bit of traveling. I went to both the summer and fall camps in 2013, which was great fun. And I always bring my GI with me while traveling for work, so I´ve visited quite a few gyms around the country.
I am going to the summer camp at CSA this year, and a bunch of the guys and girls from the gym are coming as well. I am really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and excited about making some new friends. Copenhagen is awesome in the summer as well, so it can`t go wrong.
You are arranging a big charity event in the fall, could you perhaps tell me a bit about that?
Well, the charity event is taking place on the 16th of november, and it`s alls bout having fun, meeting new people and raising some money for a foundation called Sykehusbarn (children in hospital). The foundation is run by parents with hospitalized children. They do a really good job at taking care of the kids and making things a bit easier by arranging great and fun activities for them. It´s all voluntary work as well so it´s really admirable.
The whole idea was a new years resolution where my girlfriend and I wanted to do something special for someone else. I was at Christians fall camp and participated in the "Roll for life" event, and I figured that it would be cool to do something along those lines. The only problem was that we only have 2 BJJ teams in the city, and I wanted this thing to be a bit bigger. Bergen has a great martial arts scene, and there`s a ton of different martial arts to be found. So I`m trying to set up en event were people from different styles and backgrounds can come together, have fun, and also do something positive for someone who needs it. So far we have plans do to seminars in BJJ, SW, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, Ju jutsu and Judo. All of the instructors are doing this for free, and they have all been really positive to the initiative.
The planning is going quite well, although it is a lot more hectic than I thought. I've never done anything like this before, so I'm kind of learning as I go. Hopefully the event will run smoothly and we´ll manage to raise some money. Fingers crossed.
Anything you want to add?
Not really, except that I am really looking forward to making some new Globetrotter friends at the summer camp (maybe the fall camp as well if I´m able to go).
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