Curitiba -- land of rain, jiujitsu, beef, and impossibly complex transactions
It's been raining non-stop since my arrival in Curitiba. And I am being literal here; I have yet to leave the house and have it not be raining. So even if I had the energy to go around town (which I can't say I do), it wouldn't be very enjoyable. Anyway, my roommate, Joe, says there's pretty much nothing to do in Curitiba: "we go to the supermarket for fun around here."
But I'm here to get some serious training in, and that's what I've been doing. This morning I did Muay Thai as part of pro training (though Joe assures me, "that was not pro training". Then in the afternoon I rolled some no-gi with Diniz and Naldo. That's kind of the awesome thing, it wasn't really a class, it was just like, "hey, we're not doing anything, let's just go over to the mats and train." They would tell me all the things I was doing wrong but it wasn't any sort of student-instructor thing, it was just more like advice and tips.
Then again at 7:30 I showed up for the gi BJJ class. Class is small by the school's standards. Everyone is saying that it's a bad time of year to be here because people aren't training and have gone home for the holidays. In fact while we were out shopping, Joe ran into a couple guys from the gym and asked if they were training and their response really seemed like they couldn't be bothered this close to the end of the year. And yet despite this there are lots of higher belts to train with, and they are super-tough. Even the white belts are tough -- skill-wise, and literally: I had one guy in a super-deep bow-and-arrow choke for what seemed to *me* like an eternity before he tapped; I can only imagine how long it felt to him.
After training I went out to my first Brazilian churrascaria experience -- which is ridiculous, considering what a meat-lover I am. And it was everything I hoped for. It was fairly similar, really, to churrascarias I've eaten at in North America. I'm not sure I'm discriminating enough to tell the differences between meat, though I'm sure they're there. But I can surely tell the difference in price: the rodizio was R$18, or US$10.60. Top that shit off with some grilled pineapple and I am one happy gringo. (By the way, I get called "gringo" a lot more here than in the rest of Latin America.)
Earlier in the day, Joe took me to a nearby bakery where the guys often go to get pastries (pastry, of course, being what fuels high-level professional fighters). It was there that I encountered one of the most ridiculous transaction systems ever. The first step was that I walked up to the counter and asked for a chicken sandwich. The sandwich was pre-made and came with a sticker, I think the price was like R$4.20. Instead of paying for it, I was given a plaque with a number. Then I went over to another counter and presented my plaque. Did I pay this person? Nope -- for some reason, this counter weighed the plate with my sandwich and punched some numbers into the computer. Why there is a need to weigh a sandwich with a clearly marked price sticker is beyond me. Then, I ate my food, brought my plaque to a third counter, where I finally paid -- except they had managed to get it way wrong and somehow my sandwich came out to R$24, almost 6 times the actual price. You gotta wonder.
I'm settling into life in the shared dorm a lot better. The guys are still way too loud way too late but since I stay up late it doesn't affect me all that much. Everyone is reasonably clean, too, so it's not exactly nasty in here by any means (though I still am not used to the constant smell of disinfectant. But they're good guys, and the training is top-notch, so it's still been a great experience, just two days in.
Perhaps the best happy accident is that Joe is a huge fan of watching instructional DVDs ("there's nothing else to do around here"). So I lent him the Ryan Hall back attack DVD and we started working on it today. Joe is a big fan of repeat drilling so we onlyl got through like two chapters of the first disc (out of 18) in 45 minutes. But I think that's great. Back home I posted a message on our Facebook page and got crickets and somehow I've lucked into sharing a room with a guy that shares the same passion for DVD learning and drilling, not to mention Ryan Hall's work. It's enough to make me still unsure as to what I'll be doing when they go on break. Most people would consider it totally insane to be in Brazil for the holidays with the opportunity to party it up on Copacabana on New Year's Eve but instead practicing grappling techniques off a DVD in the basement of a deserted gym. But I might just be that kind of insane (and apparently, Joe is too).
But I'm here to get some serious training in, and that's what I've been doing. This morning I did Muay Thai as part of pro training (though Joe assures me, "that was not pro training". Then in the afternoon I rolled some no-gi with Diniz and Naldo. That's kind of the awesome thing, it wasn't really a class, it was just like, "hey, we're not doing anything, let's just go over to the mats and train." They would tell me all the things I was doing wrong but it wasn't any sort of student-instructor thing, it was just more like advice and tips.
Then again at 7:30 I showed up for the gi BJJ class. Class is small by the school's standards. Everyone is saying that it's a bad time of year to be here because people aren't training and have gone home for the holidays. In fact while we were out shopping, Joe ran into a couple guys from the gym and asked if they were training and their response really seemed like they couldn't be bothered this close to the end of the year. And yet despite this there are lots of higher belts to train with, and they are super-tough. Even the white belts are tough -- skill-wise, and literally: I had one guy in a super-deep bow-and-arrow choke for what seemed to *me* like an eternity before he tapped; I can only imagine how long it felt to him.
After training I went out to my first Brazilian churrascaria experience -- which is ridiculous, considering what a meat-lover I am. And it was everything I hoped for. It was fairly similar, really, to churrascarias I've eaten at in North America. I'm not sure I'm discriminating enough to tell the differences between meat, though I'm sure they're there. But I can surely tell the difference in price: the rodizio was R$18, or US$10.60. Top that shit off with some grilled pineapple and I am one happy gringo. (By the way, I get called "gringo" a lot more here than in the rest of Latin America.)
Earlier in the day, Joe took me to a nearby bakery where the guys often go to get pastries (pastry, of course, being what fuels high-level professional fighters). It was there that I encountered one of the most ridiculous transaction systems ever. The first step was that I walked up to the counter and asked for a chicken sandwich. The sandwich was pre-made and came with a sticker, I think the price was like R$4.20. Instead of paying for it, I was given a plaque with a number. Then I went over to another counter and presented my plaque. Did I pay this person? Nope -- for some reason, this counter weighed the plate with my sandwich and punched some numbers into the computer. Why there is a need to weigh a sandwich with a clearly marked price sticker is beyond me. Then, I ate my food, brought my plaque to a third counter, where I finally paid -- except they had managed to get it way wrong and somehow my sandwich came out to R$24, almost 6 times the actual price. You gotta wonder.
I'm settling into life in the shared dorm a lot better. The guys are still way too loud way too late but since I stay up late it doesn't affect me all that much. Everyone is reasonably clean, too, so it's not exactly nasty in here by any means (though I still am not used to the constant smell of disinfectant. But they're good guys, and the training is top-notch, so it's still been a great experience, just two days in.
Perhaps the best happy accident is that Joe is a huge fan of watching instructional DVDs ("there's nothing else to do around here"). So I lent him the Ryan Hall back attack DVD and we started working on it today. Joe is a big fan of repeat drilling so we onlyl got through like two chapters of the first disc (out of 18) in 45 minutes. But I think that's great. Back home I posted a message on our Facebook page and got crickets and somehow I've lucked into sharing a room with a guy that shares the same passion for DVD learning and drilling, not to mention Ryan Hall's work. It's enough to make me still unsure as to what I'll be doing when they go on break. Most people would consider it totally insane to be in Brazil for the holidays with the opportunity to party it up on Copacabana on New Year's Eve but instead practicing grappling techniques off a DVD in the basement of a deserted gym. But I might just be that kind of insane (and apparently, Joe is too).