Updates

2009 has barely started but our team is keeping busy training and competing. In Poland we sent 5 students to a small tournament on the 10th of January, and came back with one gold and one bronze. Bernardo Serrini and Matteo Calamandrei are leading our italian squad in the Europeans this weekend. Our group will have between 10 and 15 athletes, and by next week we will report on their results.

We added two new links to our blogroll. RGC Bologna has been part of our network since Gianluca visited us in Brasil a few years ago, and RGC Sestri Levante joined us last year and is taking part in the monthly meetings conducted in Firenze (Florence). This training meetings were held once a week in January in order to raise up the level of our competitors in Lisbon, and we are planning to organise them in Poland as well.

Unfortunately we lost the precious contribution to the group of our student Steve Haydock in Surrey, England. Feeling isolated as the only club in England to be part of our network, he decided to join the Carlson Gracie Revolution team which is growing steadily in England and Ireland. Since Rodrigo Medeiros is a great friend of ours and his students in London are committed to the roots of BJJ and to the Carlson Gracie philosophy, we are confident that this will be a good union for them all. We wish the best luck to their plans and we are looking forward to joint-ventures and increased collaborations between our clubs. Steve did a great job while part of our association, and surely he will not be missed as we will keep collaborating with each other whenever it is practical.

And last but not least, lets not forget that in March 7th and 8th in Spain the European trials of the I BJJ World Professional Cup will be held, with the winners getting all expenses paid to fight in Abu Dhabi for the biggest cash prize in BJJ History.

New promotions at RGC Polska

Our students Krystian Kwiecień (Silesia) and Jakub Kubiszewski (Wroclaw) were promoted this month. Krys became a brown belt in Raciborz two weeks ago, and since last Wednesday Kuba is the newest purple belt in Wroclaw.

With a higher belt comes always a bigger responsability, as more will expected and demanded from you. The brown belt is the last step before the black, so the expectations are even bigger.
Krystian is more than ready for it. He started BJJ in Raciborz in 2002, later moved to London and trained extensively at our club since early 2004. Back to his home country, he has graded on Sports Science, competed and won BJJ, Submission and Amateur Shooto matches, started clubs in Zawiercie, Lubliniec and Czestochowa, besides teaching sports to kids at his home town’s school and becoming a father of young Kasjan. His help was fundamental to establish our base in Silesia, not to mention that was him that first brought me to Poland to teach BJJ.

Bardzo pracowity as we say in polish language

Kuba finds time to train even though he is graduating in engineering, working as a doormen and going to London every summer to work. His responsability comes also from his surname (Juscelino Kubichek, JK, was one of the best presidents Brasil had, building Brasilia, our capital city, on the late 1950’s). Our own JK will sure help build our club stronger with his good technique and friendly manners.  

Wielkie Gratulacje (Huge Congratulations) to them both!

Soon pictures!