Seminar with Julio Cesar

This week I had the fantastic opportunity to train with Master Julio Cesar Pereira the head of GFTeam.

As the head coach of a relatively small team, his personal coaching CV speaks for itself – Rodolfo Vieira, Ricardo Evangelista, Vitor Oliveira, Jaime Canuto, Vinicius Marinho, Denilson Pimenta, Igor Silva, Theodoro Canal and many more – his fighters have more World, Brazilian nationals, European and IBJJF titles than you can shake a stick at.

Julio took us through a variety of back control and attacks – as ever with great small details that really tightened everything up as well as then some 50-50 escapes and attacks.

The day of the seminar was my second session back training and I am still very limited in what I can do – basically drilling moves only which require little to no work with both arms. I am rolling lightly with one hand in my belt so I can at least get some work in but its still frustrating – especially because I have lost a good few months this year through injury (I haven’t rolled hard since July time) and have had to watch a lot of teammates get promoted.

Our team has a lot of guys who have been training 12-24mths now and many of them were well due for their Blue belts and on the day there was an hr of solid sparring for the potential promotes with blues and purples in front of Julio. As expected every roll ended up being total wars with the whites going extra hard and the coloured belts really working them hard.

What was frustrating as all hell for me though was having to sit on the sidelines and watch this all without being able to join in.

Anyway – I’m in no rush to get promoted – I’m already 33 with more than enough on my plate with work and family to worry about fast promotions. It did though give me a real incentive to get rehabbed back to full strength as quickly as possible and get my blue belt and go through the whole process myself when I’m ready for it and have earned it. More importantly I can’t wait to get back to full health to start terrorising the new blue belts……

On the topic of my shoulder, I’m nearly two months in to my recovery now and already well ahead of schedule. The rehab exercises are being done regular as clockwork and strength and flexibility are steadily getting back to where I need them to be. As of today my arm feels like it did pre-surgery now which is an improvement on the last 6 weeks where it has been completely gimpy. By the new year I am hoping for a real noticeable difference.

Also, I need to step up the training a bit now as I have been given the OK to start jogging again so hopefully I can work off the 8kgs I’ve picked up since the op.

On the home front – we’ve got a planned date for my wife to get induced in a few weeks which means we might hopefully have the baby home in time ahead of xmas. That will be fantastic and means the whole xmas thing won’t be too disrupted for my other son. Busy times ahead…..