Copacabana's Night Market and the rest of the 1st week

Thursday and Friday saw me pushing myself to train 3 times a day even including a 7am class. I was quite surprised to find it was as busy as the other classes though the general age of the black belts was a bit older. This may have been coincidence, I'll check if I ever make it to another class that early ;)

 The odd dizzy spell aside my body is beginning to adjust to the time change and the heat which is good, I'm still very much bottom of the class but hey the only way is up! One of the great things about being in Brasil is the sheer numbers of black belts on the mats and everyone at Fightzone whether they speak English or not will always give you little pointers or show you techniques to help improve your game. A normal group session can turn into a series of mini private lessons with alot of different black belts :D Saturday was a big sparring class and the busiest so far, I assume alot of Checkmat black belts who teach in other parts of Rio & some of their students come down for this session which is why it's so busy.

On Friday between the 4.30pm and the 8pm classes I took a little walk to the Copacabana Night Market. The Night market is on every day from around 6.30pm until about 9ish AFAIK. and is about 5-10mins walk from Fightzone Academy into Copacabana, it is held in the island of land in the middle of the Road by the beach.

 The market sells a whole range of things and it is always worth looking around the whole market before you buy anything as price for the same items can vary wildly from stall to stall. It is great for souvenirs selling nearly everything you can find in the souvenir shops for a fraction of the price. There are also a couple of good havaianas stalls, some clothing - tshirts, bikinis etc, Brazilian artwork and much more. Some stalls have fixed prices which they will have on display others have no prices and are more up for negotiation. Unusually for Brasil nearly every stall owner does speak some English but if you can manage it I would recommend using Portuguese (as you are more likely to get a cheaper price) On my last trip I asked one stall owner the cost of something in Portuguese she replied with one price in Portuguese and then 'repeated' what she said in English but the price suddenly jumped by 10 Reais. I simply repeated the price in Portuguese back to her and bought it for the cheaper rate.

Even if you don't speak any Portuguese all you need to learn is how to recognise the numbers up the  amount you would be prepared to pay for something and learn how to say " how much?" which is 

Quanto custa? - (Kwan-toh coos-tah?)

 Local hand made purse + Keyring I bought at the nightmarket

And the back R$8 for Purse inc name on back R$2 for the Keyring

Referring to my previous post about Rios Buses, one morning as the bus was winding around the mountain on the road ahead of us was a solid wall of smoke from a fire, much to my alarm the bus simply sped up and drove through!!!

Riding on Rio's Buses & 1st time Back on the mats in Brasil

Woke up a little tired but super excited to finally be back in Brasil. I decided to leave the house early to allow myself time for a little walk around Ipanema before the 10.30am class at Fightzone. About 3 mins walk down the road from the house you can catch bus number 557 which takes you directly to Leblon, Ipanema and Copacabana and almost past the doors of several Jiujitsu academies including Ricardo Vieira's Fightzone and De La Rivas. The bus costs R$2.75 and takes about half an hour to Rico's but you should allow about a hour during busy times.

Travelling on Rio's buses is truly an experience in itself and not for the faint-hearted. Although in some places there are bus stops in others there is nothing to mark where the bus stops you just need to "know" where to get the bus. Even if you are at a bus stop you have to flag the bus down but be careful to get your arm in quick when it actually pulls up. Riding on the bus itself is a fantastic balance, strength and grip training session even if you get a seat you will probably find it necessary to hold on with both hands firstly to stop you being thrown from your seat as the bus twists and turns and the driver makes liberal use of the brakes. Secondly out of pure terror as it speeds around the cliffs inches from the edge with only a very low wall between the bus and a long drop. (on my last trip once the bus had to reverse as it had misjudged the turn). Standing up is even worse and unfortunately that's what I had to do for my first ride on the bus this trip. At the end of the journey my arms and hands were aching from holding on so hard. I did get my walk through Copacabana and Ipanema before training but mainly because I had completely missed my stop and realised when I went past De la Riva's. After my third trip on the bus I realised that it was not my terrible sense of direction for once, but that the bus route had actually changed since I was here last.

When I finally got to the academy it was great to be able to catch up with friends I hadn't seen since my last trip and meet all of the new people who had joined since I left. It was good to see there were a lot more girls training now with another 6 girls on the mat including top black belt Marina Ribeiro and a number of extremely tough blue belts. I was thrown straight in the deep end as they were doing all sparring sessions that day. A combination of the heat, lack of sleep due to jetlag and being extremely unfit and overweight due to not training much recently ment I was dead within 5 minutes of the warmup. Glad to say I pushed myself through getting my a'se thoroughly kicked everytime and even came back for more of the same in the evening session. Despite being completely smashed I totally fell back in love with Jiujitsu in that first session and I'm looking forward to getting my training back on track and competing again while I'm here :)

Travelling to Brasil

After having one of those days where everything goes wrong inc Tap airlines forgetting to order my vegetarian meals (despite email confirmation from a customer service manager weeks ago) and a huge queue forming for the toilet on the plane after 2 Brasileiras went in together stayed in for ages, finally coming out with certain smiles on their faces! (yes in my inexpert opinion, before everyone asks, one was very hot, the other was a little on the tubby side but still quite pretty;)

On the plus side my Portuguese got a little warm up chatting to a nice Brazilian woman with no English sitting next to me on the plane and trying and failing to get some vegetarian food on the stop over in Portugal.

