| | BJJ Globetrotters Newsletter // June 2015 | | Dear Globetrotters,
There is a good reason for this months newsletter being a little late. Last week, we had our first ever Party Camp in Copenhagen and it was probably the most hectic week of my life. The amount of training, socializing and partying we managed to squeeze into one week was insane and it is a bit strange to sit here in silence now it is all over. Two months of wait, then we'll do it all again in August with both the Summer Camp in Belgium and USA Camp in New Hampshire. Can't wait! :)
Should you have any questions or inquiries, please feel free to email us on mail@bjjglobetrotters.com or even chat with us directly on Whatsapp: +45 29725007. We are always available and promise to reply right away.
We also recently created an account on Instagram (@bjjglobetrotters), follow us there for updates!
For any stories of people traveling to interesting places to train BJJ, send a mail to newsletter@bjjglobetrotters.com and we'll include it in the next newsletter!
Have a fantastic day, | | | | |
What you'll find in this month's newsletter:
- Masafumi Matsimoto: Taipei, Taiwan is my favorite destination
- 150,000 people in the streets for the Party Camp
- Grappling on the Savannah: Starting BJJ in Kenya
- Sneak preview: The BJJ Globetrotters boat
- Free travel offers from Matsurfing.org
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| | | Check out our upcoming camps around the world! |
| | | | | | Masafumi Matsimoto: Taipei, Taiwan is my favorite destination |
| | | Masafumi in Chiang Mai, Thailand in April 2012 |
| Masafumi Matsimoto is a brown belt who has been travelling quite a lot lately. Last month he visited Yangon BJJ House in Myanmar, a gym that has had a steady stream of BJJ Globetrotters visits, since offering free accommodation to any visiting black belt late last year. Matsimoto is currently in Banglore, India where he took some time out of his busy schedule to talk to us.
Hey Masafumi! Thanks for talking to us. Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m originally from Japan, and a brown belt under Tatsuya Onose. My go-to move is triangle choke, and I rely on spider guard heavily—I hardly do no-gi, but I use spider guard in no-gi as well (i.e. by controlling my opponent’s wrists). That’s how much I use this guard.
I do some translation and copywriting work as a freelancer when I’m not doing BJJ. This gives me flexibility to travel, because I don’t have to be in a certain location to get my work done, though of course it’s not as rosy as it may sound.
When did you start training BJJ, what's your current rank and why did you decide to do BJJ (and not some other martial art)
I started practicing BJJ in June, 2002… in Tasmania, Australia. The reason why I started doing BJJ was pretty simple. When I was a high school student in Japan, I had a friend who was into MMA—Pride, Shooto, and UFC. He told me about the Gracies and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, saying that BJJ would be the best martial art to learn.
Later on, I moved to Australia to go to university, and I happened to find there was a BJJ club at university—so, I thought it would be a good idea to try this thing to learn some fighting skills and to make new friends at the same time.
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| | | Visiting Yangon BJJ House in Myanmar |
| You have been doing a lot of travelling recently to train BJJ. Could you tell us something about that?
I started travel extensively in 2012, mostly around Asia that time. I spent a lot of time in Taipei, Taiwan in 2013 and 2014, as I really like it there.
Right now—I’m on another long trip (i.e. moving around a lot) again. I started this round in Bangkok, Thailand. I taught some classes at Arete, the gym my good friends Andrew and Mitsu run. Then I dropped by BJJ Myanmar for a couple of weeks, followed by competing at Pan Asian in Manila, Philippines, as well as a short visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Now I’m writing this from Bangalore, India, by the way. There are two gyms here, and I highly recommend you to visit these folks if you’re in town.
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| | What's the weirdest/most unexpected thing you've encountered on your travels?
As far as travels are concerned—perhaps getting drugged and getting money stolen from my bank account in Manila in 2012?
Long story short, “friendly” locals helped me get to the hostel I was to stay at, and they invited me to a birthday dinner. I was skeptical about the offer, but it was still early like 6pm, and they were a group of a few old women and one old guy, looking rather harmless. So, I thought I’d be able to run away if something bad happened… and took up the invitation. That turned out to be a terrible mistake, because they used some drug to knock me out, and I have no recollection of what happened. They were pros.
