Koffee Krew Unite with Mauricio, Sanjana and Marina

Transcript

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Tell me your name and what school you go to. I'm Sanjana Chund. I go to Alonso Academy with this handsome gentleman right here. Okay. Who's your professor? Mauricio Alonso. Mauricio? Yes. I'm Mauricio Alonso, founder of Alonso Academy, and our school is in Newark in the Bay Area. Okay. How long have you had that school? 12 years No. 2011 I started to work in California. Okay. When I moved from Brazil to here. Okay. Long time. So you grew up in Brazil? I grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nice. Yeah. Beautiful. Okay. And introduce yourself. Hi, I am Marina Malimba and I'm a student under Mauricio Great. And so you're a purple belt? Yeah, we're purple belt under Mauricio and we're also representing Need to Believe Foundation. Okay. Tell me about your foundation. So the foundation is a nonprofit organization. We found in 2018, that work with kids with special needs. Oh, great. So we attend kids with autism, Mr. Pal, with Down syndrome and all kind of disabilities that kids can have. We accept all them and with much love. Okay, good. That's awesome. What was your hardest belt, going through the four that you've gone through so far? I would say white belt. Just sticking to it. Yeah. Just getting started. Yes. Yes. So what did you find hard about it? I think that it was definitely a learning curve and just getting my butt kicked every day, but just sticking to it because it was hard. It was a mental game for sure. Okay. And, how about you when you first started, how old were you? Almost 17, 19 97. Long time ago. Uh, San Paulo. Yeah. And who was your, sensei? Ryan Grayson. Very nice. Yeah. So how was it, learning under him? Intense. Very intense. Yeah. So tell us about something that was really intense about the training. So, back in the days, the coach was a little different than today. Okay. Right. Most likely you would just be training with your teammates at your gym. There was no cross training before. Okay. Really rare. Someone go to another gym or have an open mat like this. And people from different teams participated together. That was a very big difference from now to back in the days and as a group in Sao Paulo was a way more aggressive environment. Okay. The culture was different. There was a lot of more fighting involved. The glamor of being a world champion on jiu jitsu and all this Instagram world or social media that didn't exist back then. Right, right. So the goal was to train and prove that your gym was the best gym. So it was very competitive. Okay. Now, back in the days when you, like I was talking with a friend here today and I said, you only go to jiu jitsu Academy back in the days. You was already a person, more aggressive person or have a more aggressive approach in life, let's say like that. You know, nowadays you used to expand a lot and it's reaching people that probably back in the days, we never stepped the foot on the mat. That is the real purpose of jiu jitsu help the people that really needs, you know, that's, I think it's an evolution of it. Yeah, absolutely. What has been your biggest challenge in jiu jitsu as being a woman? Oh gosh. I think finding other women who are also comfortable with it. So we've actually, we've tried really hard to make a space for women at our gym. we have a standing women's class every Sunday at 2:00 PM I don't know, it's just part of it is overcoming my own discomfort with certain men, their size. can be a little intimidating. I'm also kind of a germophobe, so I have to get over the whole like everyone's sweats on you. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah. yeah. The things for a women is one of that sweaty thing is the what most bothers them. Sweaty thing too. I think a lot of men try not to roll with women too, because they don't wanna have to be careful or gentle or careful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you expect them in to be careful with you or do you want them to come on right, absolutely. I'm the same way. I want the guys to turn it up. Yep. How about you? Yeah. With Marina, the guys have to be careful with her. She is tough. She'll beat the up. She's an assassin. She is an assassin. I don't want them to treat women any different. Absolutely. Bring it on. Yeah, there you go. How about you? Yeah, I mean, bring it on as long as I'm not injured. Right, right. I'd like to thank you for coming on this little short interview and maybe one of these days I'll have each one of you individually come on my podcast to share your childhood through adulthood journey. Awesome. All the way through your jiu jitsu and then whatever else you wanna share in regards to your or school or whatever you wanna promote. Okay. Pleasure. This is for you guys. Thank you. You're welcome. Take care, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thanks so much.