Last week we had the privilege of hosting none other than Vinicius “Draculino” Magalhaes himself for an evening of seminars, beginning with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and concluding with Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Draculino

Draculino is literally one of the “founding fathers” of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and has probably produced more champions in his career than any other. Today he lives in Houston, Texas (USA) where he runs the Gracie Barra Houston academy, as well as managing a network of affiliates (ours included) around the world.

A seminar with Draculino is always special, as he has a natural gift for teaching. In the BJJ seminar, we focused on the back position, looking at various ways to transition to the back, and to finish. Every technique he demonstrated was efficient, effective, and something we can immediately incorporate into our toolboxes.

We were also really happy to have in attendance our friends from around Andalucia, including Vinicius (from Marbella), Jose Antonio (from La Linea), Pablo & Luis (from Malaga), Pablo Cabo (also from Malaga) and Nacho (from Tarifa).

A farewell to Thelmo

There was a sad portion of the evening as well, as we learned that our instructor of the past years, Thelmo Calmon, is returning to his home country of Brazil, to reunite with family and pursue a number of opportunities that have arisen for him there.

Thelmo has been dedicated to the club for almost half a decade, and will be surely missed. Fortunately, it looks like he’ll be able to return each July for a visit.

Leadership of the club will now pass to black-belt Matt Henderson, and brown-belt Leo Galati, with instruction assistance from all the brown belts, including Augusto Aloiso (who’s also the director of the gym), Daniel Nagore and Mike Rios.

With the European Championship nine weeks away, there’s no time to rest, so it’s back to work!

On Monday, Thelmo casually ended the class by saying, “So a good friend of mine from San Francisco is coming to town. He’s a black belt and will be teaching a seminar.” We all thought, “Ok, cool.” Then he casually added, “Oh, yeah… it’s Sapao!”

CARLOS SAPAO BAN!

This is huge news for the academy! Sapao visited us a few years ago, back when we were training in Puerto Banus, and everybody agreed he was one of the best guest instructors we’ve ever had. Sapao is one of the authentic pioneers of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. When you see those photos from Rio de Janeiro, with Royce Gracie, Rickson Gracie, Helio Gracie, Ryan Gracie, etc. — you’ll usually see Sapao right there in the mix. He’s a legend.

And so we’re super excited to announce a seminar tonight with Sapao, from 7PM to 10PM at Dynamic Training Center. The cost is 30 euros. Don’t miss it!

For his first BJJ competition, Babak traveled in January 2011 with the team to Lisbon, Portugal, where he crushed his way through five fights to win the gold medal at the European Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Championship, in the Masters Category (age 30 to 34).

With the taste of competition (and winning!) fresh in his mind, he immediately got to work training for the World Championships, in Abu Dhabi. This time, however, there would be no age categories, and Babak would be up against much younger opponents.

After many mornings of privates with Thelmo, many hards nights of training at class, many afternoons of cardio work on the paseo, and having left behind an entire team of banged-up training partners (including seven stitches in my forehead), Babak completed his preparation, and left last week for Abu Dhabi.

Well, the competition is now over, and we’ve got some amazing news to report — Babak won seven fights leading to a gold medal. He is now the blue belt World Champion! Just after the fight, coach Thelmo Calmon gave Babak his well-deserved purple belt.

Here’s the video of his gold medal fight, against a black belt judoka who last participated in the Olympics.

A partir de hoy, 2 Diciembre, empezamos a entrenar en el gimnasio nuevo que se esta montando Augusto, en el edificio a lado de SmallWorld Cafe, cerca del disco de Olivia Valere en la carretera de Istan. El horario es el mismo — 20:30h a 22:00h. Hay un link abajo a una mapa.

Beginning today, December 2, training will take place in a new gym, being setup my Gracie-Barra member Augusto. The gym is in the same building as the SmallWorld Cafe, close to the Olivia Valere disco in the Istan road (in Marbella). Training times are the same — 8:30 pm to 10:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Below is a Google map to the location.

Map to the new gym…

Google map to the new gym

NEW FACEBOOK PAGE

A new Facebook Page has been created to help keep everybody informed about Gracie-Barra Marbella, and to announce events. Please visit the page, become a Fan, and let others know about it. Thanks!

Gracie-Barra Marbella Facebook Page

For the past week or so, we’ve had the pleasure of having Nabil Khrissi, of Paris, France, training with us at Gracie-Barra Marbella. Nabil is a very talented brown belt under Master Ricardo de la Riva.