It’s a good story to share now, and I feel like I learned a lesson or two.
Having visited several exciting places, what would you say is your favorite destination so far?
Overall, I’d say Taipei, Taiwan for me. And this is more as a long-term destination. The cost of living and the quality of life are great, and there are some solid BJJ enthusiasts. When I’m in Taipei, I train at Taiwan BJJ, and with my friend Makoto Ogasawara, who is a Nova Uniao black belt and a great friend of mine.
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| | | Do you have future travelling plans?
As of today—I’m traveling in India a bit more, and flying to Singapore for a competition in mid-June. After that, I’ll head to UAE and Iran. That much has been planned. I’ll probably head to Europe via Turkey and all.
Anything you would like to add?
I hope to meet and roll with some of you along the way. I'm working on a website that should be out shortly. There you'll be able to check out my travel notes. Keep an eye out for it at: http://rollaroundtheworld.net |
| | | | | 150,000 people in the streets for the Party Camp |
| | It was a beautiful week in Copenhagen, Denmark for our first ever BJJ Globetrotters Party camp. More than 100 participants from all over the world joined in on six days of hardcore training and party. With five days of intense street festivals in Copenhagen, gathering more than 150,000 people per day, we were actually a bit nervous that the training part of the camp would be neglected. But from the first to the last class of the week, the mats were full and the vibe fantastic.
We ran a good ten hours of classes per day, covering everything from gi, no-gi, competition tactics, rules workshop, t-shirt chokes, how to grapple drunk friends, wrestling, Judo and MMA grappling. A big group of amazing instructors with different backgrounds did a great job of teaching everyone as much as possible. We also arranged an in-house competition as well as promoted a handful of known faces from the camps.
The Distortion festival infected Copenhagen all week as it was moving from neighborhood to neighborhood every day, being followed by 150,000 people. To say it was intense is an understatement.
We hope to do another party camp again next year and hope to see you there!
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| | | | | | | | | | | | | | Super light, super absorbent travel towel now available |
| | | | | Grappling on the Savannah: Starting BJJ in Kenya |
| | Kenya is perhaps not the first place one would associate with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and yet Imran Chaudhry, a native of Mombasa, has been doing BJJ for almost four years now. He first discovered the sport after being taken down at Karate practice. Being unable to defend himself he decided to look up ground fighting on YouTube and has been going strong ever since.
Hello Imran! thank you for taking the time to talk to us. How did you get started in martial arts? I started Martial Arts (Shotokan Karate) in 1996 when i was 12 years old so I've been a student of Martial Arts for a long time. I am a second degree black belt in Shotokan Karate. I have been a junior national karate champion four times as well as kata and kumite senior champion two times. I stopped competing 4 years ago.
I have been doing BJJ for three and a half years now. I came across BJJ after i had a sparring class with one of the karate black belts where I trained. He took me down and i didn't know how to defend myself. I knew something was missing so I googled "how to fight on ground" on YouTube and came across Renzo Gracie clips. So i started like the next day just using YouTube.
What is the BJJ scene like in Kenya?
BJJ is a new thing in my town and country. I have some guys I train with that are pretty good guys, but what I can say is that there is a lot of potential. Most people here know MMA but they don't know the ground game. Kenya is a country where Karate, Tae Kwon Do and a little bit of Judo is known. Tae Kwon Do is probably the most popular one.
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| | | Imran throwing up an armbar on the carpets outside |
| What about the rest of the continent - is it a growing art there? I don't know about other parts of BJJ in Africa, but I've heard some about BJJ in Angola,South Africa and Egypt, but it is definitely growing.
I understand you have no mats - is it hard to train without those? We have an indoor space, which is very much enough but as you say we have no mats. It is very difficult to practice the takedowns and free rolling.We usually just keep used old used carpets on the grass outside. It's not perfect, especially with the throws, but hey it's much better than a cemented floor! :)
How did you hear about the BJJ Globetrotters?
