Congratulations to Team RGDA and all the Teams that have made to Grapplers Quests events throughout these years. We truly respect and appreciate each of the teams that have pushed our few competitors to train harder and to constantly improve. A big thank you to all Grapplers Quest organization for providing us and the grappling community opportunities to compete. With more school coming up and our current school growing, I honestly believe w/ our instruction and better attention to detail in putting our team name on the sign-in sheets, we will do even better in the decade to come.

As posted on www.grapplersquest.com :

The OFFICIAL Top Ten Teams of the Decade (1999-2009) at Grapplers Quest are:

TIE-10. Royler Gracie/Dave Adiv/Lou Vintaloro/Mike Mrkulic/Chris Savarese

TIE-10. Saulo & Alexandre Ribeiro/Rafael Lovato, Jr.

9. Carlson Gracie/Ricardo Calvacanti

8. Yamasaki Jiu Jitsu

7. Alliance/Paragon Jiu Jitsu

6. Machado/Amilcar “Mica” Cippili and Walter Vital

5. Relson Gracie/Team Balance Studios/Phil and Ricardo Migliarese

4. American Top Team

3. Cobra Kai/Marc Laimon

2. Gracie Barra/Renzo Gracie/Ricardo Almeida

1. Team Lloyd Irvin

Grapplers Quest NOTABLES TEAMS list:

Royce Gracie/Rob Kahn/Jungle Gym/Justin Garcia
10th Planet/Eddie Bravo/Scott Epstein/Denny Prokopos
BRASA/Checkmat BJJ/Leozinho Vieira
Pablo Popovitch/Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu
Cesar Gracie/Ralph Gracie/Charles Gracie
Pedro Sauer/Keith Owen/Maxercise
Stronghold/Undisputed/Throwdown/Open Mat

Congrats to “Big Tommy” Lanier on receiving his bluebelt from Sav wed night. Keep up the great work Tommy!!

I want to thank all my students for sharing in the Grand Opening w/ me. You guys are truly my family and i was very happy for all the kind words and wishes. I know our school is headed for great things in 2010!

Everything is all moved in, see everyone at the Grand Opening Monday night!!!

Our Academy enjoyed a tremendous 2009, including many tournament victories, belt promotions, great seminars by Royler Gracie, David Adiv and Odie Neto. We were visited such rising stars as Justin Rader and Bill Cooper. Additionally, a couple of us were able to attend a Kenny Florian seminar in NYC. We are lucky to have access to some of the top instruction in the USA, not only in our Academy but through our extended BJJ family across the country. Sav received an award from the US Navy  (an American flag that was flown over the Navy Customs Compound on board Joint Base balad, Iraq, during an enemy mortar assault) in appreciation for training 2 of the members of the squad. Our 1st 2 brownbelts were earned, 2 more purplebelts earned and we had a GREAT tournament showing at a Grapplers Quest in July in which 13 students won 16 medal including 6 golds! More importantly was the personal growth of a lot of our students experienced on their personal journeys through jiu-jitsu in 2009. While everyone’s goals are different, improved technique, fitness, camaraderie and mutual respect were common elements to everyone. I am excited about the growth of the Academy and the progress of our students. I look forward to expanding the schedule and class offerings to help each person achieve their personal goals while reaching our team goals. The icing on the cake is our move into the new Academy next Saturday. Welcome 2010!!!

With the New Year upon us, it’s a good time to include BJJ in your resolutions for 2010. Goal setting is an important part of self-improvement. Your jiu-jitsu goals may include physical goals like improved strength, weight loss or improving cardio, technical goals such as an improved submission, sweep or escape or mental goals such as being a better training partner, more competitions to test yourself or simply just showing up to class more or getting back into BJJ again after some time off. I have suggested to some to keep a “book” of what you learn in class and break it down into positions i.e Half guard from the top, half guard from bottom…etc. You may find this helpful to remind yourself of things you have forgotten. You may find this helpful in determining your goals and reminding yourself where to focus. I am encouraging each student to write a list of things they wish to accomplish in 2009. Write them on a piece of paper and give it to me, i will hold it until the end of the year and we’ll see together how many goals were accomplished. Lets make 2010 a year of progress.