News

​Dear Parents and Students,

As 2017 draws to a close and we anticipate the arrival of the new year, I would like to thank you all for your support and dedication to your own and/or child's training and development not only in the martial arts but as a whole person.

We are now an established  premium academy for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu on the North Shore and are looking to grow our programs and in 2018, introduce a GB Pymble Competition team led by Fletcher Davidson for both our Kids and Adults. This Team will be a feeder team into our National Ambassador Program. We will make the formal announcements and add a Competition team training day on sundays in the new year.

We will continue to run Yoga and other programs for our students and their families as getting fit and healthy should be on everyones new years resolution list.

I started my Jiu Jitsu journey in 2012 with my two children. At that time I was 120 KG, with a waist of 47 inches, my physician advised me to do something fast or risk the irreversible effects of a poor diet and no exercise. Yes, I had let myself go for a variety of reasons, work, and life got in the way. I had left my discipline  and years of practicing Judo and Karate  and could not walk up a hill without breathing hard.

in 2013, I made a commitment to regain health and fitness and bring balance back into my life. Today, I am a shadow of my former self, healthy and most importantly, I enjoy passing on what I have learned to others both young and old.

The Coaching team has matured and we are fortunate to have Dr. Vincent Pang join us from the UK in the new year. Professor Vincent trained with one of Gracie Barra's best, Professor Victor Estima and received his black belt from him in February 2017.

We will be back in force on the 3rd January 2018. Please do check out our new website at www.gbpymble.com.au and if you have the time, leave us some feedback so others can enjoy the fruits of our community.

Have a safe and joyous 2018

Best regards,

Brian Pereira

Director GB Pymble

TEL: 0418972518

It is not hard to adopt a growth mindset, all you have to do is take the first step and target some of your personal challenges, apply relentlessness, dont reel from setbacks and open your mind and spirit ( and your ears) to learn from others. Make 2018 a memorable year and tackle those big audacious dreams, whether it be getting fit, flexible, spedning more time with the family or excelling at something new, nothing is impossible.

For all our members and their families and loved ones. Everyone is welcome for this hour of  Yoga designed for people wo practice combat sports

Here are the upcoming Australian Federation of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitions and their rankings (stars)

During 2018, Gracie Barra Pymble are striving towards competition success. Led proudly by Team Captain Prof. Marcio Lemos and Coach Fletcher Davidson - we will be bringing strong teams of kids and adult competitors to each competition throughout the year!

As we prepare for the start to the new school year, I though it might be useful in sharing some of our experiences in being parents. Natascha and I have 4 children, our eldest is 25 and Kobi our youngest is 11. We decided to foster all four kids and they come from varied backgrounds from Physical abuse to neglect, drug dependant birthparents to abusive ones. So you can imagine we have had a depth and breath of experiences that vary from normal to the amusing and interesting.

Having spent 20+ years as a business leader and CEO and parent, I learned that asking the right questions is critical to finding truth and getting results. But when dealing with our kids’ emotions and relationship struggles, conversations can feel really one-sided. To have good conversations with our kids, we need to ask 6 powerful parenting questions. Educators have understood this for centuries, as evidenced by the Socratic Method that uses a series of questions to help students discover answers, not just hear facts.

Spend five minutes with a teenager or young adult and you’ll quickly understand, too, that questions that only require a “yes” or “no” won’t get you very far or deep. The questions we ask our kids, whether drawing them into relationship, or drawing information out of them, stimulates conversation and their processing skills as well. Good questions can lead to great conversations with your kids.

Good questions can lead to great conversations with your kids.

So here are some powerful questions that I’ve asked my teen and young adult children on various occasions to get them really thinking and talking. You can use them with your kids and teens to help them process their emotions and handle difficult circumstances or relationships, while you deepen your relationship with them at the same time. Here are 6 questions for kids.

1. What? The basic “what” questions can take many forms, but the key is to help your child understand that you need details, not just impressions. What happened? What else can you tell me? What can I do to make it better?

2. Why? Asking them “why” can help them look at a situation from multiple angles. Why do you think you feel this way? Why is this so troubling to you? Why do you think they might have done that?

3. When? Timing is important. Helping your child see a sense of a timeline of events can help them pull apart the facts and the emotions. When did you first notice a problem? When did you start feeling this way?

4. How? “How” questions can help you and them understand the steps and processes that created the difficulties. How did the situation escalate? How did you get to this level of frustration? How did they go about doing that to you?

5. Who? Understanding all the players in a situation is crucial to sorting out what needs to be done next. Who really is responsible for the situation? Who needs an apology? Who needs to forgive? Who needs to be confronted? Who needs to be helped?

6. Where? Now that you’ve helped your child put the cards on the table and look at them, help them think through next steps. Where do you think you should go from here with this issue or in this relationship? 

Probably the biggest challenge in helping our kids sort out their emotions and difficult relationships is fighting the urge to fix things, to give a lecture, and to talk out our own ideas. Listening is a critical part of this process. Don’t just be thinking about your next question, LISTEN to what your child is saying, and weave that into your questions and answers. 

What great questions have you used to get more out of your kids?

Have a lovely rest of the School Holidays and see you all on the mats

This is significant as we have met the rigourouse standards and processes as defined by our parent organisation from a teaching, qualification, clealiness and operations perspective.

Thanks to all our Instructors, Coaches, students and parents who helped us achieve this. your contributions, from ensuring everyone wears the GB Armour (uniform) to helping the team hang pirctures and posters have been a tremendous help. We could not have achieved this without you all. Our community at GB Pymble is strong and we continue to grow. we have attracted significant amounts of new students, and with our teaching practices reforms instituted in the last 18 months, made the learning expereince an enjoyable one.