Carlos
Gracie Jr hits the UK!
This
was the BIG one: it was the moment that all Gracie Barra UK students had been
waiting for. President of the Confederation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, the man at
the forefront of a fast growing worldwide movement, or just plain ‘Carlinos’
to his friends, Carlos Gracie Jr took time out of his busy schedule to drop in
on London.
After
the success of the first ever European BJJ event in Portugal on January 31st,
Carlos was invited over by Roger Gracie on the weekend of February 7th,
to host the first ever UK seminar and to officially open Roger’s new academy.
It was also a chance for Carlinos to meet UK students and see for himself the
fruits of Mauricao Gomes’s labours over the past five years. Carlinos was
not to be disappointed as over eighty-five people attended the seminar; not a
single centimetre of mat space was visible when the seminar commenced and such
was the mass of students that people had to wait at the sides of the mats and
wait their turn to train.
Instructors
from UK Barra academies were present, with Marc Walder (Dagenham); Jude Samuels
and John Donnelly (London); Paul Murphy, Neil White and Neil Owen (Doncaster);
Darren Good (Bradford); Andrew Roberts (Sheffield); yours truly (Manchester);
Rob Staples (Jersey); and Rob Stevens (Birmingham) out in force, as well as students
from London’s Carlson Gracie academy and a number of sport jiu jitsu academies
thrown in for good measure. Sponge Bob and crew had travelled up from sunny Cornwall
to attend the event and show their support and a healthy haul of black belts made
themselves known as well.
Luca
and Roberto Atalla, Pablo Silva, Roger Gracie, Felipe Souza and Braulio Estima
were on hand to help demonstrate techniques with Carlos and help out with tuition
throughout the afternoon. With adequate mat space in short supply, Carlos started
the seminar with ground techniques and kicked off with a simple sweep from open
guard, with the attackers hands on the knees; instead of reeling off many techniques
that would easily be forgotten by the end of the afternoon, Carlos progressed
the techniques in an easy to follow method and gave the students ample time to
train each move. From the sweep, Carlos moved to a sweep from the same set up,
only this time the opponent stands up and then moved on to by far the best move
of the day, the helicopter arm bar technique. Ask any one who has either trained
or competed with Braulio Estima in the UK the last two years the move they’ve
been hit with the most and it is the helicopter arm bar, myself included. Thanks
to Carlos, we now know the set up and execution, but sadly this was not enough
at the end of the day, as Braulio took to the mats at the end to roll with the
students and yep, the helicopter arm bar was in full effect! Scorpion guard sweeps
and techniques followed, whereby Carlos went on demonstrate the kimura, kimura
into arm bar and a variation when the opponent holds the gi. At the end of the
class all the black belts lined up and rolled with the students and it was a chance
to see six black belts in action, with all manners of submissions coming from
every angle.
Carlos
gave a short speech and said he was very impressed with the turn out and the technical
level of the UK’s students and was also impressed at the outcome of the first
European BJJ event in Portugal; two surprises were in store for Barra Doncaster’s
Neil White and Neil Owen who were awarded their purple belts from Carlos and deservedly
so. Carlos now aims to stage a European event every year and also come back to
the UK on a more regular basis; Renzo Gracie was scheduled to attend the event,
but was unable to due to Carlos’s nephew Rodrigo fighting in an upcoming
Pride event. Let’s hope we see him here again soon.
As
ever, the day was over way too fast for my liking and another defining moment
in UK BJJ history in the bag; the seminar also reinforced my belief in the continuing
growth of Gracie Jiu Jitsu in the UK and with more new academies opening, Carlinos
has much to be happy about.
See
you on the mats! by Carl Fisher
For
more info on Roger Gracie’s new academy visit www.gracie-barra.co.uk
