28 Oct 2011

Academy Tour: Nova Forca, Epsom, Surrey



Last night I took the opportunity to visit Nova Forca BJJ in Epsom, Surrey, UK. The academy has just relocated to a studio within the Energie Fitness Centre on the High Street which itself is literally slap bang next to the mainline train station - with frequent trains from both Waterloo and London Victoria.

Nova Forca is run by BJJ black belt Ricardo Da Silva. Originally from Brazil, Ricardo has been teaching BJJ in the UK for over ten years, making him one of the earliest instructors of the sport in this country!

I had a great time training with Ricardo and all the crew. The vibe is friendly and the instruction is solid. Ricardo taught 3 techniques and made the class drill these repeatedly. He is a stickler for perfection and he was keen to ensure each student performed the techniques correctly. It was nogi class on the night that I attended and there were around 25 students on the mats. I was told that gi class can reach up to 45 students!

It was good to catch up with Mark Stephenson, who I fought couple years ago, and good to see him don his freshly awarded brown belt. Tim Radcliffe, one of my honey badger sponsored fighters was there too and I wish him luck on his next MMA fight - bizarrely, located in the Dominican Republic!

Thanks to everyone at Nova Forca for making me feel ultra welcome. A full interview and report will be published in the next issue of Jiu Jitsu Style Magazine.


:)


About the Author

Meerkatsu

Author & Artist

Meerkatsu is the artist name for BJJ black belt Seymour Yang.

3 comments:

slideyfoot said...

Mark's a brown belt now? Cool! He was one of my regular training partners when I was briefly at Nova Forca a few years ago, so must have got his purple not long after I left, and now his brown.

He was definitely long overdue for that purple: from what I remember, belts were tough to get under Ricardo, with a lot of very solid white and blue belts as a result.

Stuart said...

Hi, you've made a small typo, its Epsom not Epson.

Meerkatsu said...

Thanks mate.

 

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