Next Monday will be a Holiday due tue labor day and Gracie Barra San Clemente will be opened in the morning. We will start at 10am with an All Levels. At 11am we will have a Live Training Session for students with White Belt 3 stripes and above.
This upcoming Saturday, Gracie Barra San Clemente will have its first competition training session from 12pm to 2pm. Professor Flavio Almeida will be with us for the entire session going over the rules, strategy and lots of training!!!
Professor will also be talking to the students about his plans and expectations for the Gracie Barra San Clemente competition team. All Students are welcome. White belt 3 stripes and above are allowed to participate.
The draft of our fall schedule is ready and we would love to have feedback from you! We are offering more classes and more Live Training Sessions (Sparring/Radory). All changes proposed are based on average attendance of classes reflect the most convenient times for the majority of our students. We are doing our best so you all can train as much as possible!
The Fall Schedule starts at September 2nd and meanwhile we will be receiving suggestions and recommendations from the students. You can send us an email to info@graciebarrasanclemente.com, write a post here or drop your suggestion at the suggestion box on the school.
Find below all the proposed changes:
1) The Mondays and Wednesdays Fundamentals 8am Morning Classes were Transferred to 12pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and we added a 30 Minutes live training from 1pm to 1.30pm.
2) Due to several requests from Parents, our Kids Class (3yrs to 6yrs) will be starting at 4pm and our Juniors Class (7yrs to 14 yrs) will start at 4.50pm
3) We will start our Kids Advanced Program by adding one more class for the advanced kids (White and Yellow Belt and above) every Saturday 9am.
4) MMA / No GI Class Transferred to Saturday at 12pm. Added 30 Minutes No Gi Live Training at the End.
5) Fundamentals Classes From Tuesdays and Thursdays Changed to 7.30pm - 8.30pm.
6) Advanced Class from Tuesdays and Thursdays starts at 6.00pm and not at 6.30pm any more. The class will go from 6pm to 7pm and there will be a 30 minutes live training session after (7.00pm to 7.30pm)
7) With the End of the Summer, ends also our Women Program. No more women class Saturdays from 10 to 11pm. We are excited to see that our girls are already attending the Fundamentals Classes and some of them are on the Advanced and Black Belt programs! Great job girls!!!!!!
It was the highlight of our Conditioning Class. It was noon already and most of us were tired from such challenging, fun and exciting morning. But the best was still to come. Right at the end of the event, Professor Flavio Almeida called two of his closest students to award them with their Purple Belts.
Val is a great asset to the school! A Black Belt in other martial arts, he brings a lot to the GB San Clemente Mats. Besides his size and unbelievable strength, the bear is always looking for ways to improve his techniques and whoever trains with him will be impressed by how gentle and fluid his Jiu-Jitsu can be.
“Coach” Felipe Guedes is the face of Gracie Barra San Clemente. A dentist who decided to go for an adventure and live in the United States, became the one of the main forces for excellence inside our school. His Jiu-Jitsu experience is long and wide and his ability to teach is second to none!
Last Saturday, the Gracie Barra San Clemente Team had one more day of fun! The turn out of our conditioning class was awesome and everyone said it was a day to be remembered.
The class started with a jog for the adults and a nature walk for the kids at one of the trails of the San Onofre State Beach Park. While our marines pushed the pace of our jog, the kids were having a great time discussing the environmental challenges of our community and learning about animals and plants.
After the outdoor activities we all came back to the school and most students engaged on a great class built by drills that are part of the training of the best fighters in the world. Meanwhile, the kids were thrilled by three unique visitors: a snake, a turtle, and a falcon!
At the end, came the most expected moment: the promotions! Many of our students got their 3rd stripe and will now start to train at the advanced classes, and our dear Neo got his blue belt. Last but not least, Big Val and a very emotional Felipe got their purple belts.
We are very proud to see the schools growth as well as our students who recently received promotions. Here are just a few pictures of those who are one Stripe/Belt closer to obtaining their black belt.
Today the “B in BJJ” will bring you a little bit of information about Brazilian Music.
There are a lot of different styles of music in Brazil; some examples are Samba, Pagode, Sertaneja, Forro, Olodum, Rock Brasileiro, Bossa Nova, among others. I will talk about many of these styles in the future. But the one I would like to talk about today is a style called “Musica Popular Brasileira” or MPB (Brazilian Popular Music).
It is quite an interesting challenge when I try to explain MPB to non-Brazilians. “What exactly is Brazilian Popular Music?” I ask myself. How do I define something that is a feeling, an experience, something that can only be understood through sound and emotion?
In Brazil, MPB is a household acronym that needs no explanation. To ask a Brazilian “What is MPB?” would be like asking him or her “What is samba?” MPB includes any Brazilian music not categorized as classical, which is to say, all non-classical music ever created since the discovery of Brazil by Pedro Álvares Cabral in April of 1500.
Brazilian music is founded upon the syncretism of European, African, and Indigenous Amerindian musical traditions—all of which contribute to its uniqueness.
The Dicionário Houaiss da Língua Portuguesa (Houaiss Dictionary of the Portuguese Language) defines “popular music” as “urban music of an oral tradition, the authors of which are usually known” (2001).
This definition implies that popular music is only urban, although it is well documented that MPB arose and evolved in urban as well as rural settings. It also suggests that popular music does not include folkloric music, a genre in which many songs are anonymous.
The term MPB came into general use around 1965, when amazing singers and composers such as Chico Buarque, Tom Jobim e Elis Regina came onto the music scene. Each of these singers reflected their generation in their own way with songs that touched a nation with love, beauty, poetry—and that often also protested against the government and social inequality.
Here is a video of Tom Jobim and Elis Regina singing “Aguas de Marco” (Waters of March), a video of Chico Buarque singing “O Meu Amor” and also one of my favorites, Djavan singing “Sina”.
I hope that you guys enjoy the music and if you are interested in searching more MPB artists here is a list of some of the best ones:
Last month we had 2 visitors at our school. Fernando Almeida (Professor’s Father) and Andre Almeida (Professor’s young brother). It was a great honor for us to presence the GB Family Spirit through the Almeida’s family.
Fernando could share with us some funny stories about Professor Flavio on a young age like the day when Flavio won a gold medal on a tournament in Rio against Gabriel Napao (UFC Fighter who knock Cro Cop down with one kick) and Flavio’s coach went inside the fight area to celebrate, so the referee decided to disqualify Flavio and give the first place to Napao. So his dad had to jump inside the fight area and got the microphone and did a really nice speech saying that was not fair that Flavio would be punished for his coach’s mistake. So everybody agreed with his dad and Flavio’s went home with the deserved gold medal”
It was a lot of fun for us to be around Andre for almost a month. Andre is a great surfer and a excellent Blue Belt. Always full of energy and always hungry, what is normal for a 17 years old guy.
There is a possibility of Andre to move to California to go to school here and if that happen we will have a good train partner for a long time. Good luck on that Andre! Maybe when you come back we will have a nick name for you: