Braulio on Tour
by Carl Fisher
Braulio Estima — at a club near you!
Ever since Braulio’s arrival to the UK as a brown belt, the Brazilian phenom has been in great demand up and down the UK; hardly a weekend passes without there being a seminar or master-class conducted by the multiple world champion. Braulio continues to maintain regular contact with old friends and is also committed to spreading BJJ further afield and to this end, more and more new clubs are turning towards Gracie Jiu Jitsu.
Over the last month Braulio has been on the road taking classes and seminars rfom Swansea to Bradford and I managed to attend two recent classes (at Bradford and Manchester) and have news from a seminar held in Swansea. On Oct 3rd 2004 Braulio thrilled and amazed the students of Gracie Barra Swansea with his incredible
BJJ knowledge and friendly (some might say crazy) personality. Braulio split the class into two sections, mainly gi and no gi and was assisted by one of his Recife brown belts, Kildare Dultra, who although speaks little English, speaks the language of jiu jitsu very fluently (as I was to find out myself in Bradford).
Gracie Barra Swansea is the first and only Gracie club in Wales and has its Headquarters at the NC Academy of Martial Arts, Monastry Rd, Neath Abbey. The Academy is run by Chris Rees and Nick Jones. Nick teaches Erle Montaigue style Tai Chi and Chris teaches the Brazilian Ju Jitsu. The club has been officially Gracie Barra for the last few months and offers four BJJ classes per week. Chris, Nick and some of Chris' senior students have been travelling to London to train with Roger Gracie and Mark Walder and have had Braulio down to teach on two occasions. It was from this effort that Gracie Barra came to Wales and are a welcome addition to the Gracie UK network.
GB Manchester
Two weeks prior to that, Braulio was welcomed once more to GB Manchester to take the Sunday class and once again, a packed mat was there to train; Braulio started from a takedown and went on to teach a sequence of submissions from the mount before challenging all students (except Andy Roberts who stayed on the mats) to try and pass his guard, which as per usual, no one quite managed and the old trusty helicopter arm bar was in full force.
GB Bradford
Fast forward again to October 10th and it was three for the price of one at GB Bradford, as Braulio turned up once more with Kildare and a strong and skilful purple belt from GB Portugal by the name of Helio; after a warm up the class went through escapes from the side position and ended in hard sparring, with all three senior belts dishing out the tap outs. Shouts to The Mighty Spenna, Tony Devine, Chris Brown and Darren Good and three new blue belts were duly given their whipping from all attendees, namely Johnny Bolton, Mel Leathley and Craig Tetley.
Anyone wishing to host Braulio for classes, privates and seminars can contact him at braulio191@hotmail.com.
See you on the mats!
