The rains and cooler weather bring wintertime to Marbella, and that means intensified training as we get ready for some local tournaments and the European championships in January. While focusing on training, we’ve been lazy in updating the blog, so here’s a big article with the latest news.
Welcome guest instructor, Vinicius Moura!
While coach Edson is back in Brazil, we’ve got a great guest instructor taking care of the class, Vinicius Moura. Vinny is a black belt under legendary maestro, Soca, and is proving to be a fantastic trainer. His speciality is standup/judo, and so every Monday we focus on that. I have to say standup has always been the worst part of my game, and so I’m pretty happy to be improving those skills.
Vinny’s been doing a great job filling in while Edson’s awaw, and as a result the club continues to grow to almost 20 people per class!
Augusto takes warmups to a professional level
One thing is for sure, our guys are going to arrive at the upcoming tournaments in great shape!, as our warm-up sessions have been taken over by our very own Augusto Aloisio. Augusto is a professional personal trainer, and has taken charge of the pre-class warm-ups. He’s been structuring the 30-minute session to include explosive duration exercises, core strengthening, and abdominal work.
Describing the warm-ups as intense would be an understatement, but we are all really happy that Augusto has stepped up into this role, as it’s making a huge difference in our physical preparation.
Best wishes for coach Edson with his injury.
Coach Edson “Sururu” Jorge has been down in Brazil the past couple of months, involved in a number of activities such as helping UFC champion George St. Pierre prepare for his (winning) fight against Jon Fitch, and preparing to fight André Chatuba in the sixth edition of the Juiz de Fora MMA event.
We were all really looking forward to Edson’s fight. Chatuba is a very tough competitor, and a win for Edson in this fight could have easily paved the way to participation in headline MMA events in the USA or Japan.
But last week we got the terrible news that Edson has suffered a serious knee injury in training. In addition to missing the fight, he’s going to have to have surgery and a period of recovery.
We know that Edson is terribly disappointed about this. We just want to say,
“Keep your head up, Edson. You’re a great person and athlete, and we’re all behind you!”
Preparation for upcoming tournaments
We’re currently training for three possible upcoming tournaments.
Barcelona (December 6-7). The Vulcan tournament last year was a huge success. Many people said it’s the best organized tournament ever in Spain.
Rota (December 13). The US soldiers are preparing a tournament in at the base in Rota. It will be a Gi tourney, with two weight classes, and all belt categories. Contact David Turner on djturner11@yahoo.com for details.
European Championships (January 30 – February 1). As always, we’re preparing to go defend our medals at the Europeans!