Fight Zone

As promised some photos. The first is look at the entrance to Fight Zone (the green gate) from across the street. As you can see it's a pretty unassuming building. No big flashy signs or nothing. Next door to the left is a Hair Salon and across the road is a Zona Sul supermarket.

A look at the mat space from the front of the gym. There's another couple of square meters off to the right in the middle (basically the gym is T-shaped). That's Lekky mopping up the floor after class and killing them nasty bacterias!!

Marco (I think that's his name?), one of the many BB's I have met while there. I've only talked to him a couple of times (he speaks good english) but he's a very friendly guy and was very helpful pointing out my mistakes and giving me tips on how to improve my technique.

I've read on other blogs the surprise people had at the number of high coloured belts at classes, but was still very surprised myself when in classes with up to 7 or 8 BB's, 4 browns, 4 purples, a handful of blues and just myself or another 2 guys at white!

L-R... Miguel(I think's his name? Brown belt), Catatau (Purple) and Marco (Black).

Miguel has awesome jiu jitsu, I always felt he's in control when rolling with him. Sometimes he'll let me get into good positions just so he can sweep or reverse me, or at least that's what I think hehe. He does alot of cool spider guard stuff; sweeps etc and rolls. Sometimes he'll be upside down in the spider guard and roll into me in a close or half guard somehow, it's like he half knows where I'm going and half wings it, pretty cool to see in action.

Catatau is an awesome guy. I like that fact that he's about my size or smaller (I'm prob 5'6" and 63kgs) but so relaxed in his jiu jitsu, but can "turn it on" when he wants to. He'd let me get side control or mount and look all defensive then reverse me easily, then when he wanted he'd go for a sub or lapel choke and mean it, just to show that he's still in control :). He was also one of the first guys to help me out with my technique and point out my mistakes using basic english and body actions.

A pic of Lekky and I. Lekky was pretty much there for every lesson I went to. Whether it was early morning (7-8:30am), morning, afternoon or evening classes I'd see him in the gym. He wasn't always in a kimono or training but he'd come by and watch etc. He takes alot of the classes and even though he only speaks a few words in english he makes himself understood. Great dude.


Rico and I. Ricardo is a really cool guy. I was kind of surprised at how young he was to be running the gym, I don't know why. Probably because most guys would be too busy competing still? Nevertheless I'm grateful he is teaching as his instructions were simple and easy to understand and I liked how he flowed things together. So if we were working half guard sweeps there would be sweep 1, but if the guy did this -> sweep 2 or variant -> sweep 3

There's other people and characters at the gym that have helped me or that I wanted to mention and take a picture with but they weren't at the class I went to today. So I'll definitely be back to catch up with them and get a picture before I leave Rio.

On a side note...

It's quite inspiring when you see the higher belts rolling (at any jiu jitsu academy) and you look their face you can almost see them thinking, calculating and weighing up their options from each position then choosing an action to which their opponent counters with a calculated action of their own etc. etc. all this in split second. Which took hours, months and years to program into their system so it became almost second nature. That's the level I'm hoping to achieve.

Até proximo.

Fight Zone Copacabana
Rua Francisco Sá 36 (ground floor)
Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro
Ph: +55 21 7825 6500
Email: ricoviera@hotmail.com