Professor Tinguinha is constantly looking to improve and expand the quality of instruction of the Tinguinha BJJ Academy and spread his knowledge of this martial art. Every year he plans and makes projects that will substantiate these wishes to grow and expand. 2009 was a year of many accomplishments for Professor Tinguinha as a instructor and for The Tinguinha BJJ Academy. We bring an interview with the Professor to tell us about the past year and share with us his projects for the New Year and for our school- The Tinguinha BJJ Academy.
1) Looks like 2009 was a pretty busy year for you and The Tinguinha BJJ Academy. Can you talk a little about 2009?
A: Yes, Definitely was a pretty busy year. Many things have happened. I did a lot of traveling, went to 7 different countries. I taught around 12 seminars. I had the chance to do something that I always wanted to do, to take some of the tbjj team on a trip to Brazil for training and competing. Oon top of that we moved the TBJJ main school to a new location and concluding the year I launched the online training website- the tbjj.tv so definitely a lot of positive things happened this year.
Part of The TBJJ Team at The Corcovado- Rio de Janeiro-Brazil
Part of theTBJJ Team at The Rio International Championship-Brazil
2) Why did you move the school and what is different at the new location?
A: The main reason we moved the school was the space, it was time, the space was getting small for the number of students we have. So we moved to a bigger location and doubled the size of our mat area, now we have 3 mat space areas, and we also have reception area, bigger changing room, shower and kickboxing training area. And we are in a better location, right on the border of Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda. With our new structure we were able to expand our schedule, we have a lot more to offer, we now have classes 7 days a week. We added more classes to our No Gi Program, Kids program, Kickboxing/Muay Thai and All Levels Program. Now we have classes on Sundays, a Kids NoGi/MMA Class and more Muay Thai Classes, so more options for our students to choose from. We have also open mat time in our schedule, and we are going to have 2 in house tournaments this year, It's great a lot of new stuff happening, we are really happy with the new location.
TBJJ Academy New Muay-Thai/Kickboxing Mat Area
TBJJ Academy New Location Mat Areas- Space
3) You did a lot of traveling this year, can you tell us about your experience?
A: It was a great experience to travel around the world and meet new people, new cultures, while doing something I love, which is teaching BJJ. I feel blessed to have had those opportunities. It is amazing how brazilian jiu- jitsu is everywhere in the world. It's pretty crazy to think that when I started training back in Brazil just a couple of people knew what this martial art was, and I'm not even talking about the whole country but people in my neighborhood and I never pictured in my mind that this martial art would get so big. Definitely it is a good surprise. I am happy to have contributed a little to promote our martial art in the world, teaching and sharing with people. I would like to thank everyone who attended my seminars and those people who organized and received me so well.
Professor "Tinguinha " Seminar in Singapore- Renzo Gracie- Evolve
Professor "Tinguinha" Seminar in Hong Kong
4)We understand you have affiliated schools under you. How are they doing?
A: Yes, I do. And our associations are doing really good and getting stronger. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is growing and growing really fast. Every year we receive a lot of calls and e-mails from people looking to be associated with us, but we are not worried about quantity but quality instead. We want to have the right people with the right martial art mentality, looking to grow with us as a family. The popularization of something like that often times attract the wrong people and the work we are looking to do is to share and teach a good quality instruction putting the martial art first. We have here in California, The Speedy BJJ Gonzalez school, doing a great job specially with the kids program and also The MCBJJ School in Carson, getting organized, bigger and stronger every year. We have our boys from Alaska, doing an outstanding job, taking the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu art very seriously and putting Alaska in the BJJ Map. We have in the International front our Association in Croatia, doing an amazing job with their kids program, getting to a point that they became a positive place in the community, doing a social work for their city. And our affiliation in Canada, who are implanting the BJJ Art in their city, spreading BJJ little by little. We are happy and will continue to work together as a team.
