Photos: Daniel Carettoni.
Saturday was annual belt promotion day for Claudio França’s association of academies in California, where the black belt has been living for over a decade.
The fruit of constant and consistent labor, five black belts were promoted, with Helio Gracie red belt Francisco Mansur in attendance.
“I promoted around 300 athletes, even a green belt. And I promoted a girl to black belt for the first time in my life,” says França, referring to Caren Camblin.
Besides Caren, Duke Lee, Tyson Kemp, Scott Savage, and Gary Casey all were bestowed with the honor as well.
The schools CF Santa Cruz, CF San Jose, Vince Vanderlipe’s Kugtar, Carlos Melo and John Villareal’s Gilroy JJ, Daniel Thomas’s Zeus JJ, Scott Savage’s Savage JJ, Eric benequisto’s Xtreme Fitness, Erick Fallon’s Martial Arts Institute, and Joey Thomas’s FKA were all at the ceremony.
The girls of the teams in the Claudio França Association.