And a big congratulations to all of my affiliate schools in Griffith, Mackay, Brisbane, Macquarie Uni, Michnchinbury and Kemps Creek who graded in BJJ in June and July. I started off in Griffith at RMA and then off to Mackay MMA, Advance Martial Arts in Brisbane, Macquarie Uni in Ryde, Elite Martial Arts in Minchinbury and IMC at Kemps Creek. Students from Rhino MMA in Yeppoon and Rockhamptom travelled to Mackay to grade. Check out the photos below.
Congratulations to all my students at SPMA Concord and Moorebank who graded in BJJ, Muay Thai Kickboxing and Kids BJJ. Stand outs included Matthew Hunt and Dan Stoll receiving their Brown Belt in BJJ, Andrew Mills and Joey Belfiore receiving their Purple T-Shirts in Thai Kickboxing and Maria Topic receiving her Green Belt in Kids BJJ. Check out the SPMA Concord and SPMA Moorebank Facebook fan pages for all the photos.
Here is an article from MMA Kanvas about my fight in May at UFC Adelaide, teaching at my two Sydney MMA gyms and mental toughness.
I ran BJJ gradings and BJJ and MMA seminars at my affiliate schools in Kemps Creek, Minchinbury, Macquarie University, Girraween, Brisbane, Mackay, Yeppoon and Rockhamptom. I also awarded a BJJ purple belt to Mackay MMA head of school David Garnham. All the students at all the affiliate schools did fantastic. That is a great credit to the students for putting in the hard work and also the instructors for teaching them the techniques of my syllabus.
My two Sydney gyms finished the year off with gradings in BJJ, Muay Thai Kickboxing and Kids BJJ and then our annual Christmas Party with a BBQ on the beach.
About 160 students graded from my Concord and Moorebank MMA gyms. Two new BJJ black belts were awarded to Andrew King and Jonathon Cuniowski and nine new brown belts to Aydin Mrouki, Tony Pycroft, Wade Huang, Adam Assuncao, Tim Wong, Daniel Ung, Tyrone Bell, Andrew Husmann and Billy Sam.
About 150 students, family and friends came to our Christmas party at Collaroy Beach on Saturday 13th December. It was a great day and the rain held out. Our annual awards were handed out. Adults Competitor of the year Frances Bavaro, Adults Most Improved of the year Andrew Mills, Kids Competitor of the year Oliver Silvestro and Kids Most Improved of the year Zander Mucenski.
Team SPMA competed in 5 BJJ comps around Sydney the past 4 months and won an outstanding amount of medals. About 80 Team SPMA BJJ competitors won 25 gold medals, 25 silver medals and 18 bronze medals. Adult stand outs include Shaher Khan, Frances Bavaro, Tony Pycroft, Daphne Cuniowski and Dominic Lees. Kids stand outs include Oliver Silvestro, Eemil Iivonen, Zander Mucenski, Anwar Kumar and Aadam Kumar. What a team!
The annual gathering of Machado gyms around Australia and New Zealand was on 6th September in Melbourne. A number of gyms attended and the BJJ competition had 330 competitors. Rigan Machado was present at the competition and also taught a seminar the day after. The photo below shows a number of the BJJ Black Belts in attendance with Rigan Machado in the front.
Check out an article MMA Kanvas did featuring me doing some MMA submissions. It was for UFC Fight Night 50 featuring Jacare and Mousassi. Jacare is a top BJJ black belt and ended up winning the match by guillotine choke. You can see me demonstatting a number of submissions in short videos. Submissions include Rear Naked Choke, Guillotine Choke, Kimura, Anaconda choke and a Flying Triangle Choke too! Check them out.
IMC had their grading BJJ grading 29th August at the Kemps Creek gym. IMC is headed by Paul Zadro. He teaches Kempo Karate, Thai Kickboxing, BJJ and MMA from his gym. Ten students graded for their stripes on their white belt and two students Mitchell Elliot and Ben Sculli both received their blue belts.
Griffith had their first BJJ grading ever on Saturday 16th August. Nine students from RMA and Total Fitness graded to their first stripe. RMA is headed by Frank Cirillo and is primarily a Kyokushin karate school. Frank called me 6 months ago and wanted to introduce BJJ to his school and Griffith. Well done to Frank and all the students at RMA in Griffith on beginning their journey to a black belt and beyond.
