News

Dec. 4, 2011 at the Santa Cruz dojo
3pm – 5pm
$50 for CFBJJA members
$60 for non-members

Register by Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011
Price: $30 if you’re receiving degrees
$80 if you’re receiving a new belt
All participants will receive a Claudio França BJJ T-shirt
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
10:00 am – 1:30 pm
At the Santa Cruz Dojo
Please join us afterwards for the school’s annual
Holiday Lunch at the Chamanade. *
*Price for lunch not included with registration fee

It’s been raining in California for a week, but there’s a new team looking to add shine to the 2011 Pan.

All set to take 52 fighters to the IBJJF event in Irvine, Coalition 95 wants wins, but that’s not all. “We’re really excited about the coming Pan, and it’s not just because of the fights. That’s where I get to meet up with old friends,” says Claudio França, the team’s leader. Check out the video about the new team and get to know a bit more about Coalition 95:

At the 2011 Pan Kids, held end of February in California, an academy with an unfamiliar name stepped up to the winners’ stand, thanks to an eager group of youngsters.

Solid proof Coalition 95 is a team with its sights set on the future. But is it really all that new a team? Well. . . Yes and no.

Coalition 95 is the new team of our GMA Professor Claudio França and his black belts, but the story behind the team goes back a good twenty years.

“Barra da Tijuca was Jiu-Jitsu’s capital in the 1990s, and in 1991 Marcus Vinicius, who now teaches in Beverly Hills, and I created Coalition 95, since we taught around there, at Riviera condominium, Atlântico Sul and at Fisilabor gym – all around the same area,” recounts the black belt, who also promoted Copa Atlântico Sul championship with Marcus Vinícius (and Joe Moreira at the start). “Up until 1995 the team was one of the most competitive in the Rio scene,” he adds.

Upon his 1996 arrival in California, Claudio stashed the name, as it made no sense in Santa Cruz and as he wanted to push his own name as a Jiu-Jitsu teacher. Now, having produced numerous black belts, Claudio wants a less personal name, one that can include other teachers.

Hence team Coalition 95, now comprised of Claudio, Vince Vanderlipe, Daniel Tomas and further bolstered by black belts like Carlos Melo, Mike Weaver, Gary Casey and Tyson Kamp, as well as brown belt Nathan Mandelsohn, who started out at França’s academy at seven years of age.

“We sat down and thought about it, but giving a team a name is harder than giving one to your son,” says França, half joking half serious. And thus the name Coalition 95 came back strong. Really strong, as one can tell from the team’s results.

For the 2011 Pan, the team will be taking a sixty-man troop to Irvine and it dreams of a repeat of what it accomplished at the Pan Kids, when it took second overall and won the first-place trophy in the 7-to-9-year old division.

“It happened quicker than I’d thought, as we took at most 10% of our kids. The team was already really strong, but it was scattered. It’s further proof of how there are no miracles in Jiu-Jitsu, success comes with time,” he reflects, to then analyze where the team’s greatest chances lie. “Our juvenile team is really strong — we’re going to make it onto the podium in that division. We’ll take thirty athletes in the adult division, but we’re still strengthening it for the years to come. We’ll be stronger in the Master and Senior, with a shot at placing, too.”

Now stuck in the role of trainer and event promoter (his American Cup, a traditional California event, is coming up on April 30), Claudio França hasn’t competed since 2000. And he explains it with a phrase both simple and direct, like a swift punch:

“These days it’s more important for me to work as coach and promoter than to lie around in a room resting to compete the next day.”

What about your team, is it in good stead for Pan 2011? Comment below. And to find out more about Coalition 95, visit www.claudiofrancabjj.com.

Saturday was annual belt promotion day for Claudio França’s association of academies in California, where the black belt has been living for over a decade.

The fruit of constant and consistent labor, five black belts were promoted, with Helio Gracie red belt Francisco Mansur in attendance.

“I promoted around 300 athletes, even a green belt. And I promoted a girl to black belt for the first time in my life,” says França, referring to Caren Camblin.

Besides Caren, Duke Lee, Tyson Kemp, Scott Savage, and Gary Casey all were bestowed with the honor as well.

The schools CF Santa Cruz, CF San Jose, Vince Vanderlipe’s Kugtar, Carlos Melo and John Villareal’s Gilroy JJ, Daniel Thomas’s Zeus JJ, Scott Savage’s Savage JJ, Eric benequisto’s Xtreme Fitness, Erick Fallon’s Martial Arts Institute, and Joey Thomas’s FKA were all at the ceremony.

How many tournaments are there that can boast having been the stage for champions of the caliber of BJ Penn, Jean Jacques Machado, Jake Shields, Rominho Barral, Rodrigo Medeiros, Nick Diaz, Jeff Glover, Rafael Lovato, Jonathan Torres, Augusto Tanquinho, Eduardo Telles, Kron Gracie, Mike Fowler and Bill Cooper? Few and far between.

With fifteen years of History with a capital H, the US Open grew along with Jiu-Jitsu in California, and to shine there is always a sign of a promising career.

US OPEN XV BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU TOURNAMENT from Daniel Carettoni on Vimeo.

That’s why no one wants to miss out on the party in Santa Cruz this coming October 15 to 17. Yesterday, among hundreds of athletes, two more black belts entered the running for gold at Claudio França’s tournament: Renan Silva (Ralph Gracie San Francisco) and James Foster (Lotus Club).