Gracie Barra Countryside would like to congratulate our competition team members who fought in NAGA Chicago on April 24th. We had several champions among both our adults and kids competitors, and all of our fighters showed a lot of heart and skill in jiu-jitsu. We would also like to thank our members who came to support our team, we have a solid brotherhood/sisterhood among our members and from this we will all become champions not only in competition but in life.
Besides the accomplishments of our individual members our team results were outstanding as well: Gracie Barra placed first overall and we were tied for first in no-gi team winners, placed first in gi team winners, and placed second in kids and teens team winners. As you can see although we had a small team we fought with quality jiu-jitsu and our results speak for themselves.
We would like to extend a special recognition to Professor Ryo Ominami who finished the night with an extraordinary victory against the tough Thomas Rozdzynski of the Uflaker Academy for first in the mens gi black belt lightweight division. We were extremely fortunate to have Professor Ryo come from Japan to train with us for one month, he is an outstanding competitor and instructor and we all look forward to his next visit at Gracie Barra Countryside.
Summer is quickly approaching, and with the heat of the season we will also be hot with preparation for our next tournament, the first Chicago International Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship in July! We are confident that the combination of world-class jiu-jitsu instruction from Professor Lemos and high levels of motivation from our fighters will result in more outstanding showings from our team!
One of our future champions “project” Pablito Ortega ,proved great BJJ in action at NAGA and brought some medals home:
