2021 Rio Camp: Last Day
Nov 7. 2021
Endo woke up feeling worse. His back is extremely stiff. But as always he had a great attitude about it, never complaining. I finished packing our room. We decided to watch the last class of the trip, since Endo wasn't up for training. Leandro taught and talked about the point system and staying out of closed guard. He had the class do specific training. I went up to help Ender finish packing and check out of the rooms. We all then went to Bibi's one last time for lunch. Afterwards Endo and Nate went back to the hotel. Ender and I did a little shopping. He got a last acai from his favorite spot Hiper Mate and I stopped at the Havaianas store again. We headed back to the hotel and said goodbye as people slowly left to catch their flights. Rafael one of the Brazilian black belts at the camp drove us to our airport. We had a Beatles singalong during the drive. We had about 1.5 hours before our flight and ran into some issues at the ticket counter. They had 2 flight numbers 1 for Delta and from Latam which made it hard to print our boarding passes. Luckily it worked out and we made our flight. We then had a 5 hour layover in Sao Paolo. We reunited with some bjj campers that were on the same flight and got some dinner together. At the gate they wouldn't let Ender on the plane. They let me and Endo through but Ender and about a dozen other people were held up. I waited with Ender as everyone else went through. After about 30 minutes and when the plane was almost done boarding they let Ender on with no explanation. Super weird and frustrating. Luckily getting to the US and home all went smoothly afterwards. We agree staying in Brazil for 2 weeks for both camps was great. We acclimated to the time change and got a lot of training in. For me it was hard to know how to pace myself with training. I held back a little in week 1 to make sure I could make it to week 2 and it worked out well. Endo tried to do every class and every training round and almost made it until the ocean beat him up. Each camp has been different and it continues to be a great experience. Thank you Caio Terra!
April 5, 2026:
After this trip we were home for about 12 hours before Endo and I jumped back on a plane to go to Master World’s in Las Vegas. Endo could barely walk after being scorpioned by the ocean. Not walking wasn’t really an option with several airports and all the walking that comes with being in Las Vegas. We believe the fact that he was forced to continually move, really helped his recovery. He had a great attitude about everything and never complained, but his back was wrecked and he was in a lot of pain.
