Rafael and his absolute-winner's check / Photos: publicity

Lovato left for the U.K. in January. “My first stop was London, where I taught some seminars,” he says, “I went to Eddie Kone’s Jiu-Jitsu school. I taught a two-day gi seminar and the response was really great. I loved the experience. I got to meet some very interesting people and I made some great connections. It was my first seminar in the U.K. and I really enjoyed myself there.”

From there, Lovato moved on to Lisbon for the Europeans. “I made the finals for the second time,” he says, “Unfortunately, I didn’t get gold this time. I lost to Lucio “Lagarto” on points and came in second. It turned out to be a good thing, though, because it made me realize what I wasn’t doing well and it helped me become more successful in Poland at the trials. Sometimes losing is better. It gave me time to make some adjustments to my game.”

Lovato traveled to Germany where he taught some more seminars at Sane Fighting with Johannes Weith, who was a world champion purple belt and is now a brown belt. “Johannes and I trained a lot together. He really helped me get ready for the pro trials in Poland.”

Lovato took a little break after that and he and his wife traveled to Italy for a few days. “We went to Rome,” he says, “It gave my mind and body a little break so I could be strong for Poland.”

The last thing left to cover on Lovato’s to-do list was the Abu Dhabi pro trials in Poland on February 12th. “It was a really tough competition,” he says, “A lot of guys who were at the Europeans and then doing seminars around Europe went to Poland to compete. Cavaca, Faria, Farias, Nogueira, Junior, Madeiras…it was a really tough tournament. There were a lot of current and past world champions on hand to fight.”

Lovato had seven matches in one day. He ended up winning the absolute, and taking 2nd in his weight. “The Absolute was for $4,000,” he says, “In the absolute semi-finals, I fought last year’s world champion, Bernardo Faria. I’ve fought him five times before. He’s won four; this was my first win. This time I had a good strategy for him. I was able to pass his guard and mount and I got him with an ezekiel (forearm) choke.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0E95uyx_Jk

The absolute final was against Jose Junior. “I had a tough match against Jose,” Lovato says, “He’s a big guy. He beat a lot of tough guys to get to the finals. It was a stacked division. I felt good to come out on top of that. I won by advantages.”

In his weight class, he had to re-fight Bernardo Faria in the final, but this time Faria modified his strategy. “He’s smart,” Lovato says, “He made some adjustments to his game and beat me. Our matches are really technical and tight. It’s a continuous thing. We make each other better.” So, although Lovato would have liked to have won gold, he was content with his 2nd place finish.

Lovato says it’s one thing to make it to the top of what he calls “the black belt club,” but it’s quite another to try to stay on top. “New guys come in and you don’t have enough history on them to develop a game plan for them, but they know you, so they’re ready for you” he says, “You end up losing to people you know you’re better than because you didn’t have the opportunity to match their games to yours going into the fight. But once you know them, then you’re ready for them. It’s definitely harder to stay on top than it is to get there. That’s what impresses me about guys who win numerous times like Roger Gracie and Xande Ribiero. It’s so hard to do.”

Team at Houston Open

While Lovato was busy trying to stay on top in Poland, that same weekend his team back home was competing in Houston. “They did really well,” Lovato says, “They took 3rd place overall. We had 39 competitors and won 32 medals.”

Lovato says if there was a standout from that weekend in Houston, it was Justin Rader. “He was the MVP,” Lovato says, “He supported the team and led the battle in my absence. He coached when he wasn’t competing and then won both his matches and took 1st place. He won both by submission. It was awesome to be successful myself and for them to be successful as well in two different parts of the world at the same time.”

Since getting home, Lovato is back to training and getting his students ready for the 2011 Pan. He’s decided to take a year off the Pan to coach his students instead. “I’ve done every Pan Am since 1999,” he says, “I’m just going to focus on the Abu Dhabi Pro in April.”

Another accomplishment Lovato’s recently experienced is coaching his student, James Head, to a victory over ex-UFC fighter Gerald Harris in a recent MMA fight. Lovato himself is hoping to start MMA fighting by the end of this year or next. “I just want to experience it,” he says, “It’s a personal thing. I just want to see what I’m capable of.”

Lovato thinks it’s important for him to be involved in MMA because many of his students want to be the next UFC champion one day. “I know stand up well,” he says, “I’ve trained in it since I was little. I have a good understanding of the game. It’s important that I have the tools to help them accomplish that. It’s exciting to think I could have a few guys in the UFC.”

