1. Hi Tudor, can you please introduce yourself to the BJJ Community of Eastern Europe? 

My name is Tudor Mihaita and I’m the head coach of the Durex sponsored team: Absoluto BJJ  Because I’m sure a lot of people were shocked about my first sentence, I will tel them first that there was no joke. In 2012 we got a sponsorship from Durex’s company Reckitt Benckiser. They gave us 10.000 $ to travel and compete in the BJJ World Championship in USA. We managed to get 9 atheltes there.
Beside this,I’m 36 years old and I’m from Romania. I’m a black belt in BJJ under Eddie Kone.. As a competitor: 1st place London Open Championship 2011, 2nd place European Open Championship, 2nd place Hungarian Open Championship (Open Division) and some other medals. As a coach: 2 World Pro Championship titles, 5 European Open Championship titles, 1 European No Gi Championship title and my pro MMA fighters have a 23-7 record.

Mihai Handrea, Alin pica, Catalin Otelea, Camil Moldoveanu and Claire Henry, all five won their divisions at Serbian Open

2. What is new with you and your team since the last time we interviewed you? 

We are developing the BJJ scene in Romania and competing a lot. Last year along with the other BJJ clubs in Romania we started a new competition concept: Belt League. Athletes competed all year in 6 tournaments collecting points. In the end we had 4 Open champions that received Championship Belts, custom made by Title (a famous company in the boxing industry).
Our affilates are now teaching in 8 cities in Romania: Bacau, Baia Mare, Braila, Cluj Napoca, Constanta, Iasi, Ploiesti, Tecuci. We have a very strong team when we get together and compete either in Romania or abroad. And in Bucharest we started the kids classes run by our “full timer”, as he likes to call himself, Mihai “Miles” Handrea.
As far as competition results we are in a frenzy  We already collected 171 medals (70 gold, 43 silver, 48 bronze) in BJJ competitions this year. Last month in just one day, 19th of October, my guys won 5 gold medals, 3 silver and 1 bronze in the Serbian Open (with just 5 athletes we got 1st place in the Team Competition), won 1 pro MMA fight in Sofia and got a bronze medal at the MMA World Championship in St. Petersburg. Two weeks ago, our most famous BJJ competitor, Camil Moldoveanu, won gold medal in the World Combat Games in Jiu Jitsu Newaza.
We are getting ready to finish the year strong. We are busy almost each weekend: Munich Open, Hungarian Open, Junior World Newaza Championship, Romanian BJJ Cup, RXF07 MMA show. On 14th of December, our pro MMA fighter, Ion Pascu is fighting for BAMMA’s middleweight title in England. I hope he wins and he gets to fight in the UFC, cause he really is a phenom.

Absoluto academy in Bucharest

3. Please tell us about your state of the art full time academy in Bucharest

We have a huge academy, Absoluto Fighting Center, in the centre of Bucharest, with MMA cage, kickboxing ring, grappling mats. There are almost 1000 sqm of training space. There are BJJ, MMA, kickboxing and wrestling classes. Besides our BJJ and MMA teams, we have a very good kickboxing team, trained by Gabriel Bota.

4. How do you see BJJ progressing in Romania? How is the scene?

A lot of people in the martial art scene are interested now in having BJJ classes in their academies. Especially for MMA competitions. Unfortunately we don’t have to many good coaches.
The competition scene is developing well. There are some MMA shows and one of them got really popular: RXF.
The national federations are now fighting to own BJJ, but they don’t support the sport in any way. There are important amounts of money from the state budget directed to a lot of martial arts, but BJJ didn’t get any. We hope in the future we are going to get more help and we could do big things.

Camil Moldoveanu, gold at World Combat Games

7. If you want to thank somebody or sponsors, feel free.

I would like first to thank my athletes that fight with such great passion and it would get me a lot of space to mention all of them. Then our sponsors: Reckitt Benckiser, Regal Decor, Hell Advertising, RAMS Business Center and Tatami Fightwear. And also to you, for the work you do with www.bjjee.com!

8. Thanks Tudor and all the best!