Renato Tavares writes about his accomplishments in 2012
GMA member Renato Tavares, the leader of ATT Vero Beach and RT Association, has done a lot in 2012 so far. For that, he took the time to seat down and write about it:
“This year, 2012, has been by far the most rewarding year for me in my BJJ career: as a Coach, Competitor and Student . The past years have brought great seasons and many titles. In 2009 I won Pans, Worlds FILA and 12 other events. In 2011 I won 3 golds at National and 1 gold at Worlds NoGi.
This year so far I competed in 6 tournaments. In 4 out of those 6 tournaments I competed Weight and Absolute and won 3 events in my division, received 2 second places and 4 Absolute titles.
The first tournament this year was Chicago Winter and I won my division. I competed against 2 great competitors Daniel Alvarez and Elihu Ledesma. In the Absolute again with Elihu and closed the bracket with my friend Giulio Timoteo.
At 2012 Pan Ams I competed in my division and did 3 fights. I lost the final in the last 30 seconds to a great competitor Bernardo Pitel.
In preparation for Worlds I competed in Dallas where I won my division fight against Jon Darryl Bjorksten in the final and the absolute. I won Absolute, but I had 2 battles against Ulpiano Malachias and Alexandre Ferreira.
For Worlds I dropped to Light Feather, I have not fought in this division since 1994. I had a good first fight, but lost to Pablo Santos that finished 3rd at the division.
Then I competed in 2 more tournaments: Chicago Summer and Atlanta Open. Resulting in 1 First and 1 Second in my division and 2 more Absolute titles.
This year has been the Rewarding Year not only for just my competitions, but for RT Association. For the first time since I start my association 7 years ago, and the last 3 years we started to put RT Association to compete as a team, we received our first trophies from IBJJF in Dallas at Dallas Open. We received 2nd Place in the kids division and 3rd in the Adult division, competing against teams like, Nova Uniao, Lovato, Alliance and Gracie Barra.
Being able to put your hand on one trophy like that is showing that the RT Association is headed in the right direction. A couple of months after that amazing accomplishment for the RT Association, I received the Certificate of Appreciation from IBJJF saying we(RT Association) had an outstanding performance.
When I traveled to Brazil in the beginning of September, I had the most amazing personal experience. I held a seminar in the city Teresopolis, where I began my BJJ training in 1974.
This was such a great feeling to teach and train with people who saw me compete as a Black Belt when they were doing their first steps in BJJ.
The main reason for this seminar was to do a tribute to the 2 greatest Masters: Grand Master Geny Rebello and Master Elias Martins. These Masters formed a massive amount of great competitors, coaches and men. They put Teresopolis on the BJJ map known for a City of Champions, like Helio Moreira Soneca, Robson Moura, Marcel Ferreira, Suyan Queiroz, Feijao and 100 other great competitors.
Friday night around 7pm, the evening before the event, I went to Master Elias, age of 79, to remind him about the event. To my surprise, I walked in and he had 16 students training bjj in his house.
The next day was the ceremony and it was truly amazing. There were 12 Black Belts, 20 other students, 1 Red Belt and 1 Coral Belt on the mat.
Once again full of surprises, Master Elias(age 79) with all his experience was drilling the movements at the seminar. I was amazed how humble he was to ask questions to be able to learn the movements I was demonstrating.
That just made my year and motivated me even more to do what I love to do, teach BJJ.
The year is not over yet and I am sure more great moments are coming from Worlds Masters and Seniors and the Miami Open, but I couldn’t wait to finish this year to share these amazing moments with you.
Hope this motivates you to keep training, learning and enjoying the BJJ Life style.”
For more info, go to rtbjja.org.