Lovato’s focus right now is 100% on getting ready for the Abu Dhabi Pro in April. “Xande will be competing there with me. He’s coming here in two weeks to train with me. Everything is awesome right now. My Omoplata App is doing really well. It’s selling worldwide. I’m going to release more Omoplata apps in the near future. I have two more volumes. I also hope to do more videos, a documentary, and a book in the future. I’m doing more seminars now for the same reason. I’m trying to spread my Jiu-Jitsu to everybody who doesn’t have easy access to my school and me.”

“I want to thank my sponsors, On the Mat, Lucky Gi and Nutrient Technology. A big special thanks to my wife for all her support during my Europe trip. I was gone for almost a month and that can be pretty difficult running a school by yourself. She was there everyday which allowed me to relax and focus on my work and my competitions there.”

With hopes set high for the future, Lovato is on a roll and has no plans to slow down until he’s met all of his milestones planned for 2011 and beyond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHInPR0hO3c

Bob Esponja in photo by Carlos Ozório

CheckMat black belt Helder “Bob Esponja” Medeiros had a great stay in Europe. On the Old Continent, he even scored a free trip to the April World Pro in Abu Dhabi.

“I qualified for the tryouts in Poland, which were really high level. I had three matches. The frist one I got the finish with a choke from back mount, the second I won via advantage points, and the third was against a tough guy, a Claudio Calasans student named David Lemes. Thank God I managed to qualify. I’d like to thank Alan Finfou, who went to Poland to help me out even with a newborn at home. He even made way for Chaves, a Cavaca student, in the semifinal of his weight division,” he remarks.

But the trip to Europe, alongside wife and black belt Marina Ribeiro, wasn’t left at that.

“Marina and I had a great 45-day training camp at the academy of Shimon Mochizuki, Alexander Trans’s teacher, and we had great results. Marina won the European Open in a stacked division; Trans won his weight group and the absolute at brown belt, getting the tapout in all his matches; and Shimon managed his first medal at black belt, in the absolute master division. Back in the female division, we put four girls on the winners’ stand!” he celebrates.

“Then we went to Sweden and stayed at the house of Hasse and Margareta Myhr, Finfou’s adoptive parents and those responsible for Fight Zone Stockholm. Hasse is a genius when it comes to positions and strategy! We went at the invitation of Finfou and Bruno Mathias (who also lives there) to train for the Polish qualifiers, and in the end everything came out alright,” he adds.

Now Bob is focused on his next challenges.

“The best thing you can do in a division like the lightweight one is to train as much as possible and not expect anything. There are only big names of the sport there and I want to be at those guys’ level. Finfou will head to João Pessoa for us to train at a big training camp in Paraiba. We’ll train for the World Pro, Brazilian Nationals and Worlds. Antonio Carlos “Cara de Sapato”, Marina Ribeiro, Bruno Mathias, Alexander Trans, Felipe Baixinho, Rulio Areda, and Jiddu Bastos and others will all be there. I invited our masters Léo and Ricardinho Vieira to take charge of everything,” he says in closing.

Check out the video of the final between Bob and David Lemos below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRbjKlDEz1M

Bruno Almeida celebrates. Photo: personal archive.

Beast from Gracie Barra Pernambuco Bruno Alves took a victorious tour of Europe. For the perfect finish, he got his trip to Abu Dhabi paid for by winning the World Pro tryouts in Poland.

Watch how the under-83 kg final against Raphael Chaves went:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op4Cv_JyQC0

Bruno Almeida celebrates. Photo: Personal archive.

Yet another Zé Radiola student in Pernambuco has taken off in big-time competition. Bruno Alves has returned from a tour of Europe and, with him, he brings medals and a berth at the World Pro event.

“I went to Europe to compete at the World Pro qualifiers in Lisbon. I lost the final and ended up not getting a spot. I also took third in the absolute. After that I went to train with Bráulio Estima in England, then I returned to Portugal and competed at the Euro Open. I took second place, losing to Claudio Calasans at the very end of the match,” he recounts.

Despite the good results, Bruno’s goal is always to make it to the top of the podium, and the fighter wasn’t dissuaded.

