Fabiano "Babu" Freitas, chefe de escoteiro e professor de Jiu-Jitsu / Foto: publicidade

Outreach project Tatame Legal needs two windows, flooring, paint and electricity; and the Scout master who founded it and teaches there as a volunteer is calling on one and all to attend his seminar from 9 am to noon this Saturday, September 10, at Nova União headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, to help raise the funds needed to this end.

Fabiano “Babu” Freitas (previously profiled here on GRACIEMAG.com) is a three-stripe André Pederneiras black belt who has been teaching the morning Jiu-Jitsu class at Nova União for over a decade, and the volunteer project he founded three years ago, Tatame Legal, using Jiu-Jitsu to keep the kids of his Morro Azul community on the right path, has the distinction of being possibly the only such class comprised almost entirely of boy and girl scouts, all of whom belong to the only Scout troop located in a favela in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

So if you’re in the Rio de Janeiro area this Saturday and would like to learn from one of Nova União’s finest teachers, head to Nova União’s home base, Academia Upper, at Rua Marquês de Abrantes 96 (right next to Flamengo subway stop), Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro. The 30-real seminar fee gets you not just three hours’ worth of techniques, a certificate of completion, and a chance to win a gi in a raffle, it also gets you the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping a worthy cause.

And to find out more about Babu’s project, visit the www.tatamelegal.com.br website, or contact professor Babu by email at contato@tatamelegal.com.br or by telephone at (21)2245-1592 / (21) 9768-7478.

Nova União USA president Gustavo Dantas / Photo: John Cooper

Our GMA Gustavo Dantas is a busy man. The Vice-President of the AZSBJJF, and promoter one of the fastest growing tournaments in the United States, Dantas’s GD Jiu-Jitsu Events brings in such talent as: Kron Gracie, Robson Moura, JT Torres, Caio Terra, Bruno Bastos, and many others to perform in Arizona, but his responsibilities don’t end there. Dantas is the President of renowned Team Nova União in the USA and is responsible for structuring the team in the country. Check out this interview with one of Nova União’s leaders around the world.

How was 2010 for Nova Uniao USA?

I feel it was a very important year, especially since we started to organize all the official schools in the USA to put Nova União back on the podium at IBJJF championships. We got in contact with all first generation NU black belts and started getting a stronger team for the tournaments, but we have long ways to go. Our team placed at the Vegas Open, the U.S. No-Gi Nationals and took first at the Pan in the juvenile division.

Who were the Nova União standouts of 2010?

In the black belt Division, without a doubt, Bruno Bastos was the standout. He won a lot of tournaments this year, he is definitely the most active Nova União black belt competitor in the world. Also from Texas, Peter Runez, who took silver in a very tough brown belt/lightweight division at the Worlds, and Claudia Gadelha had a great year as well.

From Arizona, Kristina Barlaan won a lot of IBJJF Tournaments, including the Pan, Rio Open, and U.S. Nationals (Gi and No-Gi), getting promoted to purple belt. The same with Issa Able, who took third at the World Cup in Abu Dhabi and took second place in the blue belt/feather at the Worlds. He, too, received his purple belt

You competed at a couple of tournaments this year as well. How was that?

Well, since I moved to the USA (twelve years ago), my priorities changed a lot. I compete when I feel like it or when I have time to train often. I won the Vegas Open in the feather/master division and I won the International Master and Senior in the eather/senior 1; I am getting old! (laughs). But I am plan on competing again in 2011.

What are the plans for Nova União USA in 2011?

Our goal is to put Nova União back on the podium at the Worlds, and 2010 was a big step in that direction. Also, Nova União helps my non-profit organization called Live Jiu-Jitsu, which focuses on supporting BJJ projects in Brazil and other places around the World. The website is almost ready and we will be promoting a lot more. Ten perscent of the sales from novauniao.com will go towards the projects like Morro Azul (click here for the Morro Azul “Tatame Legal” project website) and Morro Santo Amaro, run by Andre Pederneiras black belts Fabiano Freitas (recently featured on GRACIEMAG.com here) and Marlon Sandro, respectively. Last year we were able to buy forty brand new gis and new mats for the Morro Azul project.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank?

Too many people to thank, but in special my two main instructors who got me where I am right now, my first instructor, Fernando Cruz, and my current instructor for the past fifteen years, Andre Pederneiras, who inspires me a lot in everything I do for my students and for the community.

Master Babu and students / Photos: personal archives

These days, Nova União is best known for producing MMA kingpins like José Aldo, Marlon Sandro, Thales Leites, Vítor “Shaolin”, among others. There was a time, though, when the team was one of sport Jiu-Jitsu’s superpowers, producing spectacles of fervent team spirit unmatched in gentle art tournaments these days – fueled by a fierce but kosher rivalry with team Gracie Barra. But the outfit has been a bastion of equal opportunity throughout – where the privileged and less-than-privileged alike vie on even terms for first-team spots and berths in MMA events; and where solidarity between teammates from different socioeconomic backgrounds has given rise to activism in the form of community-service projects in the various needy neighborhoods where or near where they reside.

