April 2021

20
Sports
maldenblueandgold.com
The Blue and Gold
April 2021
A Dive Into This Year’s Swim Season
Carlos Aragon
Managing Editor of Print and
Design
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic,
life has begun to resume and a
“return to normality” has begun.
This includes the return of MHS
sports, including the swim team,
who hopes to have a strong season.
Due to COVID, the sport looks
incredibly different this year. According
to Coach Jessica Bisson,
swim meets are conducted virtually.
This means that each team is swimming
in their home pool. “[They]
just swim and do normal races as
[they] do, and when both teams
MHS swimmers performing backstroke. Photo taken by Carlos Aragon.
have completed the meet [they] go
in and upload the results.” The times
decide the outcome of the meet.
Due to this, the mindset of the
sport changes radically; it’s almost
impossible to know how the players
are doing. “When [they’re] swimming
in the pool, it really gives
[them] an opportunity to push,
because [they] see who [they’re]
next to and [they] know [they’re]
trying to beat them” stated Bisson.
It is much more difficult to motivate
yourself against a clock than it is
with an actual person. Bisson stated
that after the first meet, the team decided
to focus on their mindset. “It’s
giving [them] an opportunity to
rethink how [they] do [their] starts,
how [they] do our finishes,” all of
the small elements that improve the
team’s overall technique.
According to Junior Sarah
Oliveira, during practices, the team
has to practice with swimmers in
totally different lanes in order to
socially distance. She stated that
“[they] have to socially distance in
the water, so there’s one person in
the far left side of the lane, and then
the other to the right, and one treading
water.” The locker rooms are
closed for the most part, although
the swimmers are given a short
amount of time to change at the end,
one by one. “Swimming, in general,
has stayed the same, but how [they]
do it has changed, as expected.”
Overall, the team did shrink a
bit due to the seniors who graduated
as well as people who could not
swim due to Covid. Oliveira added
that “[she] thinks [they’re] roughly
at around the same amount of people,
around 5 less than before.”
Captain David Lombardi believes
that swimming this year is
worth it since he is “gaining closure
to [his] career as a swimmer.” Last
year, the team got quite competitive
with an undefeated streak, and Lombardi
himself reached states the past
three years and placed in the Top 10
twice. According to Lombardi, “the
team is mostly looking for fun” and
personally, he is as well. “Without
those competitions [he is] really just
trying to have some fun with the
sport and gain the understanding
for it again.”
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Top Team Boston
Alexey Mozyaev
Reporter
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a self-defense
martial art and combat sport
based on gripping, seizing, choking,
and submitting the opponent in the
most effective way possible. The
sport dates its roots back to Jujutsu
-- a family of Japanese martial arts
of which Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a part.
Over the past 10 years, the popularity
of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has grown
tremendously, becoming the most
important discipline in Mixed Martial
Arts and a life-changing experience
for anyone who undertook the
discipline.
Mastering Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
is a life-long journey. The belt, or
ranking, system in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
divides into two categories. One is
for kids, aged up to 17 years old. The
other is for adults. Kids and adults
begin with a white belt. Each colored
belt, or rank, is accompanied with
stripes, or rank degree. Students are
to receive up to 4 stripes in the belt,
before receiving the next colored
belt. After a practitioner receives
a white belt, the next is yellow, for
kids, and blue, for adults. Once a
kid receives a yellow belt, he or she,
later on, receives an orange belt,
then a green belt, and then, when
the kid turns 17 years old, he or she
automatically receives a blue belt.
After the blue belt comes the purple
belt, then the brown belt, and then
the black belt. Having a black belt,
the practitioner is then considered
a “professor” on the mats. Beyond
the black belt comes a seemingly
unattainable milestone: the coral
belt (black and red). Students can
receive the coral belt only when they
have trained and taught Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu, as a black belt, for 31 years.
One of the very well known Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu affiliations that highly
interprets this discipline is Brazilian
Top Team (BTT). It was found in
April 2000 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil,
by former MMA fighters and Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu practitioners Murilo
Bustamante, Ricardo Libório, Mário
Sperry, and Luis Roberto Duarte.
Today, their affiliations are all over
the Americas, Europe, and Asia. In
its earlier years, the academy was
known for producing many talented
MMA fighters that had been
successful in the Ultimate Fighting
Championship (UFC), -- the biggest
MMA promotion in the world.
Today, as the sport’s popularity
is rapidly growing, the Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu practitioners representing
BTT are winning worldwide
championships, making themselves
known all over the world. The first
recognized BTT center in the United
States was established in 2003,
named Brazilian Top Team Boston,
by João Amaral Miranda and his
student, Daniel Mirel Gazoni, who
now runs the academy. Today, it is
one of the most successful Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu academies in New England,
winning not only regional and outof-state
championships, but also
European and Pan-American championships.
Being a Martial Arts practitioner
means being respectful, disciplined,
and polite to the peers and
to the instructor. But first and foremost,
the academy is a family. In the
academy, Gazoni is referred to as
the “professor” or “sensei.” Before
stepping onto the mat, the students
are expected to greet and bow to all
the black belts present. Being late to
practice is never a respectful sign to
the head instructor. Respect and politeness
are expected in the school,
as much as thanking the peers after
the practice.
Levi Moura, a 21 year old
brown belt, professional competitor
and instructor at BTT Boston, started
his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu journey when
he was a freshman in high school, in
Brazil. Ever since then, “[he] would
give up on other sports and hobbies
to entirely focus on Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu.” Throughout the years of pure
training and competing, Moura
said that “the journey had shaped
[him] not only as an athlete, in [his]
younger years, but as a human being.”
As Gazoni taught so many people
throughout his teaching career,
“[he] noticed that kids and teenagers
that have been doing Brazilian Jiu
Jitsu for months, have become more
confident and have shown a higher
self-esteem.” And adults who have
suffered from either poor regulated
mental health or addiction, “have
come up to [him] and thanked [him]
for changing [their] lives for the better.”
Growing in a healthy social environment,
one only integrates into
a better version of oneself.
Eric LeClair, a blue belt from
BTT Boston, has been doing Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu for three and a half
years. Beginning his journey at the
age of 36, and “going through a
mentally difficult time in [his] life,
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu had changed [his]
life.” In the start of his journey, “[he]
was scared inside because [he] was
nowhere close to being at the level
at what [he] was looking at.” Before
finding Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, LeClair
had difficulty controlling his anger
issues. He believes that “Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu helped [him] fight his anger
and self-awareness.” Constantly
losing to the stronger opponents on
the mats, and being at the same time
part of the “family” in BTT, “Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu” has humbled [him] in
ways where [LeClair did not] even
realize where [he] needs humility.”
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is not easy.
Ismail Guessous, a blue belt from
BTT Boston said that “it was tough
in the start, but comradery in the
team helped [him] a lot.” All the
black belts and “Professor Daniel”
have helped him along the journey.
“[It is] good for mental health to
have a good social setting where one
learns from experienced athletes
and teaches less experienced athletes
-- all the while socializing and
forming that human connection,”
stated Guessous.
Practicing Martial Arts is not
always about learning how to protect
oneself, but also about evolving
as an individual. Along the road,
who one becomes, doing Brazilian
Jiu Jitsu, is more important than
what one gets out of it. “Life is about
ups and downs and it [does not]
matter how many times [humans]
fall back, it matters how many times
[humans] get back on their feet”
stated Gazoni.