Let me explain everything in order.

Day 14 – Last Part

After eating the hot dog and the cookies I felt a little bit of guilt and I decided to train at home.

I did that and after I was finished the phone rang. It was Robson. He explained to me that Sensei Ricardo will see that I will be able to compete in the open class at least. He also told me that he and Marcus were OK. Marcus fought in his first match the guy who won all the class in the end. Marcus lost with 3 points because the opponent passed his guard. However, Robson thought that Marcus fought well.
After the conversation with Robson I took a shower, took my last Voltaren for this time and then went to sleep.

Day 15 – Final Day

I wake up at six and put in order the last of my luggage.

I also eat a boiled egg and that waited for Sensei Ricardo to pick me up from the apartment. He came right before 9 o’clock and we drove to pick up his wife too.

On the road we talked a lot about everything, Sweden, Brazil, bjj, politics etc.

We also enjoyed such things that I didn’t enjoy a lot during my stay in Brazil.

When we arrived I directly got a feeling of the team spirit that is so strong in Brazil. At the entrance a team from Nova Uniao had their moment.

When we went in we met many of the guys and girls from our team, starting with Robson and Marcus.

Jorge was also there and we took one more picture together and talked a little.

I also looked at the film with Marcus fight. In did well but the other guy passed his guard and won in the end.

Robson told me that I will fight in Master or Senior.  So I will reach my goal – fighting in a competition in Brazil. He also told me that I already have a gold medal as the only competitor in my class; we just have to listen for the call. When that happened we went to the podium and I got a beautiful medal that is not proof of any accomplishment but more a nice reminder that I was there, a souvenir to prove that I did my part and I’ve been there.

Then we enjoyed the fights and the victories of our teammates.

Robson had also one fight. He met the guy who won the previous championship. Robson started well, tried his signature foot lock but the guy defended and after some scrambles the other guy succeeded to get Robson in a loop choke. Robson got a shared third place and his opponent won the class.

In my fight I met a much bigger and heavier opponent.

I think I started well and defended his attempts to take me down. I miss one opportunity to take his back during one of his attacks. Then I went for his legs myself, which was not that smart. I recovered to guard and when he tried to pass we got on our feet again. I tried again to take him down with a sacrifice throw but I failed and he attempted to pass my guard again. After a short while he passed and then even got into mount position and started to attack my neck. First he tried with an Ezekiel choke which I defended successfully. He then tried an X-choke. At first I defended but when he pulled his other underarm over my upper lip I let his arm to get to my neck and before the choke was completed I tapped out. Of course not the end I was hoping for but….. 

And so I got my second medal, a bronze which is actually more worth than my unchallenged gold.

After I got the medal we took some more pictures, I changed and we drove directly to the airport.

At the airport we said good bye to Ricardo and his wife

and we change from Brazil clothes to Sweden clothes.

We also moved a gi from my bag into Marcus’ to be sure we don’t have troubles with the weight of my bag.  After the check in we eat at Bob’s…

… and I even had a beer and a small bag of chips.

We got in the plane and after a lot of laughs we slept almost all the way to Frankfurt, Germany.

In Frankfurt I experienced for the first time how it is to be discriminated for your looks. Already when we were about to get off the plane I got stopped and asked for my passport. Nobody else before me got stopped, nobody. Then, when going for the transit I also had to open my bag and show what I had inside and also tell them how much money I had on me, like it mattered. I just wanted to tell them “Fuck off and Fuck you!”, pardon my French… but this are the times we are living in.

However after that Marcus played with the luggage wagon…

…. and we finally got to the gate for the plane to Copenhagen. While we waited Marcus looked at some movies and I played games on his Ipod.

Finally, after a little more than one hour of flying, we saw Denmark…

… and after the landing we met Marcus’ parents and his little brother.

We drove over Öresundsbron to Sweden and from Helsingborg I took the train home to Hässleholm…

… and my family.

The two last things I did were to call Robson in Brazil in tell him we arrived well and to write this final blog about the trip.

Outside I could see that there were big waves

And there were a lot of surfers out there…

… doing some cool stuff

I got envy. I wanted to be like him for instance

Among those surfers there were some girls too.

I want home to my girls.

When I’ve got to the academy, it was closed, so no company for me. I went to the Bompresso store to buy some Cachaca, white rum. The label I wanted was gone. I also checked my weight 64,1. WHAT THE HELL?????!!!!!!! Same as yesterday evening and I only had some water and a little bit of bread with butter and honey all day long. How am I going to loose 1,5 kilos until tomorrow?

On the way home I checked some other apartments to compare with the one we had.

