I would like to congratulate all the guys from Team Ronin Athletics who competed last weekend, April 5th and 6th, at the NAGA Worlds tournament in Newark, New Jersey. We had a couple a lot of first time-ers and some of our more experienced athletes compete, notably …

Roger Dardas and Josh Bonacci both going 2-1 in Middleweight and Cruiserweight Intermediate divisions, respectively.

James Han and Zak Koonce both going 1-1 in Beginner Heavyweight and Intermediate Welterweight, respectively.

Everyone did great and learned a lot. this past NAGA was actually one of the better run events they’ve had in quite some time, so thank you to Kipp and whole NAGA crew as well.

A special nod goes out to:

Chris Froelich
- 1st place in Master’s Intermediate LightHeavyweight
- 2nd place in Men’s Intermendiate LightHeavyweight

Sidney Negron
- 1st Place in Teen’s No-Gi Beginner
- 1st Place in Teen’s Gi White Belt

Awesome job, guys!!

I would like to congratulate the guys who received their Blue Belts at the beginning of this year. They are all very well-deserved and much over-due. I’m proud of all you. Keep up the great work!

Eric Mahecha
Carlo Chan
Roger Dardas
Manny Villafane
Mike Medel

BJJ Black Belt and Pro-MMA fighter, Danny Suarez, was in town again this past holiday season and treated everyone to great workshop, focusing on takedowns, 1/4 position top ride/turnovers, Back Attacks, and Top Game for MMA. We look forward to his return in May.

Earlier this month, we had multiple-time NAGA, Grappler’s Quest, Bud Cup, Best of the West, and who-knows-how-many-more tournament Winner and Submission Grappling circuit phenom Ryan Hall (www.ryanhallgameplan.com) of Team Lloyd Irvin visit us during a long Columbus day weekend. Ryan is an old friend of ours from when he used to go to school in NYC. he’s infamous for his relentless and unorthodox guard attacks, however on our mats he also displayed for us some of his favourite takedowns, arm-drags, and what seemed like a magical twister-control.

October also brought to our shores Christian Graugart (shogunhq.blogspot.com) BJJ Purple belt (sandbagger) and Instructor of the Copenhagen Sports Academy in Denmark. Christian was here for 2 weeks, while also taking time to visit the West Coast and enjoy NYC, he was nice enough to teach some of the newer aspects of his phenomal game (”Five Swords” Top Game) to the guys at Ronin Athletics! This year marks Graugart’s 4th straight annual visit and we look forward to seeing him again next fall.

After the last couple of tournaments these past few months, we only had two guys enter this past NAGA in NJ. Both performed exceptionally well and we are all very proud of them.

Matt Weber - 2nd Place No-Gi Men’s Intermediate/2nd Place Men’s Gi white belt

*Matt has only been training BJJ for about 3 months

Ryan Elsasser - 4th Place in No-Gi Men’s Beginner

*Ryan did this tournament at the last minute while still nursing a knee injury - he is one of our more talented up-and-comers (we have many … :) who are looking to step up their competition training in the coming months.