Twerking in 2016: New Years in the Favela

With Bruno Matias from Checkmat and some other people

from Terere's 

Everyone that knows me should be hip to the fact that I hate holidays (with a passion), being away from home makes holidays all the more fun to deal with.

My first year in Brazil I was looking forward to avoiding all aspects of Christmas but I randomly ended up moving in with a Peruvian family and ended up celebrating Latin American style with Pisco Sour and Ceviche. My second year in Rio a friend of my moms from the US was visiting her family in Belo Horizante (in Minas Gerais, a state north of Rio) and she invited me to spend the holidays with her family. It was actually a dope trip as I only paid for a bus ticket and she treated me to an amazing time and I got to visit the historic city of Oro Preto and stay in a sick house that her family has owned for generations.

This year was the first year that I was able to avoid Christmas all together. It was glorious. I went to the beach (twice).

For New Years, everyone in Rio dressed in white and heads to Copacabana beach to watch the fireworks (the Cantagalo favela where I live is above Copacabana and Ipanema beach). I hate crowds so there was no way in hell I was planning on leaving the favela. I just got a new Iphone 5 (for free) and I wasn’t about to have my baby snatched up at the beach while taking my first selfies of 2016 (and then have to walk up over 28 flights of stairs to get home or wait til the elevator opens at 5). Plus, from Terere’s roof you can see Copacabana, Ipanema, Lagoa, and Christ Redeemer. From Copacabana beach you can see… Copacabana beach.

So, I ditched all the parties and went to Terere’s house instead. Terere is traveling but I chilled there with his girlfriend, his family, and the other teachers from the social project. Good food, good friends, and the best view of the fireworks.

After getting down on some food and distributing a millions hugs and kisses to a lot of drunk sweaty strangers, I rolled out with Terere’s girlfriend to hang out on the Pistao (the main road of the favela where there are a few bars and, at the time, a huge setup of speakers). We came back around 3A.M. to find a nearly empty house with a few kids playing playstation and a very inebriated black belt up on the roof.

I cleaned up the beer and then rolled out to the with the inebriated black belt that was pressed to go to the pistao.

The pistao is the main strip in the favela that connects the two sides. I tried to take a video but it was too dark and there were too many guns so I desisted. One of the weirdest things about being on a party in the pistao (especially if your not from around here) is seeing the mix of people here. At one end there were a bunch of dealers with walkie talkies, dancing, drinking, and performing their nightly lookout duties, then you would pass by another group of guys two stepping with a drink in their hand, watching a third group of girls that were shaking their asses, and then.... then out of nowhere pops out a crew of 6 year olds working it like they were professionals. 

This is such a shitty picture but I feel like it adequately describes 

my relationship with them: blurry, confusing, but lots of love and 

always repping that FT spirit! 

I made my way to the end of the pistao where I posted up on someone's car with my inebriated black belt and some other guys from the Checkmat gym that is also located in the favela (Terere and Checkmat are to rival BJJ social projects from Cantagalo). 

I was just chilling, thinking about how 2016 was going to be a year of small miracles (starting with the fact that you can never catch me out this late), when all of the sudden someone comes up from behind me and flips my new FT Jiu Jitsu snapback off my head. 

Apparently it's not meant for me to have nice things because a black belt in Curitiba recently took a liking to my brand new sexy ass red leather machina boxing gloves and subsequently relieved me of them. Matias finessed my hat off me though because he followed up his theft saying:

"You know who I am right? I know you know who I am cause you follow me on Facebook. You run the marketing at Terere's so don't even tell me you can't get another hat"

At which point my ego exploded. 

Seeing as how I have just recently been graduated from the ignominious ranks of white belt, its an honor when black belts, or anyone in the Jiu Jitsu world for that matter, actually acknowledges you as a person. 

(Note: or the non jiu jitsu crowd, lets just be clear, I mean that literally. I have been told time and time again that white belts aren't people!) 

After that I entrusted the care of my inebriated black belt to someone else and headed off home to sleep. 

Best part of 2015:

When Terere printed the Terere Kids Project logo on shirts and rash-guards for the first time. The name came from a friend of mine from MiKiDo Martial Arts who helped me brain storm and the logo was designed by Deus Fight Co one of our sponors that we met through BudoVideos. 

