Gracie Barra Black Belt and UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St-Pierre will be at  Gracie Barra Miami.

Gracie Barra Florida Professors (left to right) Paulo Ribeiro, Marcelo Ribeiro, Guilherme Arashiro, and Daniel de Lima celebrating with the Miami International Open of BJJ, 1st Place Team Award.

Congratulations!

Our friend and team mate from Gracie Barra Springfield Fight Club in Missouri enjoyed a satisfying victory recently.

Michael Johnson won a three round war against Pat Miletich fighter Romero Hernandez by unanimous decision.  Both guys slugged it out at a blistering pace the entire fight.  Michael is on a 2 fight win streak against tough competition. The event was put on by Joe Kelly who also does a lot of the match making for M1 Global.  Hopefully the Springfield Fight Club team will get Michael into M1 Global or Strikeforce soon. Congratulations!

http://www.springfieldfightclub.com/about-affiliate.php

Hello to all Gracie Barra Miami students.

The school will be closed as of Thursday, December 24th and will begin again on Monday, January 4th.

Please enjoy the holidays with your family and freinds and see you when we re-open!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

We would like to thank everyone that attended this years toy drive. It was a huge success! We collected a ton of toys, watched some great fights and had a bunch of fun. If you didn’t make it this year we hope to see you next time! And remember to visit our web site www.GBMiami.com for the latest in all your BJJ needs.

Congratulations to Julio, Garry and Mark for their participation in the Kickboxing Tournament. It was tough and you are all winners!

Pictures from the event:

The Capoeira Class was outstanding success. We hope to see more students sign up; Capoeira will increase your flexibility, stamina and cardio which is essential to being a well-rounded martial artist!

Please see pictures below!

Capoeira Demonstration

Click on the flyer to see a larger flyer. Please print it out and pass it out.

ALSO GO TO FACEBOOK FOR MORE INFO: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190293549180

When:
December 5th, 2009 1:00 pm  – 6:00 pm

Where:
6600 NW 62 Avenue, Miami FL 33143

Proceeds will go to the children of South Miami Community Center. Everyone is welcome free of charge but encouraged to bring toys and donate. Every toy that is donated can bring a smile to a child’s face for the Holidays. As part of the festivities the first 150 kids will receive chocolate chip cookies at the door. Santa Claus will also make an early appearance and much more:

- Snow cones/Free body fat analysis
- Popcorn Machine/Chiropractic exam
- Santa Claus
- Martial Arts raffle
- And Food!

Martial Arts shows and competition
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu 2:00 pm
Cuban Judo 3:00 pm
Muay Thai Competition 4:00 pm

For more information on this event and how you can help feel free to call 305.397.8049

Our school will be closed Thursday, November 26 and Friday, November 27th in observance of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Normal schedule will resume on Saturday, November 28th.

Happy Thanksgiving to all Gracie Barra students, friends and families.

Capoeira Luanda

This Thursday, November 19, at 8 pm we will offer an introductory Capoeira Class which is open to all students.

Instructors:

Mestre Jelon Vieira

Mestre Jelon Vieira founder of Capoeira Luanda, a world renowned master and teacher of capoeira. Born in Santo Amaro da Purificação, Bahia, Brazil, in 1953. Started training Capoeira Angola at the age of 10 years old with Mestre Emerito and later on continuing with Mestre Bobô. In 1969 he met Mestre Eziquiel with who he studied Capoeira Regional and had the honor to enjoy classes at Mestre Bimba’s academy. Since his arrival in the US in 1975, Mr. Vieira has catalyzed the growing interest in and understanding of Brazilian culture while simultaneously developing and teaching Capoeira. Mr. Vieira teaches capoeira to people of all ages and from all walks of life in both Brazil and the United States.

He has taught the soccer great Pele and American movie stars Wesley Snipes and Eddie Murphy. And worked in movies with Brooke Shields, Timothy Dalton, and the directors Robert Wise and Robert Miller. Although he resides in New York, Mr. Vieira spends several months a year in Brazil. One of his long term goals is to open a center for underprivileged children, using capoeira to build self esteem and self-discipline and to begin moving these children off the streets and into the educational system and mainstream society. Mr. Vieira and Loremil Machado are the pioneer of Capoeira in the United States.

