This December has given Team FVGC a reason to celebrate! At the beginning of the month, congratulations were in order for Spencer Hahn, Austin Losiniecki, and Charlie Williams for coming home with their blue belts!

In other news, Team FVGC was proud to host yet another LCCT Seminar on December 10th. We were honored to have black belts Luiz Claudio, Thiago Veiga, David Martin, and Gilmar Ferreira working with our team on some amazing open guard techniques. We look forward to seeing them here in Appleton again soon!

October 1st marks the anniversary of Team FVGC! It has been an incredible year for our team ... and there was no better way to celebrate that to have our very first Blue Belt test at our academy! Congratulations to our five new blue belts on their well-deserved promotions: Damon "Sapão" Grambow, Ryan Winkel, Stephanie "Stuffy Champ" Ozment, Ben "Sepente" Lillge, and Deric Hahn did an incredible job on their tests!

Seven Team FVGC mebers competed in Combat Corner v8 and brought home seven medals, none less than silver. There were impressive displays of technique in beginner, intermediate and advanced no-gi divisions, as well as the white, blue and purple belt divisions. Congratulations to Spencer Hahn, Damon Grambow, Andrew Fusfeld, Deric Hahn, Matt Brown, Alexandra Rathbone, and James Peterson for their hard work leading up to and during the tournament!

On Saturday, August 6th, Rickson Gracie Black Belt and co-head instructor of the Luiz Claudio Combat Team will be in Appleton to help you train for the big IBJJF tournament in CHicago or just tune up the portions of your BJJ that need help.

These seminars are always fun and help your BJJ game make leaps forward. $80 for LCCT/Team FVGC members. Call 920.740.6005 for non-member prices and talk to James. If you care about winning, we will see you there. Oss!

Team FVGC MMA Coach and current #1 Bantamweight in WI, Matt Brown won a split decision against former WEC fighter John Hosman at NAFC Mayhem. The fight saw Matt constantly stalking Hosman inside the cage and Hosman looking bewildered at Brown's calm steady attack.

At times Hosman simply refused to engage Brown and slowed down the fight to a crawl. While most fighters would have lost their composure and charged in at Hosman, Brown repeatedly maintained his calm approach and picked his shots.

Matt won by split decision over a tough opponent and should be offered a headline fight some time in the near future.

Congratulations Matt. Thanks for being a great coach, teammate and representative of
Team FVGC!

Three Team FVGC members won gold medals in the Chicago IBJJF Summer International Open; meanwhile others placed; and all fought with tenacity and tremendous pride. The IBJJF tournament series is considered to be one of the most prestigious series of tournaments in the entire world. Members of Team FVGC stepped up to the challenge and came away with some choice jewelry to show for their efforts and techniques.

In the Blue Belt Adult Female Lightweight Division, Alexandra Rathbone took home a gold medal. Alex not only won, but won in dominant fashion, by putting her opponent unconcious.

In the White Belt Adult Female Middle Weight Division, Stephanie Ozment faced two opponents from the same school and gave them both the same treatment. Steph armbarred them both on her way to a gold medal.

Another gold was claimed in the White Belt Senior1 Ultra-Heavyweight Division, when Oliver Grass completely overwhelmed his opponent in the finals and ultimately submitted him with an armbar for his spot atop the podium.

Don't call it a comeback ... Ben Lillge has returned and stepped into tournament action again. This time Ben swarmed his first opponent he has faced in years in the White Belt Master Lightweight Division to the tune of 23-0. No ... there is no mercy rule in BJJ and it was proven by Ben.
Ben fell by one point to the fighter who ultimately took first. Ben took the bronze in his first tourney back in years.

In the Adult Mens Whitebelt Lightweight division, Deric Hahn, with only 3 months of BJJ training stepped up to compete in his first ever tournament, which his first opponent didn't appreciate very much since he was at the receiving end of Deric's first tournament win. Deric lost to the eventual winner of his division.

Finally, James Peterson entered a division down in age when he jumped into the Masters Purple Belt Open Weight Division. The 150lb. The Team FVGC coach and fighter ran into a 230lb obstacle named Chad Fields in the semi-finals. Everyone who watched was treated to a somewhat comical fight between a small man and what looked like a small bear in a gi. James lost to Chad, who also went on to crush his next opponent in similar fashion in the finals. James was happy to take home a bronze and all of his body parts still attached.

On Saturday, August 6th, Rickson Gracie Black Belt and co-head instructor of the Luiz Claudio Combat Team will be in Appleton to help you train for the big IBJJF tournament in CHicago or just tune up the portions of your BJJ that need help.

These seminars are always fun and help your BJJ game make leaps forward. $80 for LCCT/Team FVGC members. Call 920.740.6005 for non-member prices and talk to James. If you care about winning, we will see you there. Oss!

Team FVGC MMA Coach and current #1 Bantamweight in WI, Matt Brown won a split decision against former WEC fighter John Hosman at NAFC Mayhem. The fight saw Matt constantly stalking Hosman inside the cage and Hosman looking bewildered at Brown's calm steady attack.

At times Hosman simply refused to engage Brown and slowed down the fight to a crawl. While most fighters would have lost their composure and charged in at Hosman, Brown repeatedly maintained his calm approach and picked his shots.

Matt won by split decision over a tough opponent and should be offered a headline fight some time in the near future.

Congratulations Matt. Thanks for being a great coach, teammate and representative of
Team FVGC!

Klay "The Ranger" Konrad, won a unanimous victory over Jimmy Zidek in his second Combat USA fight. With this win, Klay automatically earns a birth in the top bracket of next season's Combat USA tournament.

In the most recent Who's Next Combat Championships in Oshkosh, Team FVGC's own Chuck "Ice" Bergs won a unanimous decision victory in his first kickboxing match. It was a dominant victory and the judges cards and audiance response reflected that.

Congratulations to all of our fighters.

Team FVGC has more blue belts than ever.

After many years of training, dedication, hard work and technique learned, seven (7) Team FVGC members passed their Blue Belt tests Sunday, April 3rd.

We want to congratulate the well-deserved (and some long overdue) blue belts given to Team FVGC Memebers: Alexandra Rathbone, Morisson Lamb, Dustin Yule, Kelly Lynch, Matt Brown, Mike Monsour and Eric Peterson.

Everyone passed the test with flying colors and received many compliments from Luiz and Thiago. We would like to thank Luiz Claudio and Thiago Veiga once again for the outstanding attention to detail that we receive in out training and the chance to be part of the greater LCCT family.

Blue Belts Represent!

Bryce Sternahagen, Josh Brown and Matt Brown all competed recently in the Who's Next Combat Championships in Oshkosh. They all won. Each fight was decidely one-sided and each ended in unanimous decision victories for the Team FVGC fighters. If you are interested in any of the videos of the fights, you can check them out (as well as fighter interviews) at www.thesportscouch.com/

And most recently, one of the newest members of our MMA team, Klay "The Ranger" Konrad, secured a second round victory via rear naked choke in his Combat USA debut. Klay moves to the finals of the lower bracket of the ever-popular Combat USA tournament to face Josh Sterry from Chosen Few on April 22nd.