Worst Part of 2015:

Its been two years since I've seen my family. I've missed births and deaths and everything in between. 

Sex on the Beach 2: FAVELA STYLE

He kept telling me to loosen up. Telling me that I was too closed and that I needed to relax. Well, I wasn’t sure exactly how I was supposed to relax considering he was sitting there 2 (very small) feet away from me.  Or at least he WAS because he soon found an excuse to edge his way next to me on the mats (yeah that’s right I have mats at my house and ingeniously hid my bed behind my desk so that visitors don’t take liberties on my bed like this fool was taking on my mats!).

I’m not exactly sure why the hell I even let him in my house. I can’t deny the things he was saying were making complete sense. I really did need to loosen up. My physical therapist, and masseuse tell me the same thing all the time; I'm too tense. Considering I am always trying to avoid some kind of unwanted physical contact, whether it be getting my guard passed in training, or a friendly hug that is lasting entirely too long, it just comes as second nature to treat all physical contact as a potentially hostile threat (probably indicative of some psychological damage I'm inflicting on myself but oh well I love what I do). 

Connection Rio 

my home away from home

All physical contact should be handled 

with hostility, especially at Connection Rio,

cause seriously he should just slap me!

I thought of my friends, A and J, who would be flooded with words or know exactly what to say. Better yet, they would know exactly who he was because they grew up together there in Galo.

So maybe that why I let him in, maybe it was a subconscious effort to try and be more social and integrate myself into the community. To not feel so isolated all of the time.

I often wonder what it would be like to shed my gringo skin and see the favela through the Cria perspective. Maybe then I would be more relaxed with him instead of internally slapping myself across the head for letting a drug dealer in my house. Maybe then he would just be a dumb kid from down the street and then maybe words would flow easier and I would have something to say to him.

Tudo 2 (all 2) is something I used to say all the time. Then my friend 

from Nova Uniao swore to me it was a gang phrase from my neighborhood. 

 Well if they can put it on a wall than it can stay in my vocab! 

But unfortunately that is not the case. I didn’t know him (despite seeing him everyday). So, I’m sitting about a foot away from this guy with one knee up and hands positioned to deflect any attempt to either pass or worse ENTER my guard. Just to be thorough, I made sure to keep my knee “live” or turned out and kept my hand close to my ankle to avoid it getting snatched up and me being laid out on my back (since I’m so small, people take advantage of any minor flaw in my posture to muscle me onto my back and pass my guard). Despite the attention to detail that I put into my posture, my girl Claudinha always tells me the best defense is offense, so any attempts to kiss me where going to be met swiftly and violently with an elbow.

Yes, that’s actually what I was thinking about while this guy was talking to me.

No, I’m not exaggerating not even in the slightest.

Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t actually scared of him. He was a drug dealer, true, but he had gone home and dropped off his bag of drugs before coming over and from what I could tell there was no gun under his thin, white Nike T-shirt. So, no, I wasn’t scared of him, we just had a severe conflict of interests that were eventually going to clash (titan style). In a short period of time, I was going to want to go to bed because I had wrestling in the morning and he... well he wanted to get a little wrestling done then and there. So there I sat tense AF!

I’m not sure what the hell I’m supposed to say to this guy and it wasn’t just the language barrier, we just didn’t have much in common. Tomorrow I was going to get up and go train wrestling, Jiu Jitsu, and Muay Thai. He, on the other hand, was going to sit for 12 hours and watch for police. He likes to go out and dance… and I want to be a world champion.

View from Terere's room in Galo of  neighoring favelas 

pavao/pavaozinho and Copacabana beach

Maybe I’m just as bad as he was. Maybe I was just playing with him. I knew why he was there, but I was curious to see how he was going to go about his business. I didn’t want to generalize and stick all Brazilians in a box so I gave him a chance to escape from his little box where I had neatly compartmentalized him and brushed him off as with most male suiters that come my way. 

