Gracie Barra Glasgow!

The Gracie Barra Glasgow gym is located in the city centre about 5 minutes from the Central station for visitors and students it's and easy access.

Gracie Barra is one of the most well known Jiu-Jitsu academies in the worlds and with the expansion into the UK it was not long before we seen GB gyms pop up in Scotland and I believe we now have 2 or 3 with this one being the biggest.

Run by Ricky Gillon a lifelong martial artist who has both black belts in both traditional Japanese Jiu-Jitsu and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Lucio Lagarto Rodrigues.

Lucio visits the gym every few months to cash in on a seminar, therefore, all of the gym duties and classes are run at this time by Ricky. Currently, Ricky has one brown belt under him in the academy who occasionally coaches.

Classes follow a regular GB training schedule and are based on weeks of set techniques which are continued until completed and then run back over with improvements as the techniques are understood more and more. This is a great way of learning and developing a solid base and it is imprinted on most GB members.

Also, the classes follow a self-defence and sport style of teaching where you will learn one or two self-defence situations before moving on the sport side of things. Personally, I really like this as I'm becoming more and more interested in the self-defence side of things being more traditional Jiu Jitsu.

The gym has 2 training rooms for Jiu-Jitsu (one huge hall pictured and the other normal sized room nicknamed the sauna) with a separate weights area with a squat rack, kettlebells, bench and numerous other lifting tools and cardio machines.

Complete with separate men/womens changing area and showers which are cleaned every day it has the amenities for every Jiu Jitsu practitioner to feel at home.



Thinking back on the early days of GB Glasgow when it was a small group of twenty or so that would be dedicated to learning the techniques while fighting over the sheets of paper with them listed to make sure you knew them haha  

Then we reached blue belt level and the Nogi started with our first class 2013 again with most of the 20 present killing each other with new Nogi moves!

After the second year of being Gracie Barra and with big names such as Lagarto, Roger Gracie and both the Estima brothers coming up to Scotland for the first time the gym became more and more popular with a good team of individuals dedicated to making it work on the mats with being friendly and open to new students and of course the competition guys who were performing on the open scene.

 

Around this time a few guys left, even more, guys joined and we kept on with the big fight which was turning up every day and showing dedication to the sport.

The gym caters to over 100 students easily.

I received my purple belt from Ricky in 2015 (4+ years) after 4 years of hard training. I was always in class regardless of the struggles in my life and I was lucky to have studied numerous other martial arts in my life so I was in the right frame of mind to start the long journey to black belt.

Jiu Jitsu really did give me a new healthier lifestyle as I left my old job, studied Fitness, Health and Exercise, became a NASM certified PT and I even country to study under new martial arts teacher. Now I am one of the main coaches for my team in Barcelona.

A huge shout out to Hollywood, Matty, Jack, Mike, Hobbs, Stuart, Colin, Kronk, Davie, Sami, Majid, BIG Gary, Thomas, Kilday, Tommy, Mark, Iain, Shelley, Andrew, Callum, Chris, Corbett and George.

Anyone else I forgot it's because the team is so huge now but I miss you all on the mats!

  

40 Broomielaw, Glasgow, G1 4QN, UK

http://www.graciebarrascotland.com/

Tel : 0141 229 0959

Blue belt promotion!

Finally made my first goal in Jiu Jitsu!!  The Blue Belt!   

Around 2 years after I started my jiu jitsu journey, I received my blue belt here at Anaconda by my professor Chen Moraes. It has been a long journey so far, and I have worked hard to earn my belt.  

I lack confidence in my jiu jitsu skills, but I feel that all the hard work and blood, sweat and tears (there’s been lots) have made me earn my belt none the less. 

To finally say I am a blue belt makes me feel proud of myself and that I have accomplished something. I am stronger and I know things that other people don’t. It is also just the beginning and I know I will never stop learning. When I started I thought I would never get better and never get to blue belt, but I just kept going and kept training. 

Jiu jitsu is something that means a lot to me and has become such a big part of my life. It is the hardest thing I think I will ever do in my life as every day you have to go through pain and struggle on the mat, no matter what! It truly is like therapy, because there is no hiding when you train, you have to face yourself and your weaknesses.

People ask me all the time, why do you train so much?  

Do you have to go to the gym every day?              

Yes, I do.  

It can be hard for people to understand why I would rather go to training than go out for beers. But that is what jiu jitsu does to you, it makes you want to be better. You can’t really drink the night before training, because you will feel like crap and not be able to follow the class as normal. And when you train almost every day, you don’t really fancy drinking that much.  

I lift weights every weekday before work, go to work, and go train at night afterwards. This means that by the time the weekend comes, you’re kind of tired, ha, ha.  But I think jiu jitsu gives me so much, I learn so much about myself and how I deal with situations. And the fact that I get to share it with my man Dean, just makes it even better. We enjoy randomly attacking each other in the house, talking about techniques, or watching fights. 

I originally started with kickboxing and then jiu jitsu afterwards. After we moved to Barcelona I have only been training jiu jitsu and just practising striking on my own. I do miss it as I was part of such a great team in Glasgow and I try to keep it up and think about connecting striking and grappling. 

I have always been a fighter and always liked those kinds of sports. It suits my personality to punch, kick and choke people rather than dancing or doing a spinning class!   

Thinking about it when I was younger I used to hang out with the boys in my class watching wrestling and trying out the different moves on each other. ha ha

Jiu jitsu, kickboxing, boxing and mma are all such challenging sports to be involved in, it will make you so much stronger mentally and make you able to endure almost anything! 

Becoming a blue belt sets the bar higher and puts more pressure on me to be better and know more. I need to step my game up to feel like I belong in the blue belt category. It adds a responsibility to my jiu jitsu, I am not a beginner any more, I am someone with experience and knowledge of the art now. 

I am now working on techniques and positions where I struggle, and becoming more confident. I look forward to finding my own game and to become a better player all around.  

My team mates are helping me every day when I get frustrated and feel like I want to give up. They’re always there to push me further and my professor as well who rolls with me every class. Every time I get frustrated and want to stop, he says keep going you have to work out!   Obviously also, I would not have gotten this far without Dean to push me forward, challenging me, making me work harder and giving me confidence. He is my big motivation every day! 

By Anne Sofie Skalvik

                                                                        

                                                                             

Interview for Martial Arts Warriors Website.

Recently I was approached by a member of MAWARRIORS.COM a website who offers martial artists and schools a free place to advertise and come together posting such things as seminars, live video feeds and interviews such as this.

They asked me a few simple questions in regards to my BJJ and martial arts background as well as asking about my current club and how I ended up in Barcelona.

We are actually going to stream a live class direct from our to gym to help the site on July 2nd so if you are interested then tune in to see some special techniques being shared by a master of the sport Coral Belt Chen Moraes.

Please feel free to watch and comment!

I always enjoy speaking about my Jiu-Jitsu as you will see!  Somebody stop me! HA

Enjoy!

www.mawarriors.com