It’s always great to have the opportunity to train with high-level BJJ practitioners from other schools. It was particularly nice having Nabil with us, as, in addition to having a very solid BJJ game (he received his brown belt after only three years!) he’s also a really nice guy, that we all came to consider a new friend.

We’re looking forward to seeing Nabil again here in Marbella, or perhaps at the upcoming ADCC in Barcelona, and the BJJ European Championships next year in Portugal.

This year GB Marbella sent 10 people to compete, who returned home with seven medals:

• Vinicius Moura took bronze in his black-belt category.
• Jose Antonio Merida (of our partner school in La Linea) was the star of the team, winning gold in his category, and silver in the brown-belt open class.
• Matt Henderson took bronze in his brown-belt category.
• Augusto Aloisio took bronze in his purple-belt category.
• Miika Mehmet took gold in his white-belt category.
• Brendan Slade took bronze in his white-belt category.
• Last but not least, DD took silver in his white-belt category.

In addition to these, Brandon and Javi Bombero had really good showings in the white-belt category, and Leo Galati had the misfortune of being paired with the current world champion in his first purple-belt fight. (In fact, Leo had an excellent fight with the world champion. It could have easily been the final!)

As always, our favorite photographer, designer and BJJ tough-girl Caroline Azzi was there to take photos. We hope to have them up an online soon!

In other news, our good friend Jude Samuel, a black belt from Roger Gracie’s gym in London who frequently visits Marbella and trains with us, had an amazing performance at the European’s, winning gold in his black-belt category, and silver in the open class, losing only to the legendary Fabio Gurgel!

All in all, it was a fantastic event. We had a lot of fun, got to see our BJJ buddies from around Spain, and even had a chance to take some photos with Rickson and Kron Gracie! Looking forward to next year!…

To close the month, Carlos gave a special workshop, beginning with some classic BJJ self defense techniques, and closing the night with a series (progression) of attacks and submissions beginning with a choke from the guard which, even though many of us had never seen it, turns out to also be a classic BJJ technique.

We want to wish Carlos all the very best in his career, and as a close friend of our teacher, Edson Sururu Jorge, we hope that Carlos will have a chance to return and continue supporting the group.

Carlos now leaves for a few weeks giving workshops in Poland, before returning to the United States. Have a safe trip, Carlos. It was great having you with us this summer!

We also want to say a big thanks and express our appreciation to professor Edson Jorge, for taking good care of us during his extended stay in Brazil. While away, Edson is helping to keep our jiu-jitsu sharp by organizing superb guest instruction from world class athletes like Carlos. Thanks, Edson! We’re all looking forward to your quick return to Spain!

Finally, we’ll close with a final interview from Carlos:

I’ve got some very exciting news to report! We’re honored to have a new guest coach in town, Carlos “Sapaõ” Ban. Sapaõ, who’s a close friend of Edson and a Ralph Gracie black belt, will be spending the summer months with us here in Marbella, teaching BJJ, grappling and his specialty, MMA.

Carlos has spent almost a decade living and training in the United States, first in California with his teacher Ralph Gracie, and then most recently taking up residence in Las Vegas, perfecting his MMA at the Brazilian Top Team (Las Vegas), with the full support of his sponsors, Manto Fight Wear, Jiu Jitsu ProGear.com and Koral Kimonos.

In just the first week in Marbella, it’s amazing to experience a completely new BJJ game, as well as Carlos’ unique approach to training. In addition, Carlos speaks perfect Spanish and American english!

You can read more about Sapaõ at the link below, or feel free to come by Platinum Gym on Mon, Wed and Fri at 8:00 pm, Tues and Thur at 6:00 pm (MMA/grappling) for some great training. Of course, Carlos is available for privates and seminars while he’s here.

http://barrabrothersca.com/index_files/bio.html

Last week we said goodbye to Augusto “Tio Chico” Vieira, a close friend of Edson who visited us for two months as guest instructor.

During the months he was here, Tio Chico became a friend to us all, and taught us some amazing jiu-jitsu. To give you an idea just how good he is, consider that this year at the BJJ Mundiales, he barely lost to the very guy that choked out the mythical Kron Gracie, and eventual gold medalist. And just prior to leaving, he spent his last weekend here in Sevilla, competing at the Hemo Hold grappling tournament, where he took first place in both his category and absolute, beating, in the process, some of Spain’s best grapplers.

You can certainly expect to see big things in the future for Tio Chico!

Augusto now leaves Marbella with destination New York, where he’ll spend some time with Renzo Gracie, and set his plans for his future.

With that, we wish Tio Chico all the best in his career. Thanks for two great months!