On November 11-13, 2011, Women’s Grappling Camp hosted a weekend camp at Princeton BJJ in Princeton, NJ, featuring multiple-time world champion and seasoned black belt Hannette Staack as guest instructor. Staack holds eight world titles in International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation events and three in Abu Dhabi Combat Club events. She has been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission grappling since she was a teenager, coming up through the ranks in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before moving to Chicago. She and her husband, Andre “Negao” Terencio, run a grappling academy called Brazil 021.
Female grapplers of every belt level from diverse geographic locations arrived in Princeton on Thursday evening for a welcome dinner and then participated in three days of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and submission grappling training. It was an opportunity for women, who are still greatly outnumbered in the grappling world, to train with and learn from multiple female partners. This was the first time WGC has had the opportunity to work with a guest instructor, and Staack set the bar very high. She engaged the campers with her effective technique, easy to follow teaching style, and warm demeanor. She shared stories of her life in Brazil and the ways she has used the techniques she taught in various competition situations. The weekend ended with a co-educational seminar also run by Staack, which enabled some male practitioners to learn from her as well.
This most recent camp is the latest offering from WGC, which has been running similar camps—weeklong and weekend versions—since 2009. Under the leadership of black belts Emily Kwok and Valerie Worthington and blue belt Lola Newsom, WGC has reached dozens of women, supporting their development in keeping with the organization’s motto “Self Actualize through Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.” The next camp will be a weekend version in San Antonio, TX over Martin Luther King, Jr., weekend in January 2012. For further details, contact lolanewsom1@yahoo.com.
