Oxford School of Martial Arts

Gracie Invitational Seni07

One short trip to London, one giant step for OSMA! For the first time we fielded a whole Brazilian Jiu Jitsu team - with 4 competitors, 2 coaches, a stylist and a supporters club (with banners) making quite an impact on the matside at Europe’s biggest martial arts convention!

Sensei Rob overcame multiple obstacles and adversity: displaying the perseverance of a 4^th Dan to make it to the mats in time to coach the competitors. In the featherweight section, Kerry Gibson had a tough draw and battled her way to silver medal in an impressive display of technique, tactics and pure determination.

In the lightweight section, Theresa Quinn (better known as Sempai T) took the bronze, having impressed us all with her ability to stay calm under the pressure of a huge crowd, despite having been training less than a year. 

Sensei Claire rose to the occasion and produced her best ever jiu jitsu to beat her first opponent convincingly but this brought her up against Sensei Mary in the final – raising a bit of a dilemma for the supporters! (They settled for shouting random advice and cheering indiscriminately.) However experience won out, and Mary took the gold with an armlock submission, which gave OSMA gold and silver in the heavyweight section.

Senior coach Braulio Estima was delighted that OSMA is now producing medal winners through our own programme.

Special mention must be made of team stylist Thea Rogers, who laboured hard to ensure the team could fight without fear of bad hair – a common problem in women’s BJJ.

All in all, a proud day for us, and the team (plus entourage) invaded Frankie and Benny’s on the way home for a happy celebratory meal, finally crawling back to Oxford about 11pm. Now we’re all looking forward to next time…

PHOTOS

Training for the big day.

Competition Day

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