matt.makalumedia.com by Matt Henderson

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Posts Tagged Sports

Gold Medal at the 2008 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Championships

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 [...]


Brown Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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 [...]


Keen Hood River II Sandals

We tend to spend a lot of weekends river-walking in the local mountains. My Chaco sandals (which I love!) just weren’t cutting the mustard for this kind of activity — I was too frequently stubbing my toes on rocks, or slipping, or having to take them off to remove the odd pebble that found its [...]


Posted
13 May 2007 @ 9pm

Tagged
General, Routes, Sports, Trips

Location

101 km of Ronda

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 [...]


Purple belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

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 [...]


European Gold

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 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 [...]


Posted
4 July 2005 @ 7pm

Tagged
Sports

Caption of the day

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 [...]


Posted
29 June 2005 @ 7pm

Tagged
Sports

Lance Armstrong’s War

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 [...]


Posted
17 March 2005 @ 8pm

Tagged
Sports

First Degree Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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 [...]


Posted
22 June 2004 @ 1pm

Tagged
Sports

Marbella Submission Fighters

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 Martial Arts, we are proud to announce the opening of Marbella Submission Fighters.

Opening Thursday, July 1, at the Apolo Gym in San Pedro [...]


Equipo Marbellero Bate el Record!

El equipazo de Matt Henderson y Carlos Cortes, trabajando duramente y con mucha colaboracion, ha batido el record mundial de ir en bici desde Marbella hasta Benahavis y volver en el tiempo mas largo. Hoy, Domingo, 4 Enero 2004, han hecho el recorrido (entero!) en un tiempo extrordinario — 2:05.

“Hoy hemos comenzado nuestro programa de [...]


Cruz de Hierro!

It was the “Queen Stage” of the season — the long and mighty climb to towards Ronda and the “Cruz de Hierro” (the Iron Cross). Except for some rather extreme suffering at the very end, I had a great ride and finished in the top six or seven. Cycling buddy Diego managed to snap some [...]


Photo Finish

Months of training finally produced some results today. For the first time since my injury last year, I was able to stay with the pack in the mountains. We rode from Marbella to Ojén, then to Coín, and then to the mountain-top finish at the “Parador de Juanar“. I started off slow, even dropping on [...]


Posted
28 July 2003 @ 5pm

Tagged
Sports

Congratulations Lance Armstrong!

I’ve been an avid cyclist, cycling fan and Lance Armstrong fan, since, well, longer than I prefer to remember or state here. So you can bet that for a good portion of every July you’ll find me glued to the tele watching the Tour de France. (One of the benefits of living in Europe and [...]


Posted
1 May 2003 @ 3pm

Tagged
Sports

Vaya Paliza!

With three cycling clubs in a small town like Marbella, you can imagine that its a fairly popular sport here. A friend of mine (Diego López Luque) and I even started a small website, MarbellaCycling.com dedicated to local scene. As you can see from the website, there’s a weekly calendar of rides.

Today, May 1st (a [...]


Tyler Hamilton wins at Liége-Bastogne-Liége!

In the biggest win of his career, Tyler Hamilton becomes the first American to win the Liége-Bastogne-Liége, one of Europe’s most important cycling events! Although all eyes were on fellow American Lance Armstrong to win the famous World Cup race, it was Hamilton who lauched the key solo attack with 3 km remaining for the [...]