Somewhat nicer than ours, definitely nicer view from the window…

… and a washing machine!!!!!

I tried to get in touch with Robson to ask for his advice. If I get something to eat will I be allowed to compete anyway, because there are no competitors in my class and I will be moved to higher weight class anyway or not? But it is impossible to reach him, when I call his number I only hear some explanations in Brazilian. I can’t reach Marcus’ phone either.

The only good thing is that I found the rum I wanted. Maybe I should drink some and forget about competing….

Well… I know better than that.

[More than 3 hours later]

Thanks to my wife in Sweden I succeeded in having some communication with Robson. I found out that Marcus’ fights will start (actually started) around 4 pm. I also got some other phone number and other prefixes to use with Robson. None of them worked for me, I always get messages in Brazilian. The latest Robson told to my wife was that I should go to the academy and talk to Ricardo. Immediately I went there. On the way I could see that the crazy surfers were still in the ocean.

It was right before 6 pm and the doors were as closed as they have been earlier. So I thought I would check my weight again at Bompresso. I really got mad – it showed 64,15. Now I really felt that my spirit broke. The only way to get down to 63-63,5 was to get rid of the little water I had in my body. That was not going to happen. I decided that a long time ago. No more dehydration. 

So what do you think happened right after this? This:

Well not really first. First I rang to my wife and told her I’m going crazy of hunger. As the loving wife she is she gave the moral support I needed – “Go and eat something, you don’t need to get sick for this”. So directly after that I bought what you’ve just seen in the picture above. And about 5-10 minutes later a I ate this:

… a Bahaian hot-dog, the best hot-dog I ate in my life. The ketchup just ran along my fingers and I could feel how thankful every single cell of my body was. But I could also feel the guilt. Can you see it in my eyes?

Then, at home I just have to have some milk and cookies. I’ve been sinking about this since last week.

So, as you see I am week. My body could manage more but not my mind and my spirit. So now, we’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow. Will I accomplish my goal of competing in Brazil or I just stumbled before the finish line? How does my little adventure end?

…. To be continued…

We went home but Robson disappeared after a little while and was gone almost all the time before the evening classes. Suzanna, our landlord, came in with a guy to fix something with the shower. Marcus was so focused on his movies that he didn’t even realized that two strangers went through the room. When he told me I couldn’t believe that he didn’t see the three of us. I thought he was joking but he wasn’t. After that Marcus and I just relaxed at home. We both needed the rest. A little bit after 3 pm we went to Shopping Barra to find something to eat for Marcus and to look for some things to my two girls back home. As usual we had to ask for directions because we always succeed to get lost. With the help of my poor Portuguese we found our way to the shopping mall where Marcus took a small mozzarella pizza from Pizza hut…

… and I couldn’t resist and took a sandwich.

When we came home Marcus went to the Internet café to speak with his parents and I went to Jorge’s store to see if the gis I wanted arrived. They didn’t but it’s always nice to talk to Jorge who is himself a purple belt in BJJ with many years of experience. Robson also appeared after a few minutes and we had small talk and the time run away.

At the academy there weren’t a lot of people but it was a good class. Under Sensei Ricardo’s directions we did different drills for getting out of mount and Kesa Gatame (Scarf hold) as well as passing the guard. At the end, sparring as usually.

The second class was good too but Robson and Ricardo told me to rest during the sparring as they could see I was bothered by my elbow and even more by the thing I got on my upper lip. It looked in the end like this:

Robson is training like crazy and always spar with everybody who wants to spar with him. Same today and after the first class he shared some of the techniques he uses to make people tap out.

We wanted to take a bath in the ocean after the class but Ricardo said that it is not a good idea. The weather has been bad with lots of rain. It means that the streets of Bahia have been washed by the rain water that afterwards gets right in the ocean. So the water is dirty and full of bacteria and other unpleasant stuff. So we went to check our weights instead and even if I am 64 kilos now, I don’t think that this will be a problem. Today I eat more than usually and I trained less. By the way – Arrara had the list with of the competitors in this weekend’s competition in Feira de Santana. Marcus has five competitors in his class and I have zero in mine. It means that I will meet the guy who is alone in the – 76 kilos class. However, I still have to have the right weight for my own class.

After checking our weights we bought some juice, coca-cola and other food each of us wanted. Me, I really wanted to eat an apple. Last night I dreamed about it, about me eating an apple. I bought two and I eat one directly when we came out of the store. It was orgasmic almost. The hair on my hands and legs rose up when I took the first bite.

We didn’t want to go directly home after checking our weight and stopped instead at the…. Farol de Barra where we relaxed some more.

