One week of gradings just finished at SPMA with 200 students grading in BJJ and Thai Kickboxing across both of my Sydney gyms. Gradings started in Moorebank on Monday 31st March with Kids BJJ and Adults BJJ and the following night was Adults Thai Kickboxing. On Wednesday 2nd April at Concord was Kids BJJ (11-14yo) and Adults BJJ and on Thursday 3rd April was Kids BJJ (6-10yo) and Adults Thai Kickboxing. You can se photos below of all the classes.
I did a tour of Central Queensland teaching in Mackay, Rockhampton and Yeppoon. In Mackay I taught a BJJ seminar and then the next night held a BJJ grading. I then went to Rockhampton and Yeppoon and held BJJ gradings there.
David Garnham runs Mackay MMA, Josh Barwick runs CQMMA in Rockhampton and Nathan O’Connor runs Rhino MMA in Yeppoon. All the students did fantastic.
I also promoted all the instructors promoting David and Josh to Blue Belt 2nd stripe and Nathan O’ Çonnor to Blue Belt.
I participated in an anti-bullying event called BRAVE on 22nd March. Anthony was joined by fellow UFC fighters BJ Penn, Urijah Faber, James Tehuna and Dylan Andrews. The event was to raise awareness and tackle ways to stop bullying. The event was held at the UFC gym in Sydney.
SPMA won an impressive 10 gold, 7 silver and 2 bronze medals at the NSW BJJ Championships. SPMA had 35 students compete at the Sports and Aquatic Centre at Sydney Uni on 22nd March. Shaher Khan and Frances Bavaro deserve special mention for winning double gold!
We moved our Liverpool MMA, BJJ and Muay Thai Kickboxing gym to Moorebank. We opened Monday 10th March at our new location. It is a much bigger and better place than our previous one. It has a much better training feel to it. All of the students are very happy with the move and new facilities. On top of that it is easy to get to and there is unlimited free parking. We will be having a Grand Reopening Day on Sunday 13th April.
I presented Bren Foster with his BJJ brown belt last Friday. Bren has been training with me for 10 years. Bren owns and runs Elite Martial Arts and Fitness in Minchinbury teaching Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai and BJJ. He is a great coach to all of his students and he himself is a great student of martial arts. A very rare trait! On top of that you can see him show off his martial arts and acting skills in movies. Check out his latest movie Force of Execution.
My school SPMA finished the year last weekend with our annual Christmas party. We had about 100 students, family and friends enjoy a BBQ in the park along with some sumo :) We also handed out our annual awards at our Christmas Party. Big congratulations to all of our winners.
Adult Competitor of the Year: Jean Mondaca
Adult Most Improved of the Year: Harichandra Rajiji
Kids Competitor of the Year: Zander Mucenski
Kids Most Improved of the Year: Jordan Catalovski
Kids Encouragement Award Concord: Oliver Silvestro
Kids Encouragement Award Liverpool: Tyga Téa Mucenski
Black, black and more black! Just finished a week of gradings at my two schools. Congrats to the new Thai Kickboxing Black T-Shirts at both my Liverpool and Concord schools and new BJJ black belt at my Concord school. It was the first time I graded students to Black T-Shirt and also awarded my ninth BJJ black belt. Check out the photos and names of my students :)
SPMA student Shaher Khan won a gold medal and trip to Abu Dhabi for the World Pro BJJ Championships in 2014. He entered the brown belt above 82kg division and won both of his matches winning the gold medal and all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi for the World Pro Gi Championships in 2014.