He didn’t do much to restore my faith, instead he proceeded along the normal script, “Loosen up, lighten up, let things flow.” I’m tired of hearing that shit. Actions speak louder than words and so far I have yet to meet someone who I can let my guard down around. The fact that they never actually "let things flow doesn’t help either"! Instead they persist with one advance after another until I’m ready to grab my mouth guard and hand wraps.  

I will admit, however, that while I don't agree with the Brazilian propensity to wantonly sleep around, they are straight forward and direct. They don't beat around the bush or make promises they never intend to fulfill. They tell you straight up what they want and they don't bother to sugarcoat it with trips to movies or any other sort of romantic endeavor.

So naturally, when some non Brazilian offered to walk to the entrance of the favela (which is feared by most gringos), I was caught off guard. I've become so jaded by the animalistic sex instincts that run rampant along the beaches of Rio that if someone where to go so far as open a car door for me I might literally drop dead of a heart attack... and/or suspicion!

My bro

Terere and his badassery before class!

So here I am today. Almost a year later (with not much success since) receiving relationship advice from my bro and BJJ legend Fernando Terere:

“Oh so nothing happened? But did you grab the snake? He’ll change his game up once you go there”

Oh duh. Why didn’t I think about that? Instead of sulking around the fringes of the dreaded “friend zone” I should have just grabbed his Johnson and immediately dispelled any unnecessary doubts!

To be continued: 
Sex on the Beach 3: 'Murica

Fun from the Favela

a little look into the cut of the Cantagalo Favela. This is a house that was built by a friend of mine and parent of one of the kids at the social project. They used to live in a cement house with the rest of their family (a good 6-7 people including kids in a small room) and build this house down here to be able to have some privacy. This is more than one house. 

Boxing Brazilian Style aka WTF is happening?!?!?!

Initially after losing I was pissed... After having my hand raised (2x) and then getting called back 10 minutes later to have the decision reversed, I was confident that Brazilians really needed to abandon all hopes at hosting the olympics and get back to the basics. Reading simple names, and differentiating colors and what not is essential to leading a productive adult life, inside and out side of the sports world.

In my opinion I outboxed her. Her punches were predictable and easy to block and counter. She was hesitant to attack and spent most of the fight skirting the ropes.

After watching the video, I still think I outboxed her. I will admit thought that she had some powerful spurts that won her the fight in the eyes of the biased judges (she is, after all, a well known local boxer and we were fighting in her venue). Technique is important, but I really need to work on my power. Planting my feet and sending someones head rolling across the ring will prevent further mix up decisions in the future.

The future being two weeks from now when I will be fighting MMA in Florianapolis, a beach town a little further south of Curitiba. The girl I'm fighting is AGAIN more experienced. 3-1, all 3 victories via 1st round submission. She's a purple belt (I'm a blue belt), but I'm not too worried about that. After watching some of her videos it seemed her opponents had no concept of take down defense or how to stop a submission what-so-ever, not to say that I shouldn't take her seriously!

The WTF is happening look on dudes face was priceless!

As we were called back to the ring for the third time he tells me 

"yeah my bad this shit tends to happen with her" 

Belts, however, only mean so much, especially when you add punching to the equation. One thing that has really stuck with me when I find myself at a disadvantage on the ground is something I heard Terere say in an interview in respects to why he preferred passing as opposed to pulling guard. I don't remember the exact quote but the idea of it was him being claustrophobic and doing anything he could to get out from underneath a heavier opponent. All technique aside, violently shoving someone's head down and trying to stand up as aggressively as you can is amazingly effective. That's Favela Jiu Jitsu. That straight from the streets fighting mentality. F*#%! a "technical stand up", or a pretty sweep from closed guard, just GET YOUR ASS UP!

I have two weeks to cut 5 kilos and get ready for my MMA match. I'll be fighting the same day that teammate Jessica Andrade goes against Raquel Pennington in Las Vegas. Apparently I have a similar boxing style as Pennington so I'll probably end up doing a lot of stand up with her. She is a wild little thing. Where as I throw a lot of straight punches and cut angles, she is prone to coming straight in swinging. Which leaves me backed up into the cage, with my guard up, looking for an opening.

This weeks goal... to anchor down and figure out how to stop the attack! Hitting harder is probably step 1!

