Welcome to GBMarbella, the website of the DYNAMIC Carlos Varona Brazilian Jiu Jitsu academy, located in beautiful Marbella, Spain.
05
Apr 11
Babak Alimoradian preparing for the World Championship
Our very own Babak Alimoradian, owner of local adventure company Team Extreme and current Blue Belt Masters European Champion is training hard in preparation to compete in at the World Championship mid-April in Abu Dhabi. He’s been training very hard (good for Babak, bad for the rest of us poor souls), and we believe he’s got a great chance to take Gold Medal. Good luck!
02
Dec 09
New Gym & New Facebook Page
CAMBIO DE GIMNASIO / CHANGE OF GYM
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 set up by 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…
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!
16
Sep 09
Mike Rios triumphant at the Don Principe MMA event
On September 11, 2009, the first edition of the Don Principe MMA event took place in La Linea, Spain. Organized by Jose Antonio Merida, of Gracie-Barra La Linea (a.k.a. Cai Club), the event was a great success, and included exciting fights in the disciplines of MMA, grappling and kick boxing
.Local fighter and long-time Gracie-Barra Marbella member, Mike Rios faced off in a grappling match against Crazy Sevilla fighter Alberto Gonzalez. The fight was a rematch of an earlier BJJ match in which Alberto had won. In this fight, however, it was Mike's night. Months of hard training and preparation paid off, as he won big on points, 14-0.
Congratulations to Mike on the fantastic win for himself and for the club, and to Alberto for a competitive fight!
08
Sep 09
Cai-Club MMA event this Friday in La Linea!
Gracie-Barra Marbella fighters Thelmo Calmon and Mike “Tiborao” Rios have been training hard the past months in preparation for their fights this Friday night at the “Sangre y Casta” MMA event in La Linea, organized by our good friend Jose Antonio Merida, of Gracie-Barra La Linea
.
The event starts at 21:30 in the evening, at the Pabellon Don Principe, in La Linea (just next to Gibraltar). Tickets go on sale at 18:00. Doors open at 21:00. Don't miss it!
More information at:
19
Aug 09
Goodbye, Nabil!
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.
31
Jul 09
BJJ Seminar with Roger Gracie black belt, Jude Samuel
Don’t miss this fantastic seminar hosted by our friends at Gracie-Barra La Linea:
- What: BJJ seminar, with Jude Samuel
- Where: Algeciras
- When: Saturday, August 1, 10:30h to 13:30h
- Cost: 15 Euros
- More Info: Cai-Club Website
25
Jun 09
GB Marbella at Closed Fights Demolition
Gracie-Barra Marbella traveled to Málaga a few weeks ago, where two of our members participated in the Closed Fights amateur MMA competition, held at the new gym of our friends Pablo Espejo and Luis Quiñones. Both our fighters, Leo Galati and Mirkko won their bouts, impressively! Check out the videos below:
Leo Galati vs Jose Maria (Closed Fights Demolition) from Matt Henderson on Vimeo.
Mirkko vs Jorge Giner (Closed Fights Demolition) from Matt Henderson on Vimeo.
23
Mar 09
Upcoming Seminars: Yan Cabral & Pablo Cabo
We are excited to announce the following two upcoming seminars:
YAN CABRAL (Saturday, March 28)
This coming Saturday, March 28, at the Demolition Fight Center, in Malaga, Spain, world champion Yan Cabral will hold a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seminar. Details below:
Who: Yan Cabral
When: Saturday, 28 of March, from 16-19 hrs
Where: Demolition Fight Center, Malaga, Spain
Cost: 30 euros
More information at the Demolition Fight Center website.
PABLO CABO (PALETA) (Wednesday, April 1)
Next Wednesday, Gracie-Barra Marbella veteran Pablo Cabo (Bronze medal finisher at the BJJ world championships) will hold a seminar at Platinum Gym, during which he’ll present a number of the things that he’s learned from the past year living in London, England and training at world champion Roger Gracie’s gym.
Who: Pablo Cabo (Paleta)
When: Wednesday, 1 of April, from 20-21:30 hrs
Where: Platinum Gym (Gracie-Barra Marbella training center), Puerto Banus, Spain
Cost: 10 euros
If you will be attending the Pablo Cabo seminar, please confirm with an email to info@gbmarbella.com . Thanks! Purim1pc
09
Feb 09
GB Marbella 2009 European Championship Results
At the beginning of this month, the annual Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu European Championships were held in Lisbon, Portugal at the Casal Vistosos Sport Complex. The team from GB Marbella always competes in this event, and this year the event was larger than ever. We've heard that close to 1,500 individuals competed for the coveted medals in 2009.
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!…
05
Nov 08
November news and updates…
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!