Congratulations to our team mate from New Jersey, Frankie Edgar, for successfully defending his UFC lightweight belt.  He has now beaten quite possibly the greatest fighter on the planet, B.J. Penn, twice!   That is an amazing feat.  He completely dominated for five rounds.

 

We have had quite a few promotions lately.  I am sorry if I have been remiss in not giving everyone there due "shout out", but here are a few pictures of some.  Vanderlei Dias and Barbaro Lara have been training hard and often and duly earned their Blue belts.  Congratulations guys!  Many more adults and kids have been promoted lately, so I am sorry that I don't have those pictures to post today.  Congratulations for sure to all of you.

This weekend our team mate from the New Jersey academy, Frankie Edgar, will be defending his UFC lightweight title against none other then B.J. Penn.  He won the belt several months back and we are hoping and expect that he will be able to defend it in this tough rematch.  If you can, we will all be at the Carolina Ale House to watch the fights and cheer him on, so please join us.

 

 

 

 

First I wanted to let everyone know who didn't get a chance to see that our team mate from the New Jersey academy, Ricardo Almeida, dominated his opponent on the way to a submission victory in this past weekends UFC.

His opponent did all he could to try to not let Ricardo keep top position, but once Ricardo passed his guard he quickly took his back and choked him until his opponent was forced to tap.

I also wanted to let everyone know that from now on, Mondays thru Thursdays from 8.05-9.05 in the evenings there will be a Muay Thai Boxing class.  This class is replacing the cardio kickboxing class.

There will not be any sparring in this class.  It will however be concentrating on learning how to punch and kick.  If any of you have not ever taken a Muay Thai class before, besides it being an effective stand up art, it is a hell of a workout.  All the guys who tried it last week loved it, and the girls from the original cardio kickboxing class have really appreciated the change to a functional boxing class which still has an intense conditioning portion.

The annual BBQ is April 17th at Markham Park.  It promises to be another great event just like last years.  Please, if you haven't done so, RSVP so that way we will make sure to have enough food and drinks for everyone.  Just respond to this email with how many people you will be coming with.

 

 

 

 

We had a great time this past Tuesday when Black Belt multi time champion Mario Delgado came to visit us here at the academy and gave us a seminar.  Everyone loved it and were raving about the new moves.  

I saw right away some students even using those moves they learned that night.

I will be trying to get him here as soon as possible to teach another seminar.

 

 

Holiday schedule, party and promotions!

I first wanted to thank everyone who was able to to take time out of their busy holiday schedules and make it out Poc Restaurant this past Thursday.  We had a really fun time and the food was delicious.  

On top of that, we got a chance to hand out a bunch of new belts. Congratulations to Brynne Hunt and Tony Ivory on receiving their Blue Belts.  Also congratulations to Jacob Spector, David Tejeda, Max Costa and Sebastian Soriano for their Grey/White Belts.  Well done everyone. 

The academy will be closed from December 24th thru January 1st.  There will be no classes between those days EXCEPT on Tuesday December 29th where we will have an amended schedule.  

That Tuesday the 29th there will be Little Warriors at 4pm, Kids and Juniors together at 5pm, and all beginner and advanced Adults will have an open mat with a question and answer period from 6-8pm.

I am looking forward to the new year and seeing everyone on the mats having a great time and achieving new goals.

 

 

We had a lot of promotions in the past couple of weeks that I did not want to miss out on mentioning.

Diego Exposito and Ricardo Camacho earned their Gray/White belts.

Also Matt Lally moved on up to Blue Belt.

Congratulations to all of you.  You've all worked hard for this.

 

 

Seminar and promotions
First I wanted to give a huge thanks to Jarett Perelmutter for putting on an outstanding Striking Seminar on this past Tuesday.  Everyone was telling me that they got a lot out of it as well as being inspired by his speeches of goal setting and the manner of living your life happy.

  

Also, congratulations to Gautam and Gayatri Rao.  They have put in the hard work and have graduated to their next belt.  We are all very proud of them as well as is their parents who help out a great deal here at the academy.  Well deserved promotion!

10/09/09

We had several promotions this past week that must be recognized.   First of all Aiden Lassiter earned his Gray Belt.  We were all happy to see this happen because he works really hard and has great athletic prowess.

For the adults we had several of our students earn their Blue Belts.  This is a milestone that I will always remember.  The first colored belt is a great memory.  Giann Moramarco, Andre Nunes and Parker Frederick all joined the ranks of Blue Belt.  I am happy to say that represent our academy well!