Mauro and Cris came also…

…but Mauro had some potentially bad news for us. The bad weather with so much rain caused big problems in Feira de Santana where the competition is supposed to take place. So it wasn’t really sure if the competition could run as planned. Tomorrow we will know more.

Finally we went home to eat something (Marcus) and than to sleep and charge the batteries for a new day of training.

We couldn’t bath in the ocean either but we looked at some surfers who enjoyed the waves caused by the bad weather.

Instead of the beach we went to the Bompresso store to check our weights again and to buy some medicine for Marcus whose nose was running and then we went home.

At home the drinking water was finished and it was Marcus turn to take care of this issue. We explained him where he should go and what he should say. However he misunderstood almost anything. First he talked to the wrong persons about the water but he got the help of a girl who pointed him into the right direction. Then he was supposed o order the water and somebody else would bring it to the apartment but Marcus chose to bring the water home himself.

However, nobody can complain – we have water now.

A few moments after that we went out to eat. Marcus wanted more pizza and Robson wanted some too. So it was Pizza Hut, at Shopping Barra again. Me, I already had my lunch…

… but I needed to get some  money and Robson insisted that I should go with them. I knew it was not such a good idea and I promised myself I wouldn’t eat anything.

Finally Robson insisted I should eat one slice of pizza. I tried to resist by telling him that even a small slice has lots of cheese on it will influence my weight but he told me not to worry. My resistance was of course not so strong and I eat almost one small slice.

On our way back we stayed at Jorge’s store to get some more gis.

Amanda was there too…

… and we looked on a dvd at some older MMA fights of hers and one of Robson’s.

In the evening only Robson went to the first class.

He instructed and than they did some sparring and he did the same footlock submission 10 times in a row on the same guy. After that he was in good form and mood so he trained a little bit extra, first sparring with another black belt and finally some training with the ketlebells.

Even Marcus got out from his corner and started to fool around with the balance ball.

At home it was time for Marcus to pack all his stuff and prepare for leaving. First he and Robson will take the bus to Feira de Santana for the competition. Me, I will go on Sunday with Ricardo who will also drive us back to the airport. Tomorrow “China” will call me in the morning to see if we can surf. I hope the weather will change during the night.

There are not a lot of new techniques we learned. It wa a lot of sparring and I think that a lot of learning happened during that. I filmed some sparring too and there are plenty of techniques and things to learn only by watching those movies.

China called around 7:30 but and told me he will call again a little bit later. When he called there was no good news. It was raining outside…

… and he suggested trying next day. Unfortunately tomorrow I will be at the competition and after that we will fly back to Sweden. So no surfing for me this time .

Instead I started to pack my own bag and to clean the place a little.

I picked up my and Marcus’ new belts from a place where they sew the dark blue area for the stripes on the belts. At the same place I also left some of Robson’s clothes and bedding sheets to the laundry. Robson will get them on Monday.

After posting this I will go and check my weight again and see what else I need to buy or do before I leave tomorrow.

The class was led by Manuel a black belt who is also a master of Capoeira. I like his warm-ups a lot because they remind me about the warm-ups we did when I trained Ashihara Karate. He also does some exercises that cause the two brain halves to cooperate more, very good for whole body coordination.
 
After the warm-up the technical part of the class consisted only in ukemi, falling technique. Manuel went through all the basics of falling and there were some good practical tips that I never heard before. For instance, when you are learning falling backwards you should look at your belt knot to make sure you don’t hit the back of the head on the floor. This simple advice was new for me.

Then we continued with sparring as usual…

… and once again I started to get really strong pain in my left elbow and shoulder. I stopped taking Voltaren and it feels. I also got something on my upper lip. Some kind of infection. The strange thing is that I always get this when I train intensively for a period of time. It pisses me off because I have to think about it all the time when my sparing partners put pressure on face. It is very annoying.

The pain in my arm, the infection on my lip, holding back on food to make the weight, not sleeping good, feeling like a nagging mother sometimes does take away some of the joy of being here.

At the end of the class Manuel had a little speech. Here at the academy, all the black belts are lined up in the front of the class, at the start and the end of the classes. At the end every one of them can say something about the class if he or she wishes. This day Manuel talked about the importance of Ukemi and of using technique and unbalancing more than raw strength. At least this is what I understand with my poor Brazilian Portuguese. Then a guy with blue belt wanted to say something as well. He talked about how happy he was the Robson was there. Robson has been the instructor he started BJJ with and it was an inspiration for him to see him and it was motivating him to continue to train.

