Mitch MacDonald, 24 from Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, is a brown belt in jiu-jitsu. In 2013 he traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil to train at Cicero Costha’s academy, home to Leandro Lo, the Miyao brothers and many more. In this guest post he remembers his initial experience of arriving in and training at the legendarily-tough gym. 

After a six-hour bus ride and being lost in a taxi, I finally pulled up in front of the academy. I was so excited, I forgot how tired I was. I grabbed my bags from the taxi, thanked the driver, and headed towards the doorway of Sao Paulo’s Cicero Costha academy.

When I got to the door, I was greeted by the familiar smell of dirty gis and sweat soaked mats. At the top of the steps, I was met by a modest academy with a mat space and a small bench on the side. The modest appearance of the academy had clearly not affected its popularity. The academy was packed! There were people rolling, people drilling, and just hanging out.

Once Cicero arrived, I introduced myself for the first time. Immediately I felt welcomed as Cicero started to talk and joke with me as if he had known me much longer than the 30 seconds he had. Instantly, I knew I was in an amazing place to train and call home for the next few months.

As the evening classes came to an end, I was directed to put my bags with everyone else in a little tunnel that runs along the side of the mat. To sleep, I borrowed a small beat up mattress to throw on the mats. I laid down on the mattress and closed my eyes hoping to get a good rest for the next morning. Unfortunately, I woke up sore and unrested but nevertheless excited to train. I went to the bakery for a small breakfast and headed back to the academy to get ready for training.

As 12:00pm approached, the gym slowly started to fill up. Once it was noon, Cicero started the timer. Everyone grabbed a partner and started drilling. I followed suit, finding a partner and drilling for an hour. Everyone’s technique was super smooth. It was clear that hours of repetitions had refined Cicero’s students. Then the rolling started: 6 rounds of 8 minutes.

It was unlike any gym I had ever trained at before, there were so many people crammed into one small space and it was war! Everyone went as hard as they could no matter what belt or weight. No one had any quit in them! Finally, the last round ended. I was utterly exhausted. I didn’t know what had just happened. I was no stranger to academies where everyone went hard but this was different.

I left the gym and went up the street. Once I reached what I considered a safe distance from the academy, I burst into tears.

I was exhausted from the training, the lack of sleep, and traveling. I was disappointed in myself, the training had gone awful. None of my moves had worked, I had got beaten up so badly.

Pulling myself together, I headed back to the academy. The guys invited me to lunch with them and Cicero. It was a great time. Everyone was very welcoming and I immediately felt like I was a part of the team. The time I dedicated in previous years to learning Portuguese paid off, making it easier to become friends with the other guys.

That night, I put on my gi again and started with an hour of drilling followed by an hour of sparring. The intensity of the night class was more laid back, but when it came time to roll, everyone still put in their best effort. The next day, I knew that noon training was going to be brutal. My whole body ached and it was exactly the same as the day before. Immediately after training, I left and cried.

I wanted to go home so bad. It was so hard and I didn’t know if I could keep going. If you stay at Cicero’s long enough, you’ll see how common it is for people to come to stay and train, but quit after just a short period of time.

It is physically brutal, but more than that, is extremely tough mentally. You give up all privacy, personal space and spend your time with the same people on and off the mats. The guys at the gym say that if you train at Cicero’s you will either quit or get tough.

As time passed, I started to adjust. Slowly but surely I began to improve having competitive rolls, hitting my moves, and leave training feeling good. The camaraderie at the academy is second to none. It is like having a second family. I learned a lot about myself and about life by toughing out those first few weeks of training at Cicero’s.

Though I didn’t live in the academy for long, (I moved into a small apartment with Wellington ‘Alemão’ Luis) I learned a lot about sacrifice during my week of living at Cicero’s academy. The amount of work the athletes at Cicero’s put into jiu-jitsu is incredible! The sacrifices they make mentally and physically make it abundantly clear why this modest sized gym in the neighborhood of Ipiranga has created so many champions.

With the guidance of a leader and role model like Cicero it is easy to see why these athletes are not just champions on the mat but also off of them.

Mitch returned to Brazil a number of times, staying in the country over a year total. Watch him in action in a local tournament in this video: