They Came, They Taught, They Conquered.  Well, that’s the view of the 40 lucky students who came to the recent BJJ summer camp held in very sunny and warm Jersey, Channel Islands.  The week long camp was organised by local brown belt and instructor Rob Staples and run by two amazing black belts, Brazilian brothers Braulio & Victor Estima.

The camp, the first to be run by Braulio & Victor, consisted of days broken into two or three sessions per day of either Gi or No Gi lessons with the occasional open mat session thrown in during the evening.

Students came from various countries and islands including Poland, Germany, France, Guernsey amongst others – Sorry if I haven’t mentioned you here.  We also had student brown & black belts with one day 5 black belts on the mat – Unheard of at our club.

Some students were here for the full week where as some managed to grab 3 days here or there as work commitments wouldn’t allow them to take the full 7 days.

What can definitely be said though is whether they were here for the full 7 days or only 3 days, the lessons taught ensured that everybody went home  better at BJJ than when they first arrived.  It is almost impossible not to learn a great deal from Braulio or Victor as not only are they amazing at BJJ themselves, their teaching of BJJ is probably not to be found bettered by anybody anywhere in the world.

Braulio & Victor’s knowledge of the little intricacies,  and their ability to pass this information on to their students is incredible and it is often the tiny little adjustments to already familiar techniques that move a BJJ student on to the next level.

That’s not to say that everything was familiar with just minor adjustments being made.  A lot of the stuff learned was totally new and some of it was pretty spectacular as well.   Lots of excited students eager to learn and soak up all this Brazilian knowledge so they can take it back to their own home academy and tap out their fellow students. After all, that’s part of the fun isn’t it?

There was also a lot of fitness conditioning done during the week and due to the weather being as it was, this was done either on the beach or on the sand dunes – The dunes are pretty big over here.

Kettle bells were swung and tossed, sprints were run and probably most demanding on the legs and lungs, sand dune runs were done.  Definitely not for the faint hearted as this is more often than not a case of mind over matter rather than just general fitness.  Legs and lungs burning equally.  Even Braulio & Victor, two very fit guys, find the sand dunes a very challenging form of training.

Part of the week included a break day where activities were the order of the day.  Coasteering was one of the chosen activities which, for those of you who don’t know what it is, is where you wear wetsuits and helmets etc and climb around some of the rugged cliffs, of which Jersey has many.  Of course, it’s not just climbing but also a lot of jumping from great heights into the sea, an activity that seems to have gone down well with everybody.  Understandably, some people had to muster all their courage in order to jump but that’s to be expected.

Finally, there were a few gradings on the final day and congratulations are to go out to everyone who got either stripes or new belts.

I don’t have the full names of everyone but we’ll update this info soon

Paul Allitt – Blue Belt – Gracie Barra Channel Islands Jersey
Chris Le Huray – Blue Belt – Gracie Barra Channel Islands Guernsey
Paul Gomes – Purple Belt – Gracie Barra Channe Islands Jersey

A more detailed write up will go up with regards to specific techniques learned so check back later. Actually, if you sign with the form on the right, we’ll email you as soon as the report has been written.

One final note, due to the success of this summer camp, another will be being held next year in Jersey by Braulio & Victor.  Definitely something to consider.

Cheers

Hi guys

Although the dates are yet to be confirmed, it looks like Jersey will have two of the best black belts around hosting a week long summer BJJ camp.

Braulio Estima and his brother Victor will be running the camp for one week, most likely at the end of August.

This short announcement was taken from Braulio’s Facebook page.

“Guys breaking news… I will be doing a summer camp in Jersey – Chanel islands in The end of August. There will be classes in gi and Nogi taught by Me and my brother Victor. Also my personal trainer Jamie Harper will be doing our strenght And conditioning. Its going To be a great week. Keep Tunned for more information”

Braulio’s Facebook page can be found here

We will give more details as and when we get them.

Cheers

CageFilm.com has been putting some fantastic tutorials online and I ahve found a couple to share with you showing Braulio Estima attacking from the Butterfly Guard.

Please leave a comment telling us whether you enjoyed these videos or not.

Hey everyone

Graciemag put a video on Facebook which shows some fantastic footage of Braulio Estima in various gi and no gi comps.

Whoever put the video together did a great job in timing bits with the music.

I hope you enjoy it.

Hey everyone, I saw a Twitter post pointing to this video and thought you guys would like to see it as well.

It is a favourite technique of Braulio’s so if he thinks it’s good it’s got to be worth paying special attantion to.

See yourself submitting someone on your next training session in style?  Watch, learn, practice, apply.  That’s all you need to do.

Enjoy

Hi all

Just a little bit of info until we have more details.

Matt Norris, Matt Delauney and Leigh Le Blancq have put themselves forward to fight in the Brighton Open taking place on 4th April.

We wish them well and hope they continue to get results like they have been getting recently.

Also, on another note, Braulio will be back in the island in June for another weekend of training.

There is no set date yet but we will keep you informed of this as soon as the details have been finalised.

Cheers

Further to the news in the last post, Rob Staples and Andrew (Toppo) Toporis received their brown belts from Braulio Estima on Saturday 7th March 2009.

Rob and Andy are the first Channel Islanders to receive their brown belts and there are only 11 other people who have received this belt from Braulio at all.