I heard about BJJ Globetrotters from a friend of mine whom we used to train with here, but now he is studying in Ukraine and doing BJJ. He just received his blue belt about three weeks ago.
How do you imagine BJJ in Kenya will look like in five or ten years?
Kenya is a country which is still growing steadily and the good thing about us Kenyans is that we're ready for anything. In five or years, BJJ will be toe to toe with Karate. Add two more years on top of tha and BJJ will be far ahead. BJJ is growing like wild fire. When I was growing up with karate, we never knew about BJJ. I did karate for years and never knew about it. Today it is the main core of MMA.
Is there anything you would like to add?
All i want say is we are a small group who are trying to bring bjj in our society.we dont have the finance to do so but we have the spirit.bjj is a great sport and a greater self defence art. |
| | | Imran Chaudhry and his team alongside a Ukrainian visitor, Alex Lysenko from Gracie Barra |
| | | Sneak preview: The BJJ Globetrotters boat |
| | | Inside of this tent is a boat that will embark on a round-the-world journey for BJJ starting this summer. More about the trip and how you can get on board in one of the coming newsletters ;-) |
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| | Free travel offers from Matsurfing.org |
| | | Every month in this newsletter, we'll be bringing a few of the interesting travel destinations offered by Matsurfing.org. The rest will be published seperately in the monthly Matsurfing email. If you are interested in opening up your own home and/or academy to BJJ travelers, sign up on www.matsurfing.org!
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| Guadalajara, Mexico Host: Josué Wong Báez
Contact email: orreztres@hotmail.com
Can host: 2
The host: I'm 23 years old, a student and BJJ lover. I like to roll every day, and chill. I'm a laid back guy and really love to meet new people and make new friends
The place: Guadalajara is one of the more relevant cities in Mexico. With colonial towns and beaches only a few hours away.
The training: I've got 9 meters of mat on my living room, also I go to the academy two times per day, currently training with two Brazilians black belt's. Sensei Rafael Salomao and Sensei Alejandro Andrade. I've got an empty room in my apartment, |
| Palermo/Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy
Host: Ruben Stabile
Contact email: rubenstabile@hotmail.com
Can accommodate: 2-3
The host: I'm a university student and train in bjj under the first BJJ team founded in Sicily. I also move around Sicily for teaching and train BJJ.
The place: I live in Palermo and go to University there. Palermo is one of the biggest city in Italy and one of the more ancient. The city is full of monuments made by the different colonialists like French, Spanish, Arabian and outside of the city even Fenician and Ancient Greek. My hometown is Castellammare del Golfo. It's a beautiful place for is natural reserve. We have a lot of beautiful beaches and so many place for who likes trekking, climbing or other kind of this. I can host in both place
The training: The visitor can train principally both in Palermo or Castellammare/Alcamo (the two towns are very close each other), at our team headquarters in Marsala or even around Sicily in other our teammate. I recommend looking for some pictures of Castellammare del Golfo on Google. It's a beautiful place if you like a travel for nice and very clean sea and warm weather!
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| Asunción, Paraguay
Host: Pamela Carolina Boveda Aguirre
Contact email: pamela.boveda@gmail.com
Can accommodate: 2
The host: I am from Paraguay, and live in Asuncion. I'll be staying here for some months. My brother is in Ciudad del Este (another town in Paraguay approx. 330km away) so it is also an
option to stay with him.
I am a purple bet for almost 1 year and a half, and i am also an Aerospace Engineer and professional MMA fighter (4-1). Soon me and my boyfriend will start traveling around. I've been using couch surfing for more than 7 years so i think i can say (with 130 positive references) that I'm trustful.
The place: Asuncion is the capital of Paraguay. You'll have the river, lots of museums, a lot of history. Ciudad del Este is next to Brazil and Argentina, it's called Triple Frontera 20 min away you have Iguazu Falls, you have parks and the city itself its pretty cool.
I can offer a mattress and a couch :)
The training: Describe the BJJ training available for the visitor : In Asunción everyday at 20:00. In Ciudad del este Tuesday and Thursdays 19:00 (my friends will guide you).
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