Such is the case with Sengoku champion Marlon Sandro, whose project teaching Jiu-Jitsu to youths in his home of the Santo Amaro favela has already bore fruit with the likes of Eduardo “Dudu” Dantas, a rising star in the Brazilian mixed martial arts scene,  and José “Polenguinho” Dias, who has been wreaking havoc in the adult blue belt division as a seventeen-year-old. Fabio Andrade (recently featured here on GRACIEMAG.com) is another whose volunteer work is helping young members of his community to find prospects through Jiu-Jitsu. And team leader André Pederneiras has long been involved in the poorer dwellings surrounding the Flamengo neighborhood where he grew up – a number of the beneficiaries now figure among the team’s standouts –, while his friend from way back Nonato Machado’s own project in Manaus pointed outstanding athletes like José Aldo, Marcos “Loro”, Arlisson “Kiki” Melo, and George Clay in the right direction during their formative years. Then there’s our GMA Gustavo Dantas, who regularly holds food drives for the underprivileged in the Arizona, USA, community where he lives and from where he also helps raise funds for the “Tatame Legal” project of his old friend Master Babu back in Rio de Janeiro.

Tatame Legal 2010 promotion party

Like so many other goodwill projects where experts volunteer to teach Jiu-Jitsu in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, Tatame Legal (“Cool Mat,” loosely translated) is meant to provide guidance and opportunity for young people. But Tatame Legal is, in fact, truly unique. Founded just two years ago by Fabiano “Babu” Freitas – or simply “Master”, as his students at the Nova União early-morning class he has been teaching ever since he was a purple belt affectionately call him –, the project is actually the offshoot of an endeavor undertaken long ago, when Babu and others resuscitated the Boy and Girl Scouts program of Morro Azul, a low-income community overlooking the neighborhood of Flamengo so far the only favela where scouting is practiced in the state of Rio de Janeiro; and all fifty children and teenagers who attend his Tuesday- and Thursday-evening classes in the community nursery are boy or girl scouts.

“The idea is to provide them opportunities they wouldn’t otherwise have. By learning Jiu-Jitsu they will have several options: they can pursue careers as fighters, competitors; they can go on to teach the art; or they will have a head start should they decide to work in physical education,” says Babu, who himself specialized in physical education, becoming the first member of his family to earn a college degree. “As they were all in the scout troop, it was easy to gauge their interest in the sport and put together the group,” he remarks, playing down the effort it took to bring his project to pass.

Money is always an issue when trying to bring a volunteer project to fruition, but more than a decade’s experience leading a Boy Scout troop in a community short on funds has made the thirty-seven-year-old quite resourceful. And the friends and respect he has garnered in over fifteen years teaching Jiu-Jitsu didn’t hurt either.

Tatame Legal at Morro Azul community

He explains how it all started, in apparent disbelief at how smoothly it came together – and quick to give props to those who helped make it happen: “Of course, to have a Jiu-Jitsu class you need a mat and gis. But my student Marco Jourdan donated the mat right away, and then other students and friends immediately donated old and new gis. My black belt Guto Proença helped pay for competition sign-ups for the kids and bought medals and prizes for our own in-house championships. So the project was in full effect right from the start. And that was before we had a website or any means of mass communication.

“The paraphernalia José Aldo donated from his WEC fights for Gustavo Dantas to auction off paid for a brand new mat. That was a major contribution to training conditions. Once Tadeu (Carneiro, another long-time student of his and marketing director at the sports club housing Nova União headquarters, Academia Upper) made the website and his girlfriend, Georgia Arakaki, translated it to English, then it became clear just how seriously everyone involved in the project was taking it. That helped us raise more funds. Now we have money to enroll thirty competition-ready kids in a number of tournaments next year – including the IBJJF Brazilian Nationals.”

UFC champion José Aldo was the highlight of the year's-end promotion party.

And the young scouts couldn’t have a more qualified leader. A successful competitor in his day (still venturing into the mix whenever his knee permits), Master Babu has been leading teams from juggernaut Nova União in competition for years – and has also mentored his youngest brother, Marcelino Freitas, to the top. (Marcelino overcame top-tier featherweight Bruno Frazatto to win the 2009 Brazilian Nationals and lost the 2010 Pan title by a hair in the final, against five-time world champion Rubens “Cobrinha”, besides the other big matches he has partaken in over his career)

But results are not always first and foremost on Babu’s mind. Last October at the inaugural Copa de Jiu-Jitsu Santa Marta tournament celebrating the first time in decades the Santa Marta favela could host such an event – thanks to a Police Pacifying Unit wrenching it from the grip of violent drug-trafficking gangs (a government initiative his own Morro Azul community would later benefit from) – the master leading his twenty-five scouts had other concerns: “I don’t have a clue, I’m just trying to get them all in one place,” he replied, when asked how many from his troop won medals.

Babu with the younger competitors from his troop, at Copa Santa Marta / Photo: John Tabor

But one would be mistaken to assume his disinterest in the medal tally at Copa Santa Marta means he isn’t in it to win. As with everything in his life (his work, students, scouts, friends, and community), Babu takes his missions very seriously – methodically, patiently, and unyieldingly advancing towards his objectives, always. There will be much to say about the Tatame Legal Project troop down the road.

Scout’s honor.

And anyone interested in joining forces with the Marquês de Tamandarê scout troop or Tatame Legal Project is welcome to contact Master Babu via the Tatame Legal website, by email at fabianobabu@hotmail.com or by telephone at 55 21 2245 1592.