Now on to the good news, Rob and Toppo are pretty good and locking people up in knots and making them squirm, beg for mercy, pass out or simply throw up.  Such is their ability.  So it is with great pleasure that I am able to say that the club had a lot of students there on Saturday for their gradings.

No, I don’t mean because we all think they do a wonderful job at the club putting in lots of hours for the members and training them to a very high standard as is obvious if you have read recent posts on the competition results our BJJ combatants have achieved.

No, no, no.  I meean because it was a very full house and lots of people to participate in the whippings.

This was not to be the usual whippings though and I am really sorry that I was not there to see it and actually take part.  This was brutal.

I felt sorry for Matt Norris who recently was awarded his purple belt so was forced to endure the onslaught himself. 

Instead of the usual running of the gauntlet, Matt, Rob and Toppo had to stand apart from each other in a line in the middle of the room whilst every member walked around and gave each of them a folded belt accross the back.  But wait, if that’s not enough, Braulio insisted that everyone went round three times dishing out as much punishment with each stroke as their training weary bodies allowed them to do.

For those of you who know Braulio and think he’s a nice guy, think again.  Pure barbarian with a great big smile.  He doesn’t just fold his belt….no.  He doesn’t just whip his belt….No.

He platts his belt so it looks like some kind of chain and he puts so much effort in to the strike that if there was no body, ie, Rob, Toppo, Matt, there to take the blow, he would still be spinning like a tornado now.

I have attached some images of the whippings, bruises and final rewards.

Joking aside, the belts are well deserved and only goes to show the kind of class instructors and students our little Jersey club has.

Here we are again , the first seminar of the 2009 with Braulio Estima.

Friday night no gi session started with a quick warm up and straight into
it ,going over and tightening up on some previous techniques and adding
some fine detail,of course some rolling.

Saturday started with a session for the junior members of the Academy ,
with 20 juniors attending it was a great training session, at the end
Braulio awarded stripes to a number of the juniors.

20 students turn out for the GI session which was great to see , Chris
Goldsbrough came over from the GSY  Academy with 3 students ,Brauilo was due to go over to the GSY academy on the Sunday.

The session started with the warm up then into some cool guard passing
techniques, as ever Braulio pulled the techniques apart and in is own
unique way explained ever detail so everyone from white to purple belt
could understand the techniques, After a half hour rolling session Braulio
awarded stripes to some of the students,

Then he produced two brown Belts which he awarded to Rob Staples and Andrew Toporis (Topo), the first two BJJ Brown Belts in the Channel Islands.  (Braulio has only awarded 11 brown belts in the UK)

Then the whipping started, also Matt Norris was in for the whipping as
Braulio awarded him his purple belt at the BJJ Europeans.

Off to the airport to catch our flight to GSY only to find the flight had
been cancelled due to fog, unfortunately  this ment that the GSY seminar
didn’t go ahead.

Braulio will be returning to the Channel Islands in June ,date tbc

We do have pictures but I am just in the process of resizing them.  I will have them up some time today.

Cheers

Hi all

For those of you in Jersey, Channel Islands over the weekend of Friday 6th through Sunday 8th March, please feel free to take the chance to train with Braulio Estima who will be visiting again.

Braulio is a multi World and European champion in both black belt weight category and black belt absolutes.

The schedul for the weekend is as follows although this is subject to change.

Friday evening 6th Feb will be a no-gi class and will probably be suited to more expeienced grapplers and not complete novices.

Saturday 7th March from 11:00am – 12:00pm will be the juniors class. Please try and make this if you are a junior or your child attends the junior classes. Braulio is an amazing instructor for children as well as adults and brings a lot of fun into the class.

Saturday 7th March 12:00pm (ish) – 2:30pm will be the adult classes.

Saturday after 2:30pm will be private lessons which need to be booked with Rob Staples in advance by email training@gracie-barra-channel-islands.com

Sunday, Braulio and Rob will be venturing over to Guernsey to train with Chris Goldborugh’s Guernsey students. This is still to be finalised but currently looks like this is going to happen.

Please make the effort to get to some of the training sessions being made available to you. As you may have seen by recent posts about the guys from the club who have done so well in recent competitions, the standard of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Jersey and Guensey is very high, and the fact that we have access to instructors such as Braulio Estima on a relatively regular basis keeps that high standard moving forward.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to elave a comment.

Hope to see you up at the club over the weekend.

Finally, to ensure that you are made aware of any changes to the schedule that may happen, please leave your name and email address in the boxes provided at the tope of the page. This will be the quickest way of notifying you.

Cheers

Dates for Braulio Estima seminars have been confirmed.

Mark your diaries for Friday 6th March, Saturday 7th March and Sunday 8th March.

As of yet, times and schedule are not finalised but will probably run in a similar fashion to past visits with Friday evening being No Gi/Gi class, Saturday being private lessons in the morning with a class in the afternoon and Sunday being a late morning/early afternoon training session.

For those of you who may be unaware, Braulio is still on top of his game and proved this once again recently by wiping the board at the European Championships in Lisbon by getting gold in both his weight category and the absolutes  for Black Belts.

It will be very hard to find a better fighter and instructor anywhere in the world at the moment and I strongly urge you to make sure you can make it to at least one of the sessions. 

Those dates again, Friday 6th, Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th March.  Schedules will be posted later.

Till next time, see you on the mat.