“I won the Team Nationals as a heavyweight, but I still didn’t have my place in Abu Dhabi. I went to France to train with Christian Rodriguez and then to Hungary, where I trained with my friend Max Carvalho. From there I took off for Poland. I spent ten hours traveling by train, but it was worth it. I managed to get my place at the World Pro at the local qualifiers, I won. Now I’m returning to Recife to train for the Pan with Zé. I want to thank God and everyone who helped me on this trip,” he says in closing.

Want to know all the goings-on in the gentle art? Stay tuned to GRACIEMAG.com.

“Rodrigo Cavaca here. I’m writing straight from the airport in Switzerland, where I’m waiting for my flight to São Paulo. I’m coming from Poland, after nearly a month in Europe. First I stopped through Lithuania, where I spent eight days teaching at my affiliate school. I started work over there three years ago, and now we can note great progress over there.

“I always go in January, at around European Open time, and do the year’s promotions. This time I promoted blue belts, purple belts and two brown belts. It was great. And I also spent my birthday there, even had a surprise party on the mat!

“After Lithuania I went to Portugal, where I met up with my friend Chaves and the rest of the CheckMat team. I went to Portugal to help my team, not to compete at the European Open. I signed up just for the heck of it, but I knew I wasn’t prepared to make it to the finals, having come off knee surgery and returned to training three weeks before the trip. It was even a quick recovery.

“The problem was that I got a bacterial infection in my back and only managed to train one week. That came after being sidelined ever since the 2010 Worlds.

“That was when I woke up Saturday morning in the hotel and told Chaves: “I’m down for it, I’m going to compete in the absolute today!” He told me I was nuts.

“There I went, and I won the first two matches by footlock. Then I lost to Sérgio in the semifinal, which I was winning up until the last thirty seconds, but I slipped up and he made a meal of it: he got me with my own medicine.

“He really deserved it, he had an excellent championship and won. The bad part is that that footlock hurt me really badly, and I thought everything had gone down the tubes. After all, I went to Europe to do the Abu Dhabi Pro Polish tryouts, which would happen two weeks after the European Open.

“After Lisbon, I went to teach seminars in London, a city I’d never been to before. Then we went to Gniezno, in Poland, where we went to the academy of Przemo Gnat, a Roberto Drysdale student, and there we did a training camp with all the Drysdale branches in Poland, there were lots of people.

“And that’s what I did for ten days, up until the day of the tryouts. The tryouts were tough, since Lovato, Bernardo Faria, Léo Nogueira, Allan Finfou, Gargamel, José Junior, Ary Farias, Bob Esponja, Raphael Chaves and Bruno Alves were there – not to mention the burly Polish fighters who were there.

“So there I went, with my foot messed up and without having trained, trying to win a place in Abu Dhabi. There were only two matches to get the place, but they were tough matches – the first against Turek, a Polish fighter who competed at ADCC 2009, and the final with José Junior.

“I beat Turek 4 to 0 and went through to the final against José. Tough kid that one, wore everyone out and made it to the weight and open weight class finals.

“Everything went well and I won by 2 to 0, when I sunk a footlock and he rolled out of the area. In the end he brought on a lot of pressure trying to pass guard, but I managed. I was dead tired, but I got the spot!

“Now I have to take care of my foot in Santos and start preparing for the World Pro in Abu Dhabi in April. I’ll be taking quite a team. At my weight there’ll be Bochecha and Juninho da Paraíba. Also from CheckMat, in the other weight groups, there’ll be Helder Bob Esponja, Finfou, Michelle Nicolini, Gabriel Palito and a bunch of others. I can only thank the team and the ones who helped me make it.”

Lovato, in photo by John Lamonica

As reported on twitter by @EmiratesBJJ, the Polish World Pro tryouts have just yielded winners in the brown and black belt division.

The big winner of the absolute division was Rafael Lovato Jr., winning the open weight class and securing his ticket to the Emirates.

Black belt Ary Farias kept up his string of solid results since winning the Euro Open and got his ticket to Abu Dhabi paid for by winning the under-65 kg division. The under-74 kg division was won by Helder “Bob Esponja” Medeiros da Silva. Under-83 kg went to Bruno Alvez, while Bernardo Faria won the under-92kg division and current IBJJF world champion Rodrigo Cavaca, the over-92kg division.

Check back with GRACIEMAG.com for further news.