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SBGi Promotions

2/16/06: I talked with Eric Hemphill yesterday when I got home (from Ireland), and I am happy to announce he finally recieved his black belt (from Chris Hauter). Those of you who know Eric know this is a well deserved promotion. Eric is a beast on the mat.

Also big congrats for Andy Ryan. Some of you may remember Andy from the 2005 Spring Camp where he taught a section on Judo. Andy has been one of the top Judo competitors for Years. On this last trip I saw that Andy's BJJ game has grown leaps and bounds. His passing, and escapes are all really technical and well timed, and he is a legit monster on the mat at the moment. So, I was proud to give him his well deserved purple in BJJ while there. The kids at his club were also pretty amazing. SBGi Northside is a tough-talented crew!

2/1/06: Congrats to SBGi business manager Mike Sweeney... he just received his BJJ brown belt from from Nova Uniao Co-founder, and longtime Coach Wendell Alexander.

12/21/05: Congrats to Cody Houston. I was proud to put Cody's purple belt on him in class last night. He has done great at local competitions, and has also shown himself to be a an excellent Coach. A very technical, and tough SBGi athlete.
You can find Cody coaching day classes at the Portland Gym.

12/5/05: I am proud to announce that my friend, and longtime SBGi Coach Adam Singer has been given his BJJ brown belt by Coach Chris Haueter.
I have had the joy of watching Adam's game skyrocket over the Years, and there is no doubt that this is well deserved. Congrats Adam!

11/03/05: I just returned from Florida. I was extremely happy to give Luis Gutierrez his black belt this last weekend. As of now he is the only person I have awarded a black belt to. Luis has demonstrated not only the high level of personal performance skill required, but also an uncanny ability to Coach people of all levels, ages, and needs, from competitive athletes to children. He has developed his own unique and personal style, and has a mature, detailed, and refined understanding of the complete Art of BJJ. All of which I consider pre-requisites for a solid black belt. I am very proud of him.

To date I have only awarded two brown belts, John Kavanagh, and Jonathan Wright (from Luis's ODMA), and now one black belt. These people represent the standards I have for SBGi's BJJ in every sense of that word.

In addition to Luis, 3 other athletes received BJJ promotions. Christian Graugart from Denmark, Mick kelly from Ireland and xxx xxxx from Florida were all promoted to the rank of Purple Belt. Great job guys!

Also... I was very proud to give Rebecca Sweeney her Instructor/Coach certificate at Camp this past weekend. Rebecca has the complete game, stand up, clinch, ground, the ability to coach athletes of all levels, and an extremely high level of all around performance skill. Rebecca is now the second woman ever to receive an Instructorship with SBGi, but she is the first woman to receive Instructor/Coach level!

09/28/05: Huge congratulations to Rich Beaupit and Jim Grove who were both awarded their BJJ Blue Belts at the SBGi seminar in Kingston on September 25, 2005. Rich, who owns Rich Beaupit's Personal Performance Gym in St. Catherines and Jim, who owns Real Combat in Cambridge have been working hard to improve their ground games. We had them both work hard to showcase their skills and they both looked great!

09/05/05: I just returned late last night from Marvin Diem's Gym in Flint, MI. I just wanted to say that I had a great time. The trip helped to once again remind me about what a cool group of people we have assembled at SBGi. It is always just like home.
We worked primarily stand up on Day 1, going through the SBGi 101 & 201 curriculum, and guard surfing, and top game for Day 2.
Also, congrats to Marvin and his guys for training hard, and smart. Two of them recently entered a local no-gi comp and placed very well. And all of them were rolling technical. I was very happy to award Marvin Diem, Scott Atkinson, Sean Donahue, and Christopher Reed well deserved blue belts while I was there.

08/25/05: Congrats to Travis Davison who received his purple last night at the Portland Gym. Travis has been a Coach with us since graduating from the ICC in 2001. And he has always had a great no-gi, and MMA game. He recently took a Year and a half off or so to take care of his kids and family. This last Year he has been back, and training very hard. He has been working both in no-gi, and gi, and he has put a lot of effort into improving his technical Jits game. His purple is overdue, and well deserved. He has also been a big help to our athletes who are preparing for comps and fights at our Gym. Way to go Travis!

