Photos by Luca Atalla
If you were under the impression that there’s no place for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the land of sambo, set aside some room on your night stand for this month’s GRACIEMAG. In putting together the special issue, our team of news sleuths traveled to the land of Fedor Emelianenko and Yelena Isinbayeva for a portrait of a dedicated, curious and tough-as-nails people – as literature and the MMA world already suggests they are.
Igor Gracie teaching
All that was left to do was for our reporters to see it in the flesh. Sweating it up in and out of the gi at a major training camp, we happened upon beasts with wrestling and European ju-jitsu backgrounds who fell head over heels in love with the art ever since first tapping out to a triangle.
We visited academies on par with the best in the world, like the Gracie Barra school in Moscow, and we got a taste for some of the culture, cuisine, heelhooks and Russians’ notorious ability to withstand chokes. Don’t miss it! This month, only in GRACIEMAG.
Below, check out some of the characters from the camp.
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The post The Russian Camp first appeared on Graciemag.