After 2 years passed in Ireland, we decided to move for an other country. Those two years abroad have been a very good experience for many things. We discovered a new country, visited it a bit (not as much as we wanted but whatever), meet new people and have taken good opportunities. But people lives change and so we do. For our last training we got the chance to visit a friends academy : Jungle BJJ. We do love to do globetrotting, we didn't get the time to do as much matsurfing as we wanted, but we did some at least. Training there was a good way to finish up the Irish adventure and i'm very glad friends from others academy came as well to tell us good bye. Thanks for all guys =) Also, we did get the time to say goodbye to our prof Alex. Leite, before leaving. We've been there for over a year, got our blue belts there, and that's something we can't forget for sure ! We learned a lot for our jiu jitsu but also in our lives. It's sad to leave all of that, but in the other hand, that's how life works !
Hope to see everybody soon again ! This week end we were visiting Glendalough in Wicklow.
That's an hard place to access without a car (few buses per day) but worth the go. It proposes you some different tracks for different times. We did the 3 hours one. Well the walk is very nice indeed. The only thing a bit sad in my opinion is most of the walk has wood tracks to follow. I do understand how muddy it can be, so very difficult to walk up there, but for me it makes the hiking too humanized to be really appreciable. Beyond that, the landscape is absolutely nice. Even in early spring. You have a stunning view over the lakes and old Abbey. Tip if you go : the hotel is crap. Taking a drink there was enough to say so. Last week-end, even if we didn't train, we decided to go to visit a bit Ireland. Most of the people told us to go visit Kerry. It's what we did, more precisely Kilarney (Cill Àirne in Irish - as written up there). Kerry has the reputation to be an excellent team in Gaelic Football. But this county in the south-west of Ireland has mostly the reputation to have amazing landscapes, i'm speaking about the ring of Kerry, Skellig Isles, National park and so much more ! Unfortunatly, being walkers and there just for a week-end, we didn't get the chance to visit as much as we would. So, we arrived at Killarney with the train, visit a bit the city, which is not the most amazing part i have to admit, but still a lovely town. But we weren't here for a town, so we decided to go out of it asap. and we got it right, started with an amazing view :
Then we got the chance to visit the ruins of a XIII th century northmen castle ruins.
The bad part of it is we forgot to take a pic of the ruins from outside.... yes guilty.
Then we coninued to walk through a golf club, had an amazing sunset and finished in a pub. (Irish style yeah !°
The day after we went for a walk towards Killarney natonal park.
At first, we have seen the Ross Castle :
For the story about the Ross Castle :
Ross Castle, Killarney
Then the Muckross house :
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And finaly a last place, who has the reputation to be spooky as well, the Muckoss Abbey.
This place has the particularity to have a grown tree inside. Like if the nature comes over the human stuff. Pretty cool in my opinion =)
Muckross Abbey, KillarneyThe ruins you see today, the church, cloister and courtyard with a Yew tree standing guard are stately and well preserved, but they do not begin to tell the story of this 15th century home to the Observatine Franciscan Monks of Irrelagh and their centuries long struggle.
The gentle art of couple two hobbies.
Last Saturday we went to the Greystones BJJ academy opening, who’s moving from Bray to Greystones, with the instructor David Heffernan. They got a new local absolutely huge and amazing. Pretty sure they will have a few good event on it in the future (hope for them).
The session was under Alex Leite, my prof from De La Riva Dublin. Pretty cool session with some side control and babybolos. We naturally ended on few sparrings.
It was a pretty good session. Always nice to roll with people you don't meet often enough. Plus the new location is absolutely gorgeous, i hope they will have more and more people, they have plenty of space to afford it now :).
Last picture, group photo :
After this quite tiring training, we opted to go for a 2h walk through the Bray cliff walk. From Greystones (Co. Wicklow) to Bray. It was bit rainy, particularlygrey and muddy and we got no hiking shoes (just some shitty trainers.) Whatever i'd say, we are warriors after all !
Insight in our two new houses: |
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In the central Smithfield a new academy opened its doors: JUNGLE BJJ!
Some of you already now the headquarter in Praha headed by Fernando Nascimento, some of you don't and for those last people we can just say that Jungle BJJ Dublin follows the same ideals of its affiliation:
Train hard and have fun. Fernando and his students’ first goal is to make classes fun and develop a friendly team environment where all welcome — regardless of what you trained before. The only thing that matters is that you bring a relaxed and playful attitude training and a love for the art of ground based combat.
The great friendly vibes are perceivable as soon as you put a step inside the academy, where the team and their leader Peter Mamaev welcome you with big smiles.
The warm-up was changes slightly from class to class, reproducing functional movements for BJJ, such as animal warm-up drills. The playfulness starts from there, creating 1 vs 1 mini-competitions for the different exercise.
The techniques and drills follow a precise plan, focusing each months on different positions.
I particularly liked the amount of details explained for the basics' class and this showed Peter's deep understanding of the mechanics of Jiu Jitsu and his aim to make his students get the 'jiu jitsu chess game' together with the movement itself.
Then it came the news for me: before the real sparring we started playing around a square 'team jiu jitsu'!
The teams were formed by two people and had to defeat another team. 1 person of each team had to fight in a square and the others were just waiting to help on the borders of the square.
You could call the person outside for help just touching his/her hand, this having just 5 seconds to adjust your position or to completely free you and get in your place!
I've never seen such playfulness related with jiu jitsu and it made me realise how often we forget that we do jiu jitsu also to have fun, when instead most of the times the normal sparring becomes a 'fight for your life'.
We can just wish all the best of luck to Peter and Silvia (bjj couple stays together! ) with their new adventure, cause they have all the ingredients to make of JUNGLE BJJ DUBLIN a hotspot for bjj students, competitors and friends!
Peter Mamaev
FB: https://www.facebook.com/peter.mamaev
Silvia Scomparin
FB: https://www.facebook.com/silviascomparin86
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We do like to travel and train. After a trip around Europe, we couldn't stop doing it. Unfortunately, time is not always there. We try to update this globetrotting blog as much as we can !
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