 

 

09/26/09

I wanted to make sure to acknowledge all the hard work that Dan Hofmann and Matt Mattone and Robbie McCree put in throughout their training period to earn their blue belts.  They have shown real character by overcoming busy personal, work and family life  to continue on and train hard with their goal of improving their BJJ.  I was happy to award them their new belts.  Congrats!

Also of course Joseph Marroquin who earned his yellow belt.  He is a stellar student of the game and never misses a class if it can be avoided.  I am expecting to wrap a black belt around him someday.  Well done!

Many other students have earned their belts that unfortunately I don't have pictures of the presentations such as Bryan Hernandez, C.J. and Joey Werder .

I will make a point of giving them the proper salutation on the website by putting up pictures from now on and mentioning everyone when they receive new belts.

Congratulations everyone!

  

09/20/09
We had a big party this past Saturday here at the academy.  I took the opportunity of my sons 4th birthday to have the party here so that all the kids who train here could have a great time as well.   Everyone loved the bounce house and magician as well as all the other activities that happened.  Thanks to everyone who came and made that a great fun day.

08/25/09
I want to give a big thank you to Jason Kelly who gave an awesome Wrestling Seminar to our students this past Tuesday night.  He really spelled out the fundamentals of wrestling takedowns to our students.  I am sure they will never forget him because of what they learned and also in realizing how hard wrestlers work because all of their legs were killing them for days.

8/20/09
I wanted to thank The Broward County Swat for coming to our academy and training.  We had them here en masse and I was very impressed with how hard they worked.  I put them through a hard workout and they were up to it.  Thank you SWAT for all the hard work you do for us out there. 

 

Congratulations to our newest blue belts Juan Falcone, Alex benites, Edgar Viera, Peter Spencer and Alejandro Luna.   These guys have put the hard time in on the mats and really improved to where you can see excellent technique coming from them.  Well deserved guys!

  

7/16/09
We want to congratulate Phil harker for two things.  One is for cleaning out his division at the NAGA tournament in Orlando two weeks ago.  He had six matches in his White belt division and won everyone of them.  That was so impressive that we felt we had to promote him to Blue Belt.  Congratulations once again!

 

06/22/09
This week Daniel Pallares achieved the level of blue belt, which is an amazing feat at the age of 16.

 

