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It’s back in Santa Cruz competitors! 2013 U.S. Open XVIII – Santa Cruz at the Kaiser Permanente Arena October 19th & 20th! Save the date and let all your friends know the date! Any questions please contact us at any of our schools.
Santa Cruz Phone: 831.476.7650, Watsonville Phone: 831.288.0722, San Jose Phone: 408.377.8577

Sign up your children now for our Summer Camp 2013! Three Sessions June 17th -21st & June 24th -28th & July 8th – 12th. 10:00am- 3:00pm at the Santa Cruz Dojo.

http://tinyurl.com/summercamp13

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1bPiKUsvJ709afFSdEJoOvlPkAcFzOJNsKn_qrdynk8g/viewform?pli=1

Contact Claudio Franca BJJ School Santa Cruz or your local school to get further details and prices. Please contact Claudio Franca at 831.476.7650.

Quintin Cox, Paul Prendergast, Toru Kawamura, Nathan Mendelsohn, Steven Cocos, Claudio Franca, Steve Opolinsky, Todd Jones, Brian Guzman, Ken Wong

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).