Well, your author is back in Spain after eating his way through the Christmas holidays abroad, and what a surprise to find that we’re now training in the shiny new Platinum Gym in Puerto Banus. I usually don’t get excited about gyms, but I must say it’s the most luxurious gym I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The training room is big and airy, the workout equipment and cardio machines are all new, every little detail is high quality (e.g. thick wooden lockers, beautiful marble sinks and showers, you name it), and a spa (jacuzzi, sauna, etc.) that’s as large as my apartment. When you walk in the door, they hand you huge basket containing a towel, big fluffy robe, and other spa-related goodies. I’ve got the feeling our membership’s going to quadruple. I hope to have some pictures of the gym up soon.

There are several pricing options, including a three-month deal for 249 Euro, including full gym membership (i.e. everything — jiu-jitsu, gym, spa, etc.)

Anyway, it’s January, and that means training for the European Championships at the end of the month in Lisbon (Portugal.) Most of us arrived an hour early, as the gym’s Spinning coach has prepared a special cardio program to get the team in shape. Let me tell you, 30 minutes of pedaling, driven by a screaming Spanish psychopath spinning instructor three times per week, and we’re sure to be in shape by the end of the month.

Training itself involved mostly techniques specific to competitions. I won’t go into it more than that, as we don’t want to give away any of our secrets. (Ok, just one secret — We’re going to start all fights in that one-legged duck stance from Karate Kid.)

For those of you interested in going, here are the details:

http://www.cbjj.com.br/english/european2006.htm

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2006 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.