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| | | | BJJ Globetrotters Newsletter // February 2020 | | Dear Globetrotters,
I'm sitting at home and looking at the clock, on my way to the camp soon to take the last remaining guests from this week to the airport and ferry terminal. Once again, we had a really nice camp here in St. Barth and I managed to roll with almost everyone this time around. Everything hurts, but I have a big smile on my face. It's gonna be quiet on the mats here on the island until our next camp November 16-22 (to be announced soon), but if you feel like coming to visit, you're always welcome any day. Our little, local club is eager to have visitors to roll with :)
Next up is Arizona camp at the end of next month. It was a bit of a short period in between this and the last one, but March fits better in our calendar for going there. There are at this point less than 25 tickets left, so hurry up if you are in the area and want to meet us all for a fun week and lots of training!
Have a fantastic day,
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What you'll find in this month's newsletter:
- Photos from Caribbean Island Camp in St. Barth
- Featured Traveller: Katharina Danielski
- Globetrotters Academy in Focus: FM Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Carrigaline
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| | Less than 25 tickets left for Arizona Camp next month |
| | Our first ever Arizona camp was a huge success, so we’ve decided to go back to the desert. All day classes, open mats and workshops, combined with on-site barbecues and breathtaking landscapes. |
| | | Photos from Caribbean Island Camp in St. Barth
(Next one will be November 16-22, to be announced shortly!) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Train all day long in the largest grappling and MMA gym in the world. Choose whether you want to relax in the rejuvenating waters of a natural hot spring or surf the invigoratingly cold waves of the North Atlantic. Wrestle a Viking under the open sky and then retreat to the nearby tavern for a well-earned horn of ale.
Yes, we’re heading back to the Land of Ice and Fire for another week of training, exploring, and partying in one of the most stunningly beautiful places on Earth. Grab your drinking horn and gi (and glíma belt) and meet us there!
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| | | | Featured Traveller: Katharina Danielski |
| | Age: 35
Belt: White
Profession: Field application scientist
How many years in BJJ: 1.5
Other martial arts: Two years of no-gi grappling before starting with BJJ in the gi
Where do you live: Landshut, Germany (Bavaria)
Where are you originally from: Poland
Other fun or curious information you would like to share: My special skills involve geeking out on science, Marvel, cars or fighting… at the same time. All the time.
Also, I'm particularly good at ignoring what my coaches tell me and ending up doing whatever I want in competition. I live for the moments when I see the mixture of rage and resignation on their faces after pulling side-control on top of me with Youtube
techniques I had reviewed one day before my fight. |
| | | Tell us what inspired you to travel and train? I never thought I’d be traveling a lot, but I kind of stumbled into this lifestyle due to the job I found. Working in support for American biotech companies allowed me to see a lot more of the world than I ever imagined possible. During the early years of
my grappling/BJJ journey, I used to focus only on work during my business trips, and trained only back home in my own gym. After a while though, I realized that I wanted to get better in BJJ a lot faster than by only training once a week. That’s when I started searching for BJJ schools at the locations of my business trips, and that’s also the reason why I found BJJ Globetrotters.
Tell us about your most recent trip and your upcoming trips – where have you been and where are you going?
My most recent trip was to Lisbon in Portugal, where I competed at the IBJJF European Championship on 20th of January 2020 and won the gold medal in my division. My next trip is coming up already on 24th of January; I'm heading over to Palm
Springs, California, where my company is having its annual global meeting. But I'm flying out a few days early with a couple of colleagues, and we'll do a weekend road trip to Las Vegas first.
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| | What are the things you enjoy about traveling? I guess the variety - not being stuck in the same place all the time. I did work for three years in an office before I switched to a field-based role. I can’t imagine going back to an office job. Working in the field and traveling for work gives me the (partial)
freedom I need. People in various countries can also be very different, and you learn a lot about the world and about yourself. Unfortunately, I am more of a nature girl rather than city, so after a while all cities look the same: airports, motorways, hotels. Also, since I travel a lot for work I tend to stay home when I actually have holidays, as I just want to relax in my garden and see
my own BJJ peeps for a change. Traveling to the BJJ Globetrotter camps is a big exception to this rule.
Can you give us some examples of experiences you had that makes it worth traveling and training?
Combining training with my business trips has its pros and cons. Pros: you get to train a whole lot more than if you only focus on training back home, especially if you are traveling ~70% of your working time. You can develop your game a whole lot faster this way. Cons: since you visit various gyms you are always thrown into their training structure, which you obviously don’t know. The various trainers have their agendas and training plans for their students, and you are only visiting for a day or two. That means you get to see loads of techniques taken out of context, and they all swirl together into a massive mix at the same time in your poor white belt head. However, eventually I will be able to control the chaos (where are the Witcher fans??). And it’s a very rewarding feeling when you have learned a new technique or just some small detail you had missed before on a business trip and then get to try it out back home and it actually works (sometimes).