On that note I'm going to watch a movie and I will leave you here with my to watch my fight! Oh did I mention that that was hands down the WORST skirt that I could have fought in!! Some sewing will definitely be done before fighting in it again!

you missed it! The fight was taken down! 

South Bound & Down II: Burning Bridges

Artic Chaga Tea is a new supplement sponsors... well no TEA 

sponsor that will is sending me some hand picked Alaskan mushrooms!!

Their tea has amazing amounts of antioxidants and helps speed 

recovery time by a ZIILION!

I couldn’t think of any good ways to inform Rio de Janeiro that I would be leaving the comforts of my beachside favela. After several hours of debating it, I decided I was left with only one logical solution. Facebook.

Social media has reduced human interactions to comments and likes. A definite plus for shy people like me.

So, in one quick and concise status update, I informed the world… Well, the Portuguese speaking portion of it at least, that I would be leaving Nova Uniao and moving to Curitiba at the end of the July.

I initially expected people to talk a lot of shit (people probably are talking a lot of shit they just aren’t posting it on my wall), but I was surprised by the amount of support via comments and private messages that I received. They were an unexpected, but much needed reprieve from people that generally act as if I’m slightly crazy… living in the favelas of Brazil and all.



Sunday training in Curitiba. I was supposed to be back in Rio But I missed my flight and ended up spending some extra days!!


I’m not going to lie, I’m definitely apprehensive about leaving the picturesque beaches and tropical climate of Rio. Not to mention, the safety net of friends and pseudo family that I’ve assembled here. The thought of burning bridges, whether they are useful or not,  is always unsettling to a certain degree. As a buddhist I'm well aware that attachment causes suffering, but as someone thats been living with little more than 2 suitcases for the last two years, abandoning everything that I have come to know is perplexing. 

Plus, Curitiba is one of the coldest cities in Brazil.  I’m not sure what the hell I was thinking.

Which brings me to my next point…


What the hell was I thinking?




I mean seriously... leaving Nova Uniao, one of the best MMA teams worldwide. No longer will I be training next to Jose Aldo, Renan Barao, or the umpteenth number of UFC fighters the adorn the gyms prestigious pedigree. They have everything an athlete could desire... physical therapists, and nutritionists, a pool, sauna, and a strange room that they claim is for pilattes, although to me it looks like it came straight out of 50 Shades of Gray. I'd be traded up my sports bras for sweatpants!! And then there's the beaches of Rio de Janeiro. Front row for Carnival, New Years, and Christmas events. 

But, I came to Brazil because I wanted to fight. 

Although Rio is great, I’m not getting any fights here. It’s also a very expensive city. So after thinking about it, it just makes more sense to go to Curitiba where I can save money and fight more. So I'm trading up the beaches of Rio to train at Parana Vale Tudo (PRVT). Its relatively a small team compared to Nova Uniao, but they have a pretty big girls team with fighters from UFC and InvictaFC. 


Unlike Nova Uniao where there are about a million classes offered through out the day (wrestling, boxing, conditioning, Nogi, BJJ, Muay Thai), PRVT only has 1-2 training sessions a day. The week I spent in Curitiba meeting everyone was a complete 180 in my overly hectic training schedule. The team gathers in the afternoon and the coaches divide everyone based on what they need. The amateurs may practice a little muay thai off to the side while some of the girls roll Nogi to warm up a guy that has a fight coming up. Then switch to some work against the cage, muay thai sparring, and end with judo take downs. Its seems like a completely random, haphazard way to go about training, but in actuality it is tailored to the specific needs of each person. I was able to get more 1on 1 help from the coaches in their small informal setting than when I'm training with 30 plus people on the mats of Nova Uniao. 

Its definitely different. But it reminds me of my team MiKiDo from home. So in the end I think its a better fit for me!

On another note...I also got to travel to Sao Paulo with my friend who was giving a few seminars!

Shout out to Eduardo Castro owner of Half & Half academy for letting me Crash at his place!
Per usual, met some great people on the mats in Sampa. New friends and new places to visit on my next trip! 

They said I couldn't... 

So naturally I did!