Home training at Team Marangoni
GRACIEMAG.com readers the planet over are still participating in the “Home-Jitsu” article. All the stories, as well as the photos, are published in the main story (see here).
Another black belt who likes training at home is Rodrigo Antunes, of BTT, and the submission whiz managed to put together a first-rate team. “I saw the article and I’d like to share our ‘hideout’ with you. Taking advantage of how the academy where I worked was getting rid of its mats, I bought them. After some time, I invited friends over to roll, the group grew and grew, and now nearly every Saturday we have between ten and fifteen friends from different academies over to train – all burly black belts!”
Nathan Fitzmaurice's dojo in Canada
A gentle art practitioner in Canada, Nathan Fitzmaurice practices “Home-Jitsu” constantly. “When I’m not training at Gracie Barra Fort McMurray, I’m sweating it up I my brother’s in-laws’ garage.”
Felipe Cavalcante is another of the home-training adept in Australia, and it has bore fruit for him. “I’m a Splinter BJJ black belt. I lived in Perth, Australia, for two and a half years, I got a job outside the city and the solution was to buy a mat and train with the local folks. With the dojo, I managed to make some pretty good money teaching private lessons. I received an offer to teach class at the other side of Australia, in Brisbane. I moved, but I took my mat with me. It’s a great way to keep in shape and practice positions.”
Faced with a lack of space, “Home-Jitsu” was the solution to Ricardo Puléo’s problems. “I’m from Curitiba and moved to Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, in 2006. I taught at an academy where we were always getting complaints about how there wasn’t enough ventilation. One of my students has a big room at his house and his father let us make it our headquarters. We bought tire shreds, managed to get a canvas donated to us, and we set up our dojo. That’s how our “Home-Jitsu” got started. Now we train at that student of mine’s house and have a great mat. There still aren’t too many of us, but the few that there are make up a family!”
Kylson is getting his daughter used to the mat.
Kylson Mota can’t do without some home training and, in so doing, takes the chance to get his daughter involved in Jiu-Jitsu. “I have a mat at my house. I’m already getting my daughter Kyara into it with me and it’s like therapy, beyond being just a martial art,” he says.
Johnny Gui innovated in New Zealand with “Farm-Jitsu.” “I represent and train at Nine Nine. In early 2003, I went to New Zealand for the first time, specifically to the city of Dunedin, in Sawyers Bay. I went thinking I was going to teach a group of ten students. Initially, I was going to stay for a month, but I ended up staying for seven months. These days, even with the team in a big academy, I never stop training where it all started, in the garage at home, in a small farm. We call it the “Farm-Jitsu” group! In this group we have the winner of the Abu Dhabi tryouts in the blue belt/lightweight division who will soon compete over in the land of the Sheikhs, Adam Johnson, besides the kids group comprised of the sons of friends who learned the gentle art early.”
Now Rafael Marangoni presented a legion of “Home-Jitsu” adept. “I’m from Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo, and I teach a group of 120 athletes, and we all practice ‘Home-Jitsu.’”
CheckMat black belt Anderson DJ Kron made the area by his pool into the most special place in his house, a mat with a full-service functional-training studio, where he often receives friends like Leon Amâncio, Caio Callado, Bernardo Tovolaro, and Thomas Malocka, among a lot of other friends and students. After training it’s all a bout a dip in the pool to cool off.