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| | What has so far been the most surprising experience for you when traveling? Some countries surprise you in general due to the way how we are conditioned about them by the media. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist nut, I’m definitely not, but just to give you an example: I have once been to Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) for two weeks for work. Talking to the people - and especially the women - did open my eyes somewhat. Every story is strongly influenced by the perspective it’s being told from, and those scientific women I spoke to painted a whole different picture for me than what the media has taught me to think. I am very grateful for having been able to experience this. Unfortunately, this trip happened just before I started with Grappling/BJJ, so I didn’t have a chance to see if I would have been able to find a women-only BJJ class there. That would have been interesting to see.
Are you a budget traveller – and if so how do you plan for a cheap trip? Not really. I would say I am somewhere in the centre: not too cheap and not too extravagant when looking at trips. But I do like to plan ahead, as I need to have structure of knowing where my next sleeping place is going to be.
If you were to pass on travel advice to your fellow Globetrotters, what would it be? Training while traveling benefits not only yourself, but sometimes also the people you visit. Therefore, use every opportunity you can get to visit other BJJ gyms while traveling. It can be scary at first; it really was for me. But as with everything in life, you only grow outside of your comfort zone. Every gym always involves rolling as part of their training, and that means you get to roll with loads of various people. It’s kind of like a tiny tournament for you each time. Of course, you don’t treat these rolls as actual tournament rolls: check your ego! Don’t hurt your hosts and don’t be hurt. But what I meant is, every new partner brings a new set of skills and movement patterns. Rolling against the same people every time in your home gym means that you eventually get to learn their styles and can use that knowledge to anticipate their moves. Well, not as a white belt (lol), but later on this will matter for sure. I had a situation once where I was training in another country, I can’t remember where. But I was rolling against a guy and we were fairly evenly matched. At one point I managed to get him into a body triangle. I didn’t think too much of it, but after the roll he told me that none of his training buddies ever does that kind of move on him and he had no clue what to do about it. That was a very refreshing perspective I hadn’t considered before. |
| | | | We continue to break new ground with this camp in the ancient yet vigorously modern Baltic city of Tallinn. Join us as we explore the largest and most innovative Jiu Jitsu gym in the country, as well as some of the most beautifully preserved medieval architecture that Europe has to offer. |
| | | | BJJ Globetrotters Academy in Focus: FM Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Carrigaline |
| | Where is the gym located?
SOLAS Health & Fitness - Unit 6, Carrigaline Industrial Estate, Kilnagleary, Carrigaline, Cork, Ireland.
How many people train there?
10-15
Is the gym growing – if so by how many new members each month or year?
Numbers are slowly increasing by around 2-3 committed students each year.
What are the highest and lowest belt grades training?
The head coach of the affiliation is a 3rd degree black belt, and the head coach of the club is a 3-stripe brown belt. The newest student has 2 classes done!
When did the gym open?
2014 |
| | Some facts about you:
Name: Roy Noonan Age: 35 Belt: Brown Profession: Military Years in BJJ: 11
Other martial arts: Judo, MMA, boxing Currently living in: Cork (2 minutes from the gym) Originally from: Cork
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| Please tell us the story of how your gym came into existence:
I started out by borrowing mats to train nearer to home, as my gym at the time was too far away, I eventually got 3 other people to train regularly, but had to give back the mats. So I just decided to buy my own mats and later got affiliated.
Tell us about the people that train in the gym – who are they?
Mostly college students and other military personnel.
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| | Why do they train?
I try to make the classes as fun as possible, I believe in laughing while learning where possible! So I guess that they enjoy it while learning an effective art and getting fit.
What are some of the challenges of running a BJJ gym in general and in your location specifically?
It’s an almost unheard-of sport, and rent in my area is very expensive.
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| | How do you see the future for BJJ in your area?
Growing every year. I will hopefully run this club until I’m too old to move, and expect others to start over the years as more Jiu-Jitsu blackbelts come to be.
What’s the best thing about your gym?
The students are all good friends. No egos - they all just look to practice Jiu-Jitsu and have fun.
What would you recommend Globetrotters to see in your area apart from the inside of your gym?We have several beaches nearby (although Irish weather is mostly bad) and coastal towns. Carrigaline is just a few minutes walk away, and we have a hotel and B&Bs near the club. Plus airport and ferry ports just a few minutes drive from gym!
Thanks for sharing with us! If you'd like to pay a visit to FM Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Carrigaline, you can find them here. |
| | | | | | | | Make your custom gis, patches and rashguards at our dedicated BJJ Globetrotters factory |
| | | It can be a mess to try and find a manufacturer of BJJ gear that you can trust on quality, delivery and attention to detail.
You can burn a lot of money going through samples from the many thousands of factories in Asia, trying to find one that will provide you with the product as you’ve imagined it. We know, because we’ve been through it all, ourselves! |
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