Renzo Gracie PA

I live in Virginia, but I'm originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Last year, when I was up here for one of our pro fights I found out about Renzo Gracie PA. Its an amazing gym that I didn't even know about located 10 minutes away from my parent's house. Since then I've been making monthly pilgrimages up here to train in Gi, the one thing that we lack at MiKiDo (a Gi or a Kimono is the uniforma worn, like in the pictures above).

I'm home for the weekend and I just finished a nice 2-hours session taught by the owner Rich Latta. He's a great guy. His family has really welcomed me into the gym and always supports me and my training when I'm home. Even though I only get to come up once a month I've learned a lot of great technique from him. Drill. Drill. Drill. Unfortunately, I'm still committing stupid amateur mistakes like not keeping my elbows in, but they don't let me get away with it for one second when I'm up here.

No bad habit goes unchecked and that's the attention to detail that I love when I'm training at Renzo's.

The next best thing about Renzo's is that they have a girl. I mean a real live girl that trains, and spars, and is serious, and doesn't look terrified when you square off. I guess I'm being a little over dramatic, but females in this sport are few and far between, and there are no other females in my area to roll with. There are two girls that train at Renzo's Gracie PA and then there is one other girl t that they keep telling me about that trains at Ricardo Almeida's in Jersey. When I move back for the summer I'll get a chance to go with Rich and his other fighters to train at Almeida's in Jersey and at MattSerraBJJ and Renzo's in New York. Daniel Gracie just opened a gym in Philly too, so I'll have a lot of good training before I leave. The best best part about working as a Spanish teacher is the opportunity to train as a full time fighter during the summer. There's a tournament in August so maybe I'll get to compete before I move to Brazil.