06/01/09 We had a great time this weekend with our first Belt Ceremony. Thanks to everyone who was able to come. There was a ton of support there from friends and family. We will be adding more pictures of the promotions, but for now you can go to the photo section of the website to check out some of the snapshots of that day. 04/01/09 We have more guys to add to the list of Blue Belt.  Through their hard work, Aurelio Camacho, Bill Versosky and Michael Jelaso have joined the ranks.  Congratulations   3/5/09 This week Matt Garrett achieved the level of blue belt. Congratulation on this big step, definitely all the hard work is paying off.   3/5/09 Congratulations again to our newest blue belts.  These guys have really put the time and effort in to reach a goal that they have been looking forward to.  Gio Vega, Jorge Marroquin and Hari Rao congratulations    2/12/09 I wanted to congratulate Eric Schwanenfeld on receiving his blue belt.  He has shown with technique and endurance that he is ready for this promotion. Enjoy. 2/3/09   I wanted to let everyone know that  at the last Naga  World cup championships which took place at FAU campus on 1/24-25 our academy took an overall 3rd place in the gi team division.That was only behind ATT and Gracie Barra, who came to the tournaments with many, many different affiliates fighting under one banner. We took third with only one academy.  And many schools who finished behind us also came with multiple schools representing them. Woohoo!! Pretty good people. Congratulations to the success of your hard work.    2/2/09     This past weekend we had Ricardo Almeida, the UFC fighter and a member of the Renzo Gracie team here at the academy.  He gave a seminar and not surprisingly, the mats were packed. Everyone loved the moves he taught and got a lot out of it. He is as humble as he is talented which is a great combination. After the seminar,we all met at the Carolina Ale House to watch the UFC fights. It was a blast getting together out of the academy and watching the fights with Ricardo.    1/29/09 Congratulations to our newest blue belts.   These guys have put the hard time in on the mats and really improved to where you can see excellent technique coming from them.  Well deserved guys!       1/16/09     Three news notes.  Sun-Sentinel article, promotion and visiting Proffessor.  One I wanted to thank Magno Gama for coming down from the NYC academy and spending some time here at the academy and showing some great techniques. Also, I wanted to congratulate Chris Van Smith on his blue belt.  Even with his busy life at work and family, he like many of you comes out to train and enjoy themselves on the mat.  His technique is skyrocketing and I hope he enjoys his new belt. And also the Sun-Sentinel did a large article on Ricardo Almeida who is coming to the academy on January 31st to do a seminar.  Here is the link: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/columnists/sfl-flsprobbmmacolly18sbjan18,0,2666784.column   12/13/08       We had a great time this week with several promotions as well as our first annual holiday party and celebrating the first anniversary of the academy being open.   Luis and Ramone Reyes, Armando Blondin and Alan Saladrigas were all promoted to Blue Belt.  These are four guys that I fully expect to see continue BJJ to Black Belt. You can just see it is in their blood.   Congratulations to everyone. The holiday party turned out so well and so many people wanted to come that unfortunately we didn't have room for that next year we will do it in a bigger space. Thank you to those who came to the party and thanks to all the students for making this past year a dream come true for me.   12/13/08     Saturday's class was a great class.  Renzo Gracie showed up to meet all the kids and watch over the adult class.  The mats were packed even though we only had one day to let everyone know Renzo would be here.  For all those who hadn't had a chance to meet him and those of you who met him last time, everyone had good laughs listening to him crack jokes even at my expense.  Check out the pictures. 2/8/08 Our Academy was featured in a small interview in Gracie Magazine.  If you'd like to check it out, please click this link  http://www.graciemag.com/news/183/ARTICLE/12380/2008-11-14.html   12/5/08 I want to thank everyone who came out to watch the Renzo Gracie Legacy documentary on Friday night.  We had a great time and I know everyone was inspired by watching the life story of our Master Renzo and seeing his interviews.  Once again, if you are interested in purchasing it, go to www.renzogracielegacy.com 11/1/08 I would like to thank all the non students who are family members of our students who came down on Saturday and joined in on the class and fun.  It was our first family day event and it was great seeing parents and kids training together. Thanks to all of you for sweating and getting on the mats. 10/03/08 Two big announcements, 25% more training mat space and a new Blue belt!  Check it out!  We expanded the mat space over this past weekend.  The academy looks way different and much better.  We now have over 1800 sq/ft of mat space.  More room to roll and train.  Let's pack the house and train hard! Also, we got to put a Blue belt on Joe Squarini.  Here's a guy who really deserved his Blue awhile ago.  Congrats! 9/26/08 Again we are very pleased to announce two new blue belts to the growing cast of people on their way to black belt.  Luis Servilla and Chris Kostrzecha are representing the academy and what it means to be a martial artist to its fullest extent.  Congratulations!    9/19/08 We all had big smiles and laughs as Brenden and Israel were awarded their blue belts on Friday night.  Congratulations guys on passing the first major hurdle on the road to black belt.    9/15/08 We are pleased to announce that this week, from 9/15-9/20 is Buddy Week.  Any member can bring a friend to train here at the academy at no charge.  This is the opportunity for you to let your friends see what it is that you've been doing and for them to give it a try. 8/22/08 We had some big promotions this week.  Three of our students made the leap to Blue Belt.  They are looking forward now to the big jump in technical level that will come with that new belt.  Congratulations to Max Adamsky, Larry Bernstein, Miguel Velez and Josh Guillen. Click here for pictures of promotion We want to congratulate Americo Blanco on reaching the level of blue belt. His hard work and dedication has shown that he deserves the rank.  Americo is the typical student we like at the academy. Trains hard, comes often and always makes sure he leaves his training partners happier then when they first walked in.     We'd like to welcome Magno Gama, a professor at the main Renzo Gracie Academy in NYC to our academy here in Weston.  He will be aiding in the instruction for one week.  As you'll see, we are very privileged to have him here. Chris Kostrzecha  competed this weekend in the N.A.G.A tournament held in Boca Raton and place 3rd in his division congrats!!! After having his first opponent stall his way to a victory, Chris quickly adapted to the tournament rules, got aggressive and took his opponent down, passed his guard, mounted him then promptly finished him with a choke.   Also congratulations to Nick Mitchell and Jarett Perelmutter who also competed.  They both had opponents who avoided them and were able to squeek out point victories.  They fought hard and we're proud of their technique and looking to take the fight to their opponents.          Dane Steward achieved the level of blue belt.  He is one of our original students and has worked hard to achieve this milestone.   Big congrats!!!

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