TBJJ Affiliated School in Alaska- Anchorage BJJ
TBJJ Affiliated School in Croatia- Part of the Kids Program Students
5) You just launched an online training system website in the end of 2009. Can you tell us about this project? And how is it going?
A: The tbjj.tv was a project that has been in the making for a long time. Me and the fight life company had been working on this for a while. We have filmed stuff for almost a year. The idea was to create not only an online training with a lot of techniques but go beyond that. We wanted to cover all areas of Brazilian Jiu- Jitsu, from the daily concepts,to the positions, the escapes, the attacks, the training, the different views of the game, the conditioning and much more... It's an insider look into all areas of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The website is divided in different parts. We have parts where people can follow a class curriculum to develop different games, we give people a guide to whatever games they want to develop or work on with full assistance on each detail.
The online training website is doing well, besides people from The US we have people from over 15 different countries enrolled and our online training has been active for only 2 months. We have been having a lot of good feedback from people, so definitely things are going really good.
6) Who do you think would benefit more from the TBJJ.TV website?
A: I think everybody can benefit from this website like I said before we are not only showing techniques but covering all parts of this martial art, besides an extensive techniques library, we have interviews, fight footages and training footages and we add new stuff pretty much every week. We also have specific categories for each level Beginners, Intermediate or Advanced. We have for example a section called The Ultimate Beginners, where we cover from everything they need to know before getting on the mat to the best techniques to build a solid foundation and a curriculum of classes they can learn in an easy to follow way, For the intermediate and Advanced BJJ practitioner we have the Dynamic Series section where we work on specific games going over a combination of techniques where we show not only what to do but also the right time and reason to do it,your game is going to flow accordingly to your opponent's reaction. Plus, we have a section called the survivor's guide, which is really interesting, it's all about certain positions and problems most people have in training, so we work on these particular parts and techniques, giving tips and showing the options they have and solutions. TBJJ.TV is good for everybody, even for the instructors, we have had a lot of great feedback from enrolled instructors, saying that they were able to structure their classes and have a better understanding of the BJJ Game, following the class curriculum and having the details of the techniques, that gives them a base to cover classes for beginners as well as give them a deeper look into specific games.
TBJJ.TV Online Training System Promotional Video
7) Can people get promoted with belts by following The TBJJ.TV Online Training System?
A: Absolutely NOT. The TBJJ.TV online training system is a complement to your training regimen and an important tool for those without or with limited access to a formal BJJ Instruction. You can benefit from many features on our website to take your game to the next level but I strongly encourage people to train at a BJJ School with a legitimate BJJ Black Belt Instructor or a school that is supervised by one. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is pretty big today and there are many schools all over the Globe, just make sure to find a legitimate one. In this martial art you really need to put your time on the mat being supervised by an Instructor otherwise you'll only know it all in theory.
Blue Belts promoted with Stripes at The TBJJ Academy
8) What is the difference between your Instructional DVDs and the TBJJ.TV online training system website?
A: There is a big difference from my DVDs to the TBJJ.TV online Training. All my dvds cover specific games of BJJ like The Spider Guard, Sitting up Guard, Back Attacks... in the Spider guard dvd for example I just teach techniques about that specific game but in the online training website we going over everything from self defense, Gi, NoGi, take downs, training tips, training footage, interviews and much more... If you are looking to work on a specific game or on a particular area of your game than my DVDs are what you are looking for. But if you are interested in every aspect of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and an overall look into this art then you will find that at my online training website. So they are two different things.
Tinguinha's Instructional DVDs
9) Any new things planned for the TBJJ.TV website?
A: oh yes, This is just the tip of the iceberg. We have way more planed for the future. I could talk all day about all the plans we have for the online training website but lets just leave it like that, there is way more to come...
10) What are your plans for 2010?
A: For 2010 the goal is to keep our school and associated schools getting stronger and we plan to make our competition team even stronger this year. Plus have more events at our school and take advantage of the nice set up we have now. Keep working on the TBJJ.TV online training website and offering quality Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Instruction.
