In this issue of FaMA News we add Jakarta to our Reciprocal Program, Kru Yo gets honoured, the team gets their portraits taken, Porrada Fridays are back and FaMA member Maddie shares her thoughts on being a part of the FaMA community.
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Congratulations to our very own Kru Yo on recently winning the prestigious Muay Thai Overseas Ambassador Award in Thailand. We thank you for your efforts in sharing the art of Muay Thai with the world and especially with the FaMA community.
Planning a trip to Jakarta?
We are happy to announce our newest Reciprocal Academy DW Jiu-Jitsu in Jakarta, which also happens to be our very own Coach Ronny's hometown BJJ academy.
Run by 2nd degree Black Belt, Professor Deddy Wigraha, he is also the Indonesian National Ju Jitsu Coach, Founder and Head Coach of Alliance Jiu Jitsu Indonesia, Jackson’s MMA Indonesia and Tapout Jiu Jitsu Indonesia.
Always a great time when a friend from a Reciprocal Academy visits.
Thank you Alex from Shanghai BJJ (Hong Kong) for dropping by and we hope to see you again soon.
Click here see our list of reciprocal academies where FaMA members can train for free up to 12 times a year during their visits.
We've recently made a few changes to our class schedule to help spread our various classes throughout the week. Click here to see and download the latest class schedule.
Tue 12:30 pm
Tue 9:00 pm
Thu 1:30 pm
We recently had the pleasure of FaMA member and photographer extraordinare, Kelvin Tay, take some amazing portraits of the FaMA team.
Looking good team!
Check out these photos below, also taken by Kelvin Tay, of our infamous Friday Porrada sessions.
Congratulations to our FaMA BJJ students for travelling all over the world and putting it all on the line to compete and medal in the sport they love.
Charles Reed - Gold
Mastered it. Twice!
Congratulations to Charles on winning Gold, again, at the World Master IBJJF Jiu-Jitsu Championship in Las Vegas, and being promoted to Brown Belt!
We look forward to the three-peat.
Jerome Giam - Gold, Bronze
Jamie - Gold, Silver
10 Gold
6 Silver
3 Bronze
It was great seeing everyone come out to support our competitors last weekend and congratulations to the FaMA Community on winning 2nd in Overall Team Performance in the Kids Division.
To see more photos taken by our very own Andrew, please click here.
Kelvin Tay - Gold
Hui Yi Wong - Gold
Shin Ee Phang - Gold
Luke Calver - Silver
Jayden Liew - Silver
Max Buckley - Gold
Kayden Buckley - Gold
Gustavo Botelho - Silver
Keira Burlinson - Gold
Gabriel Botehlo - Silver
Isabelle Pallaris - Bronze
Isaac Ng - Golld
Eric George Fowler - Silver
Abigail Liew - Gold
Kyera Buckley - Gold
Hugo Devouge - Bronze
Parker Ly - Gold
Jordan Tan - Bronze
Mishel Mia - Silver
In April 2021, I unexpectedly received my brown belt from Professor Robyn.
The first time we met, he was cornering my opponent at a local ADCC competition. He was pretty new to Singapore then, and I shook his hand afterwards to thank him when the match ended as was custom. I was still a blue belt, training out a gym and team that I had loved dearly, but which was inexorably imploding. It never occurred to me that Robyn would be my new professor, or that FaMA would be my next home.
When you train BJJ, a community inevitably is founded. The number of hours it takes to get past the point of survival and then to a level of basic competence to execute a move against a resisting opponent (and then resisting opponents bigger and stronger than you) is alot. When you spend that number of hours with other like-minded people, chances are, you will become friends with them and hope that this good thing will go on forever. Your professors start to remember your name, your grappling style, your weaknesses and what you need to grow. You develop inside jokes with teammates, and Friday Beerradas, and when you turn up to class just sick of the world, you are with people who will say "it was a neck crank" jokingly when the choke was in proper. And you go to competitions in Singapore and abroad with them, get lost in new cities and size up your opponents in jest together.
When he was still around, the person who had given me my blue belt, Professor Italo, had always spoken highly of Zoro and FaMA, and how it was a gym that didn't care about affiliations, or politics, or had weird rules about open mats. So when my old gym imploded, FaMA was naturally the place I went to.
To be very honest, the first couple of months at FaMA weren't easy. The feeling of being an outsider was tough to navigate and I'm bad at making friends. There seemed to be a never-ending line of people interested to find out where I stood skill-wise in their pack. But I assume this is the case with joining any new BJJ gym, let alone as a coloured belt female. I'd also gone to wrestle for Singapore as a side project and my two training schedules, on top of work and life, didn't always gel. But what kept me training at FaMA, was working with Robyn.
Robyn is someone who will push you because he can see your potential even before you can see it yourself, even if you don't believe it exists. And that's probably one of the most important things that make a great coach.
He's not perfect. There are days where 5 hours of kids' classes beforehand has killed his personal enthusiasm for repeating the closed-guard-triangle-armbar sequence for the millionth time. Sometimes he uses the weirdest analogies that non-Robynites are unable to comprehend. He might get cranky because Mr Funny Guy secretly took over DJ responsibilities during class and put on Nena's 99 Luftballons instead of Eminem.
But Robyn tries really hard, every single day. He is someone who is always trying to improve himself as a coach, to improve what he teaches and how he teaches it. Feedback is something he seeks out actively, and builds back into his classes. And while he might pretend to be a tough guy, he is also very considerate and sensitive to his students' trials and tribulations, both on and off the mat. I always appreciated the fact that he was supportive of my 1.5 year wrestling sojourn (even at the expense of BJJ mat time), and worked with me on rounding out my top-heavy game with guards that I actually enjoyed playing and the transitions between them.
I've been at FaMA since June 2018. Three years and a bit might not seem like a long time, but it's about 1/3 of the oft-quoted average time it takes to get a black belt. During this time, people have come and gone as life gets in the way, and the pandemic's travel restrictions have stemmed the incoming flow of BJJ visitors and coloured belt joiners. Training has had many interruptions, and the rules for how we can train are ever-changing. It's frustrating.
But if you took a closer look at FaMA’s mats on any given day, you will see fake-grumpy Robyn trying to do mental sums to divide up the mat space, and hear Zoro calling everyone a monster. You will see people from all walks of life, who would normally never get the chance to interact, say hi, fist-bump, laugh, joke and learn from and about each other. You will see a lot of physical struggling, and coaches going around to help people get the technique. And maybe you will also feel pumped when someone figures it out, when they hit the "move of the day" during sparring.
It's a really cool way to spend some time, with some really cool people, and that's probably why I turn up each day. The brown belt just kind of happened along the way.
- Maddie Wee
Aaron
Dominic & Salman
Grady
Greta
Irene
Lanice
Nigel
Roan
Rui
Tiffany
TS
Vincent
Wanda
Xue
April
Catelyn
Eric
Gustavo
Isabella
Kamryn
Min
Mishel
Neil
Phang Yok
Artem
Braydon
Daisy
Isaac
Luca
Nivian
Oliver
Tony
Violet
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Established in 2016, FaMA - Fitness and Martial Arts is a world-class martial arts academy located in the heart of the Central Business District in Singapore. FaMA’s main goal is to help people improve their lives through martial arts regardless of age or athletic capability. Our Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), Muay Thai Kickboxing, Kids Martial Arts and Fitness programs are led by experts in their respective fields. So, whether it is weight loss, a fun workout, camaraderie, competition training, or just to break a sweat, FaMA has something for the whole family.