Mr. Vieira has taught in many residency workshops and has been a guest instructor at Yale University’s African-American Studies Department for 12 years with Dr. Robert Ferris Thompson. He has also taught at many other universities and colleges including University of Pennsylvania, Denison University, Oberlin College, Columbia University, New York Yniversity, Stanford University, Duke University, University of Nebraska, University of Miami among others. In 2000 he was a guest as Eminent Scholar at Florida University, in Gainesville, FL for a semester.

In 1993, after a decade of collaboration between Tha Capoeira Foundation and the Carver Cultural Community Center, Mr. Vieira and Carver Center Director Jo Long decided to create Ilê Bahia de San Antonio, the House of African-Brazilian Arts. The organization was incorporated in 1993 to establish a professional level instruction and training center in the African-Brazilian performing arts. Special emphasis is placed on training at-risk, minority youth in a positive and culturally affirming activity.

Professor Washington Luiz Lima Porto (Esquilo)

An enthusiast of martial arts since childhood, Professor Washington Luiz Lima Porto (Esquilo) developed an interest in Capoeira as a teenager when he began studying with Mestre Jelon Vieira in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. A student of Mestre Jelon and a member of Grupo Capoeira Brasil since 1994, Mr. Porto has devoted his life to Capoeira and the instruction of this unique Afro-Brazilian martial art. He is currently teaching Capoeira in Miami and Miami Beach.

He was a visiting artist with Ilê Bahia de San Antonio, of San Antonio, Texas, where he taught Capoeira classes for all age and skill levels. Mr. Porto has organized and directed several annual international Capoeira events, and he has also given numerous Capoeira workshops in New York, New York; Denver, Colorado, Fresno, California; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Salvador, Brazil, Saint Louis, Missouri; San Antonio and Houston, Texas; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Bethel and Anchorage, Alaska; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Gainesville, Florida; Hartford, Connecticut; and Trenton, New Jersey. Between 1996 and 1998, he served as an assistant to Mestre Jelon for beginning level students in Salvador.

In 1997 and 2001, Mr. Porto also toured with the internationally acclaimed African-Brazilian dance company DanceBrazil, performing and choreographing in Phoenix, Arizona; New York City and San Antonio, Texas. Other performances include ESPN’s Global X-Games & Asian New Year’s Festival in San Antonio, TX, and the Off-Broadway production of “Rio” in New York, where he both choreographed and performed, and a performing tour in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan in 2001. He also choreographed Capoeira fight scenes for the Off-Broadway Musical “Miracle Brothers” written by Kristen Childs.

Capoeira is a Brazilian dance form that incorporates self-defense maneuvers. Capoeira was originally a deadly sport in which the participants, often with blades strapped to their ankles, swung their legs high in attack, somersaulted, and passed within a hairsbreadth of their opponent’s knees, head, groin, or stomach. Flexibility and rapidity of movement were more important than sheer muscular strength. In the modern dance the same quick, graceful movements are employed in dance; usually two men face each other, emulating the blows and parries of “the fight” in time with the rhythms of the berimbau, or musical bow. Clubs in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro train dancers in the arts of precise kicking and passing.

If you ask ten people to describe capoeira, you will most likely hear ten very different answers. Capoeira has been described as a martial art, a dance, an art form, a form of self-defense, or any hybrid of these. Many people often use more than one of these definitions in the same breath when describing this form of movement that combines spins, turns, precisely-aimed kicks, evasive defense moves, and breathtaking acrobatics into a rich fabric of motion, percussion, and song.

Whatever terms may be used when one tries to define capoeira, there is some truth in all of them. Mestre Jelon Vieira, a leading Mestre (“master”) of capoeira in Brasil and the United States, has described it as a dance which is a fight and a fight which is a dance. Capoeiristas, anthropologists, historians, and others have developed several theories about the exact geographic and cultural origins of capoeira.

For more information please visit: http://www.miamicapoeira.org/Capoeira%20.html

Gracie Barra London (Canada)

Jose Molina GB Miami student ( in blue shirt ) with Fateh Belkalem, head instructor and owner of Gracie Barra London.

The London Team

Garry Argueta and George Roque won 1st place in the past Miami BJJ International Open. Great work guys!

Congratulations to George Roque “Balboa” for earning his Blue Belt.