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. 

Evacking Gaza: No time for MMA training

Part 2: Evacuating the Gaza Strip

Hanging out at BJJ Hacks film shoot at Mestre Terere's house

In Cantagalo. A lot happens in one year in Brazil.

Warning: Do not try this at home.

So today it’s been a year since I’ve been living in Brazil. 365 days ago today I arrived at Connection Rio at 7-8AM. My first sight of the “Jiu Jitsu lifestyle” was the pasty white legs and tighty whities of Belgium native Brist who opened the door for me before stumbling back to bed to sleep off a long night of drinking (He is actually back now). Due to a scheduling error, there was no house manager to greet me so I tiptoed through the house, eventually stumbling across one of the common rooms that was stuffed full with damp kimonos, bunk beds, and more pasty, white gringo legs. Boy did I regret not having enough money to stay in a private room the 3 months that I stayed at Connection Rio! After 3 months I made my escape, leaving the quiet suburban neighborhood at the base of Pedra de Gavea and moved to the tumultuous Favela of Cantagalo to live with the Fernando Terere’s secretary. This is where the story gets good. 

playing cards

 I stayed there for a little while, but since I STILL didn’t have my own room, I eventually jumped ship and landed in what I now know is called the Gaza Strip or Quebra or that place, you know, when you get off the elevator and go left.

I lived there for 3 months but soon found the need to leave because… well because it was a shit hole. It was my shit hole though, so I did love it in its own way. For the first time in 8 months, I could sleep in, walk around in my underwear, and not have to worry about boys peeing on the toilet seat all the time (where we get off telling guys to put the toilet seat down is beyond me... men are impossible, if you don't want to be sitting in pee all the time it is more effective to put the toilet seat UP after finishing). 

I finally had my freedom, but I also had to deal with a suspect landlord, a wall that was always damp and most likely moldy, and a limited amount of space. SOOO limited that when I wasn’t in bed I had to throw it up against a part of the wall that wasn’t damp! Life in the favela is definitely a big change from the million dollar homes that surround the Connection Rio hostel. 

I ended up dealing with that mess for 3 months. It would have been 3 months and 2 days but my landlord outright refused to let me stay the extra days I needed before being able to move into my new place.

My New Place:

Finding a new place took two days of walking up and down numerous stairs with my previously mentioned cria and searching out people like “nido” who has a room for 300 and lives in the bakery that closed down in the GDF or “Aunty from the church” who has 3 room for cheap, wait who is it for? You? Ok! Yeah 3 rooms. She is in the salon go ask for her down that street around 9 (this is why you need a cria. In America you look up an address in the favela you ask around looking for people to point you to other people who know where there is someone). 

Hanging out and having lunch at Terere's house while 

filming BJJ Hacks. You can see Jackson Souza's house from here. 

The blue tubs supply water to houses and also act as a 

drying rack for clothes. Roof tops are also popular places

for kite flyers

So, I find a new place but nothing can ever just be easy so long story short let’s just cut to Tuesday. I was supposed to move out of my house Monday (I’m also supposed to be in MMA sparring) and I’m sitting dejectedly on my front steps with an empty house save a fridge and the blankets that I slept with last night. I’m somewhat stressed out because A.) if you hadn't noticed I mentioned it was Tuesday and I was supposed to move out Monday  and B.) there are two things that I know about my landlord for sure… neither of them meeting the censorship of this blog but most likely falling under the jurisdiciton of ATF. So yeah I woke up Tuesday determined get myself and my fridge out of there ASAP.  

Note:

My fridge is my prized possession. It is also the biggest and should be the most expensive thing I own. It’s not actually... these are.

It cost me about 80 dollars to buy these two pieces of crap!

They are the only real pieces of furniture I own...

How is that possible? Two reasons. 

A. Everything in Rio is expensive and plastic things for some reason are double expensive.

B. I acquired my fridge via the Jeito Favelado (the favela way). What’s the favela way you may ask? Well, one morning, at an ungodly early hour, someone came screaming my name outside of my window. I get up open the window and it’s my friend's boyfriend asking me if I want to buy a fridge for R50 USA $23. So, we walk up one level to this nice apartment where I am greeted by some shady guy that looks like he could be a pimp or something. IRONICALLY he used to live in Maryland and is not moving to Sao Paulo since he couldn’t afford his rent. Viola. Fridge for me, along with a huge tub a mayonnaise, and some sketchy mustard in a water bottle. I saved myself at the least R300 that I would have had to dish out to buy and transport a used fridge from somewhere else.

End note. Back to me being dejected on my front steps with no Cria.

Along the Estrada, that is not an abandoned house, people live there

Thats not a pile of trash, kids play there. 

These politicians, I'm not sure who they are, they never come here

but cheers for spending your campaign money to throw more trash 

into the communities! They should be ashamed!

Cut. Once again we are out of time. It's been a long day and I have wrestling in the morning. The third and last part will be out next week, freeing me up to get to my next topic of interest: Bomba... and not the gernades the dealers throw... I'm talking about the juice the athletes down! 

If your dying to read more about the favela check out Tales From Deep Half as my homeboy has also released a 3 part story on living here in the favela! I accidently sent him down into the Gaza Strip forgetting that he was a "straight up white boy" ... like I said you shouldn't try this at home... 

Valeu