Matt Henderson's Blog

Man, I’ve been on some kind of good luck streak lately! First the brown belt a few weeks ago, and now, this past weekend, I competed and won the gold medal in the Brown Belt, Senior 1 division of the European Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships. Woo-Hoo!

In the picture below, the guy on the right is my coach, Edson Jorge, who I believe is the best BJJ coach on the planet, in addition to being a world class competitor in BJJ and MMA. On the left is some dude we met who’s interested in signing up for some BJJ lessons with us in Marbella. ;-)

Just kidding, folks! As any self-respecting BJJ aficionado will quickly note, that man on the left happens to be none other than the very best BJJ and grappling practitioner walking on the planet today — current world champion, Roger “The Man” Gracie!

December 14, 2007 was a really big day for me, as I was awarded the brown belt by my brazilian jiu-jitsu teacher, Edson Jorge (of Gracie-Barra). There’s only five belts in BJJ — white, blue, purple, brown and black — so I’m only one step away from the BIG ONE. By no means do I feel like a brown belt (especially since I seem to sometimes still forget some of the very basics), so it’s going to take some getting used to I guess! In theory the brown belt represents the bridge between purple and black, where the student needs to focus on leading and teaching, so those’ll be my objectives this coming year.

On the same day I got mine, my long-time training buddy Mike Rios also got his brown belt. So all in all, it was a very special day!

We tend to spend a lot of weekends river-walking in the local mountains.

Each year in May, for the past 11 years, the Spanish Legionnaires (“La Legión”, a Spanish military wing) organizes the famous, “101 km of Ronda” event, in which the 5,000+ participants endure a 101 kilometer (66 miles) tour through the mountains and sierras surrounding the beautiful namesake city of Ronda.

My wife and I participated for the first time last year, 2006.

Yahoo! On Monday night, at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training just after returning from the European championships, instructor Edson Jorge awarded me the purple belt! After almost five years of training in this sport, it sure feels good.

This, however, is both good, and bad.

A lot of responsibility goes with the purple belt. It’s the first belt in BJJ that generally qualifies you to teach. And it’s the half-way point to black. That’s the good.

The bad, for me, is that the student are really gunning for you when rolling in class.

This past weekend was very special to me, as, after several years of training in the martial art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), I traveled with our team [Gracie-Barra BH Marbella][1] to Lisbon, Portugal, to compete in European BJJ Championships.

All the training paid off, as I won the gold medal in my category (Blue belt, 76 kg, Seniors 1) and nearly won a medal in the Open Class (all weights) category.

In all, I had five fights.

Mass sprints in professional cycling can be rough. I just love this image (from Graham Watson, via VeloNews) of today’s Tour de France stage 3 sprint in which Tom Boonen beat out (from left) Stuart O’Grady and Robbie McEwin. Obviously no love lost between these two Aussies. Can you imagine leaning on somebody like that at 60 kilometers per hour?!?

For quite some time now, my primary way to read books has been the Palm device. eBooks, as they are known, can be stored on the Palm’s external memory card, allowing me to carry around practically an entire library. The Palm eReader application lets me take notes, create bookmarks, and remembers my current position in the book.

Since, apart from my Mom, only about two other people read this blog, I won’t consider myself too pretentious in announcing that last night I was awarded the first degree of my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Blue Belt, by Gracie-Barra black belt instructor Alexandre Albuquerque, here in Marbella, Spain. That means, two more degrees and it’ll be time for a Purple Belt.

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p>For those living on the Costa del Sol (Spain) — especially in the Marbella, Puerto Banus and/or San Pedro areas — and interested in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Submission Wrestling, Vale Tudo and Mixed