08/20/05: Another new Purple Belt! This time congratulations are due to Thomas La Cour of Denmark! Way to go.

08/16/05: Congrats to the guys from the new 2005 ICC program. Three of them received their blue belts from me last night. Including Jonathan, Dallas, & James. All of them have done a great job. Jonathan has a total of 5 Months training time, and just won the intermediate division of the no gi tournament last weekend, beating 4 opponents, three from TQ who had extensive previous experience. Great job!

Also big congrats to Cane Prevost, who received his purple belt last night, after a pretty grueling series of rolls. Cane has added a lot of value to the PDX Gym as a Coach and we are all happy to have him there.

08/09/05: Big congratulations to John Kavanagh & Jonathan Wright. Both men received their brown belts from me in BJJ this Year.

John Kavanagh, and Jonathan, along with Luis, are the only brown belts I have awarded since I have been a black belt. And I think the quality of all three athletes speaks volumes about my standards. John's recent wins at the European championships where no surprise as John's game is smoking right now. And Jonathan continues to dominate the competition down in SO FLO. We are all very proud of them.   -Matt

12/05/04: On my recent trip to Africa I awarded two purple belts, and a number of blue belts to our students there.

New Purple Belts:

• Wikus Swart
• Bobby Karagiannidis

I met Bobby and Wikus on my first trip to Africa about six Years ago. Both men have been training hard ever since, and have technical, competitive purple belt performance. Congrats to both!
Interesting side note, I met John Kavanagh for the first time when he visited Africa for a cage match with Bobby. Time flies!

New Blue Belts:

• Nuno De Gouveia – Blue 3
• Mark Herbert – Blue
• Steven Bazzea – Blue
• Kenneth Yeung – Blue
• Cheri Steenkamp – Blue
• Monique Savage – Blue 1
• Joe Raath - Blue
• Nathan Raath – Blue

Congrats to all the new African blues!

Joe, Nathan and Cheri have fantastic games for the time in, just about a Year! This is a credit to their dedication. . .they are all on the mat 5 days a week. And also to Rodney's coaching ability with BJJ. I am very proud of Monique, she is moving really well and I was very happy to award her an overdue blue belt. Kenneth and Mark have great games. I was especially impressed with Mark's relaxed rolling style, all that's needed for some serious growth in performance over the next Year or so. Steven Bazzea runs the Capetown ATG, and I was also really impressed with his overall game, and ability to remain composed on the mat. Nuno! Nuno is very close to a purple, BUT... get on the mat more Nuno! If he does that there will be no stopping the 60k Portuguese machine.

Congrats to the African crew. . .well deserved.

11/14/04: Big congratulations to Alan Condon who was promoted to Purple Belt by BJJ Black Belt Rob Kahn. Alan runs a SBGi ATG in Albany, NY. Way to go Alan. We are all very proud of you!

11/04/04: Many of you know just how high our standards are organization wide for the staff at SBGi. When I consider these things it is true that for me no position demands more integrity and ability then that of a Regional Director. I have chosen all the RD's for SBGi very carefully because I know that they will determine the tone, growth, and future of the Gym in their area. They also have a huge influence on the students, and are truly the real leaders and mentors within SBGi. Having said that, due to the growth of SBGi in Canada over the recent two Years, and the interest there, it was obvious we needed to appoint an RD for Canada. The choice for that was self evident in picking Mike Sweeney. Not only was this my conclusion, and the conclusion of Luis, but also the unanimous conclusion of all the RD's, and the SBGi Admin Team. So I would really like to welcome Mike Sweeney on board as the official RD for SBGi Canada!

10/27/04: I just wanted to say that recognizing Paul as an Instructor was one of the best things I have been privileged to do in a long time. It's obviously well deserved, and we are all very proud that is is with us as part of SBGi.

09/21/04: Congrats to Christian Graugart of Denmark, aka: The VIKING, for becoming one of only four overseas Instructors in SBGi. Christian has a great game and we are proud of him. Congrats Christian!

09/19/04: HUGE congrats in order for a LONG overdue black belt to SBGi founding member Tom Oberhue. Tom's game is on fire, and those of you who have rolled with him know what I mean. In addition, he is an amazing BJJ Coach. So having said that, it was great to see him receive his black belt this weekend from long time SBGi Coach Chris Haueter.

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