After the class Silvio, one of the black belts, showed Marcus and me some details for escaping the mount and a few tricks for protecting oneself when one is in the opponent’s closed guard.

When the training was finished we went home to leave our stuff and to take the bus downtown for some shopping. Already on the way home I looked at some dresses… for myself of course .

We got off the bus and Robson told us we will meet his first Judo instructor. We went to a small fishing shop and there we met him:

He also gave us some fishing line and hooks because we have been talking about fishing one evening after the training.

To get downtown we had to take the elevator because the downtown is on higher ground.

First we stopped at a place where they sell gis. I bought one red gi for Jimmy, my training partner back home.

He wanted a red one for a long time. I would have bought a Shimai gi but Jorge didn’t have them in his stock so I got a Shiroy gi instead. Robson bought a pair of MMA shorts, which later, at home, showed to be too small for him and even small for me.

All three of us were quite hungry as we didn’t eat after the training so we went into the first place where they had food, after the visit to the martial arts store. Robson and I are easy to please, we both eat most of the things that are eatable, but Marcus is different, so he only had a coke while I and Robson had some juice and some specific local food.

It took us then almost 2,5 hours to get around and look in different stores and boutiques.

We also tried to find something to eat for Marcus. He told me a day or two ago that he would love to eat some kind of a baguette sandwich, so wee look for that all the time without seeing anything like that. Finally after being done with the shopping we find a place where Marcus could have something similar to a baguette to eat.

We took the bus back home and on our way from the bus station we met Anderson, aka 50 Cents, Robson’s brother in law, who told us he will start training again this evening. Robson and Marcus had plans to go to a football (soccer) match in the evening so only I would meet Anderson at the evening class.

Robson didn’t want to train in the evening because he already trained so much and he hurt his right thigh. So he wanted to take the evening off. However he and Marcus didn’t go to see the football match. Robson went to an Internet Café to talk to Viveca, his wife, via Skype, and me and Marcus went to the second evening class at the academy.

On the way to the academy we could see that the sand-artist was back with some old and new creations.

The class at the academy was packed and Mauro was also there for the first time since we came.

We were late for the first class but I jumped in anyway and it was time for sparring, after two fights my arm was all f…..d up so after the warm up and the technique part of the second class I was done, I went ant took a shower and waited for Marcus to finish the class.

Afterwards Robson came too and went fishing.

Even the fishes knew which one of us that could eat a lot. Robson got the biggest fish, I got a very small one that I let go and Marcus got none. He was also the first to give up, which I totally understand.

Robson eat his fish the same evening. He didn’t fill his belly with it, that’s sure….

First I couldn’t understand why Robson barricaded himself in his room but then I remembered that because of the storm and the air drag the door kept shaking during the night so he probably got disturbed and tired of that sound and tried to find a solution to that. At first I didn’t see it but later we seen that the door handle was broken too because one of his try to get rid of the disturbing sounds.

After getting out of the room I checked my black gi on the court outside…

… and then I checked my beautiful face and my thick lips. The upper one is just getting bigger and soon I will probably look like Angelina Jolie.

Only Robson went to the training now in the morning. Marcus and I stayed at home to recover a little bit. Marcus really enjoys this.

Now we will go to an Internet café and also visit Jorge. Marcus wants some MMA shorts and I want to buy some more gis.

See you later.

Marcus did not train at all because of his red shoulders and back but he went to the beach to run. After the first class I looked after him and even went to the beach to tell him that it was enough and I wanted him inside the academy now that the night was coming. On the beach there was no Marcus and I started to worry. I came back and there he was, he came back while I looked for him. He was on another beach, just in front of the academy not the beach we use to go to. Because of this I put him in the corner .

The second class was sparring as well and I was happy too see that I could participate in many sparring matches.

The third class was a Judo class and I had to put another belt on.

That made me very angry:

Robson instructed and we were only three students and two black belts. We trained Tai-Otoshi and O-Uchi-Gari. The class ended with sparring.

This has been my best day so far when it comes to how many classes I took. I run in the morning and I took the classes in the morning and in the evening. At the end of the day my gi almost seemed to be black because of being so wet.

Another good thing was that all the documents showing that I have the responsibility for Marcus arrived and now I can punish him if he is not listening.

This evening he had to stay for 30 minutes on the balance ball.

After the classes we took another way home.

I also found out that Marcus has a devilish side too. Just look at his eyes!

We stopped again at Farol de Barra where Robson’s sister works too. This time we even met Nery, Robson’s niece…

… and Robson had the chance to show what a good father he will become.

We also met 50 Cents who was there to eat Acaraje.

And therefore Robson wanted to show us that he can be a gangster too.