Pick up from the airport went smoothly as I used a taxi sent by Connection Rio, and I quickly settled into the Premier house which is across the road from the original Connection Rio HQ where I stayed for my last visit to Brasil.

After many months of counting down I'm finally here! :D

 View from the Balcony of the common room at Connection Rio Premier Where I am staying!

Turning around and looking up! Pedra De Gavea!

3 days to go - Packing for Brasil

I'm writing this on my way to Hereford where I will be working at the Hereford Open tomorrow, although I love reffing it's a great feeling that after this the next time I will be stepping on the mats will be as a competitor. While I'm running around trying to get everything done before my trip I thought I'd blog my own guide of what to pack for a trip to Brasil based on my experience from my last visit.

Gi's

A fairly obvious one you'd think if you are going there to train but last time I met quite a few people who had decided to 'pick up a cheap gi' while they were there to train in.
 Unfortunately the days of bringing an empty suitcase and stocking up on gis to sell back home are long gone. Due to getting alot less Brazilian Reais for your pound and the rise in good quality British Brands ,the gi's in Brasil are actually quite alot more expensive. I saw gis on sale at academies, at competitions and even in a couple of jiujitsu shops in a small shopping centre in Copacabana and didn't see anything under £100. Another misconception is that your gi's will dry quicker due to the heat, as Rio is very humid I actually found my kit took longer to dry. How many gis you take depends on how often you are planning to train but I would recommend taking 2 days worth to be on the safe side.

Supplements

If you are a supplement groupie I'd recommend you bring your own supply, supplements in Brasil are stupidly expensive! Just remember to bring them in their original packaging.. noone wants to get delayed as the authorities think you're smuggling drugs! ;)

Electrical items

Anything electrical is literally 5 times the price (something to do with their taxes) and for the same reason some of the items on sale will make you feel like you've stepped back in time (though to be fair I was looking in smaller local shops), if there is anything you can't live without I'd recommend buying it before you leave. Similarly if you are planning on getting a Brazilian number while you're out there to give to the local Brasileiras, buying a cheap £10 unlocked phone before you go would be a good investment.

Books

If you still have room in your case by now and you like to read, books in English are very hard to come by bring your own and give them to a friend before you leave.

The above is based on what I saw on my last (and only) trip to Rio, if you've been before and have found any bargains I didn't, please comment and share!

Guys can look away now, the following is just for the girls... ;)

Bikini's

Fairly obvious one with Brazil's reputation but if a piece of string hidden somewhere between your butt cheeks isn't for you... buy before you go! Even their 'bigger bikini bottoms' were way to small for my taste.

Bras

Although I would def recommend clothes shopping in Brasil, unless you are an 'average size' in Brassieres you're gonna have problems, they have a strange single number measurement for Bras which I personally found impossible. I saw a great range of sexy sports bras but if you prefer to keep your puppies on a tighter rein and outta sight yet again buy before you go.

Sanitary Products

Yet again I was looking in local shops, supermarkets and pharmacies rather than big shopping centres but the products available was like stepping back into the early 90s.. enough said.

See guys, you really should have stopped reading earlier! LOL ;P Next time I'll be blogging from Brasil! :D

9 days until Brasil – Caio Terra Seminar.

I had a very busy BJJ filled weekend. On the Saturday I reffed at the Bournemouth Open, another well organised competition by the De Souza Family and saw some great fights on the day.

 

Although tired from the previous day, Sunday saw me making a 3 ½ hour trip each way to Eclipse Martial Arts in Walsall for the Caio Terra seminar organised by Peter Adams. The seminar was very well attended with a mixture of white to black belts and a couple of kids.

The way Caio teaches a seminar is quite different from other seminars I have attended. He began by giving us 6 topics or seminars that we had to vote on, the winner was Berimbolo which is Portuguese for Scramble. My Berimbolo knowledge being pretty much Zero it was a steep learning curve for myself.

 

The format for the seminar consisted of him teaching a technique letting us drill it for a few reps while he watched and then showing the technique again pointing out the common mistakes or answering any questions for the whole group rather than going around answering individuals (although he did do a little bit of that as well). This was good as we could all learn from the other’s problems. After stopping each time he would also get us to swap partners so each technique you would drill with maybe 3 or 4 partners, great for practising the moves on different body types. Caio gave a lot of detail for each position including variations of the position you could do when suffering from bad knees so common to BJJ players! He also really encouraged as many questions as possible not only about the positions that he was teaching but also in a general question session at the end.

 

Once the seminar had officially finished and the obligatory photos taken, Caio opened the mat up for sparring. Some people left at this point but a large number stayed on. Despite being jetlagged he tried to spend a few mins rolling with as many people as possible. He made a point of rolling with everyone who was under 70kg as there are not many chances to roll with someone of his size who is on a world class level. He also rolled with approximately half of the guys over 70kg as well. So many seminars do not include sparring or if they do the person teaching doesn’t spar it was great to see Caio giving everyone that experience and was the icing on the cake to a fantastic day. Overall I would say that higher grades probably get the most benefit out of Caio’s seminar’s but I think everyone there came away with plenty of useful tips and positions to work on.

 

Big thank you to Peter Adams for organising a great event and the hospitality of Eclipse Martial Arts and of Course Thank you to Caio for a brilliant seminar and roll! :)

 

Hello World! Or should I say more precisely Hello Brasssiilllllll!!!!! ;)