The Road to Rio: Training with Terere

Training with Terere

Terere with Connection Rio Sponsored athlete and bad ass

purple belt Abdallah Nabas

Terere is a cool person to train with because he is fun and always joking around during training. He is great at making everyone in the academy feel like family, whether they are students from the social project or tourists that will only be training a couple of weeks. Nabas scheduled his private lesson on Thursday, the day before Terere was leaving for the Europeans. I was actually surprised that he had time at all before flying out. Again that just goes to show you that he genuinely invests in his students.

Gringo Squad at Terere's Birthday Party

I met Nabas at the elevator that takes you up to the Cantagalo community so I could show him where the house was (and translate during the session). Terere was stuck in traffic so he ended up arriving about 20 minutes late. When we walked up the stairs that lead to his house his dad and mom who were waiting for us outside. His dad took us into the house and showed us up to the last two floors. The second to last floor is home to the new mats that were recently installed (and of course a nice stereo because, seriously, who trains without music?).The last floor is the roof of the house with the famed glass.

Note: you can see Terere’s house from almost anywhere on my side of the community, his house is at the top of Cantagalo and it’s the only house with a glass railing at the top. In front of the glass on the roof is also the spot where most of his guest pose for pictures when they are invited to over for a BBQ.

The famed glass pictures:

The famed glass with a view of the Morro Pavao~Pavaozinho

to the left and Copa below on the right.

Terere's Dad and a student from Switerzland

who has been staying at Terere's house

Terere and brown belt world champion Vlademir Alves

A lot of people wonder why Terere never moved out of the Favela after becoming so famous, these people have never seen the view from his roof. In front of you, ocean stretches out as far as you can see with cargo ships and cruise liners sailing in the distance. To the right is the Morro of Pavao-Pavaozinho where I live. At night the houses lights up the side mountain and you can always here Brazilian music coming from some distant bar.

From my roof you can see a little piece of the ocean, a basketball court, and a building that is under construction. From Terere’s roof you can see Copacobana, Ipanema, Pedra da Gavea, and Christ the Redeemer in the distance (you can also see my house). Nabas and I pulled up a couple chairs to enjoy the nice view while waiting for Terere. On the surrounding roofs people from the community where flying kites (this answered my question of how the hell they get those kites up so high).

This is somewhere in the CantaGalo community

Picture stolen from Mos (thanks!)

As soon as he walked in he said hi, turned on the rap music, and started talking about Nabas’s game. Like I said before Terere is really fun to train with because he has such a laid back attitude and he is always laughing, smiling, and joking around, but the Terere that walked in that day was completely different. He spoke fast and formally, stopping frequently to allow me to translate. As he was turning on the (rap) music he started analyzing what Nabas was good at and how he would like to see his Jiu Jitsu evolve. Sometimes when you do private lessons the instructor will ask you what they want to work on, or they will teach positions that they are particularly good at although they may be unrelated to your own style. Terere had a different approach. He analyzed Nabas’s style while watching him roll at the academy and had thought about specific things he wanted to work on with him. (Note: like I said before this was an unscheduled private lesson, Terere could tell you about any of his students, whether they are there for a week or 5 months. He watches and analyzes everyone and always gives great feedback, even when you’re not expecting it or think you’re not being watched). He’s lesson was really competition oriented and he really focused on the mental aspect of rolling, explaining not just the positions, but the different concepts behind them as well.

At the end of the private class it started to pour down rain. Terere made us a protein shake and told us to hang out while he did another private lesson with a friend of his (black belt friend to be specific). It was still raining after that, so we hung out a little longer. Nabas got to roll with the black belt, and since I didn’t have a kimono with me, I sat and played with Terere’s Ipad. Afterwards when the rain let up we all drove down to the academy so he could say goodbye to all his students.

All in all it was a great private lesson, but it also made me realize how much I’m going to miss him the two months while he is gone…