And the best picture of the day is:

Some after class chatting.

Beach

Nobody messes with me and my son

Admiring arts and art creation

Washing training t-shirt in the shower at the academy

Showing Muscles

Lunch

Marcus doing strange things to fruits

Trying to look cool

Buying Gi from Jorge

Evening Classes

Trying to look cool together with Sebastian from Berlin, Germany

Watching Robson doing a massage

Drinking a Vitamina Banan

Sitting on the Internet Cafe, doing this…. sorry, no pictures

Marcus doesn´t like dirt on his shoes

No training in the morning so we went to Shopping Barra…

… to see if we can find presents to take home to Sweden. Going around and joking around…

… took some time so we even eat lunch there.

Robson and Marcus eat each his hamburger with fries while I just had some chicken and salad. I need to lose four kilos until next Sunday so I am on a diet.

On the way back home we passed a “favela”, an area where people with few or no resources live.

The contrast was so obvious as on the other side of the street, the side I took the pictures from, lived the affluent people.

After some rest at home we went to the academy. There weren’t a lot of people but many of them were black belts so we only spared.

A good evening excepting the fact that both my elbows (but especially the left one) and my left shoulder hurt.

After the class we took some pictures… 

… said “good bye” to Ricardo and Marta…

… and went to buy myself some Voltaren for the elbows and to check our weight for the competition next week end. I was disappointed to see that I was still 66 kilos which is 3.5 – 4 kilos too much for me… not good….

We took a bath in the ocean and then we went home feeling like this…

It’s Sunday and it is a resting day. No classes at the academy. Me, I started to take Voltaren at  9 pm and I take a pill every six hours. So during the night I wake up at 3 am and I hoped to sleep until 9 am. But Marcus is snorking highly. And as this wasn’t enough, at 7 in the morning somebody started his TV on highest volume and listened to a priest or something because they were saying “hallelujah” and “amen” all the time.

After this ended I was able to sleep until Robson came in and wake us up.

Marcus started to prepare the breakfast. The only thing he needed to cook was my egg, the only food I had in the morning.

Then we cleaned our place together…

… and headed for the beach where we’ve been until 3 pm. We just relaxed in the sun, swam, rent a canoe.

Marcus tried some sunglasses but didn’t buy anything.

On the beach we met Bizo, a guy who have been training Capoeira for 16 years. Robson know him so he demonstrated some of his skills.  

When we came home from the beach Robson and Marcus stopped to eat at Brazil Legal while I had to go home alone and eat a mango and some chips.

Now when I’m writing this they both rest. Will see what happens next.

Four hours later:

The boys wake up when Viveca called to talk to Robson so after their conversation we decided to take a walk. But first we observed the consequences of staying on the beach almost all day. Interesting enough it was both Marcus and Robson that suffered of red skin “disease” while I was quite OK.

We went out to Faral de Barra, our favourite place in the evening and talked and did some amazing magic. I also tasted “caudo de cana” a natural drink made of sugar……. Before getting home Robson showed us how his office in Brazil looked like before he moved to Sweden .

(I forgot to put the last pictures on my memory stick. I will uppdate this later)

At 7:30 am Robson came into mine and Marcus’ room and told me it’s time to run. I thought he was joking…. He was not. I got up, brushed my teeth, drank water, got in my gear and we went out to run. 45 minutes later we were back.

I drank water again, eat a mango, took a shower, packed my bag with the gi and all three of us went to the academy for the 9 o’clock class.

We were only seven persons in the class, four black belts,Manuel, Arrara, Grimaldo and Robson, one purple, me, and two blue belts, Marcus and another guy. Arrara showed first an escape from side mount with both hands on the near side of the body and then he also showed a counter to the escape – a sleeve choke from side with a transition to the back. Marcus couldn’t train the whole class because his shoulders and back hurt from staying in the sun yesterday. I managed the class and one sparring match but during the second sparring I had to give up because I felt like I was cooking, so hot I felt.

After the class Robson wanted to train no-gi and I was the only one who wanted to try to continue training. We only did some sparring that ended with me landing on my head after about 7 minutes of sparring. That was the end of the morning training.

Before getting home we went to check our weights and I still weight 65,5 kilos. Just 500 grams less than yesterday .

At home Marcus tried to wash some clothes for hand for the first time in his young life.

He soon decided that this was not something for him so the rest of the clothes went to the laundry with Robson.

Me, I prepared lunch and after eating we took some pictures for some documents and then just relaxed at home.

Soon it’s time for training again. Now I will take my amazing pictures and texts to the Internet Café to share them with you.