By Guillaume (Gile) Huni, BJJ black belt and head instructor of Kimura Academy in Belgrade, Serbia.

I had planned my mini Euro BJJ tour for months. I could only take a week off as I had too many obligations with my family, work etc..The first step of the trip would be a 1 day stopover in Istanbul, Turkey, followed by a 2 day seminar that I would be doing in Aalborg, Denmark and to finish it off, 3 days in Paris, France visiting my sisters and relatives together with training sessions in the best BJJ academies there.
I took the short plane ride from Belgrade, Serbia where I live, to Istanbul. Before the trip I had contacted Burak Deger Bicer, Turkey’s first locally based BJJ black belt. He is a BJJ black belt under Ricardo Vieira and owner of Corvos BJJ and MMA Academy. I knew Deger from before as I had interviewed him for BJJEE.com in the past and had met a couple of times at Europeans IBJJF competitions.

Deger picked me up at the airport with his assistant, BJJ girl, Melike. He had told me via facebook message beforehand: “When you arrive, go right and I’ll be waiting for you at the Starbucks..” .

I followed his instructions and like any BJJ geek, I saw from a far someone who looked like a grappler: bald head, tanned, IBJJF competition T shirt, athletic build. I waved at him and greeted him with a handshake and hug. Before we hit the road, we sat down for one of our many coffees of the day. I right away started asking him about how the BJJ scene is growing in Turkey. Deger said that it was growing at a steady pace but that he was still not satisfied by the way things were going. We talked about the fact that there had not been any legit BJJ competitions yet in Turkey and that there was also strong politics between the main academies in the country. There was some positives though, like some very promising BJJ athletes . At this point, his assistant Melike joined us. I had not met her before but had seen here compete at the Europeans earlier this year. She is a very talented purple belt BJJ player.

From L to R: Deger, Melike and Gile

We jumped in his car, and headed towards Istanbul’s heavy traffic. I only had one day to spend in Istanbul so wanted to make the most of it. I let Deger take care of the schedule. This was not my first time in this amazing city, as I had spent New Year’s eve 2009 there with my wife. That was when I had first contacted Deger. I had googled BJJ Istanbul back then as I was hoping to train during the trip. Deger was a purple belt back then and so was I. We never did meet, as I had too little time and his academy back then was on the Asian side which was too far for me to get to.
So here I am 6 years later with Deger in Istanbul, and we are now both black belts. Deger told me the schedule for the day: We would first go for lunch in one of Istanbul’s new high class shopping malls and stay there until about 6 pm where we would then head to his academy to prepare for the evening training. We arrived at the mall, and met up with 2 of his students from Ankara, Turkey’s capital. We sat down at an Italian restaurant and the conversation was going from BJJ in the world, BJJ in Turkey, living in Eastern Europe etc… I noticed that their mentality and behavior was very similar to the Balkan ways: very friendly, very welcoming and they NEVER let you pay for anything. This was understandable as the Balkan region of Eastern Europe was for around 400 years invaded by the Ottoman Turks so I could see the similarities.

Lunch was over and we walked around the mall for a few more hours, alternating between more coffee and food breaks. Man, these people love their coffee and food! I kept on talking to them about various subject such as BJJ women in Turkey, affiliations to Brazilians, Turkey’s BJJ federation and its lack of initiative and organization, Deger’s BJJ journey etc…

At 6pm, we headed to Deger’s academy: Corvos BJJ. It was just a 5 mins car ride away. It was the end of Ramadan and Deger told me that there would be less people than usual. The academy was beautiful. It was in the old Japanese zen style complete with Samurai statues, top of the line Judo tatamis, everything clean etc… It was located in a wealthy, residential part of Istanbul.
I took advantage of the wifi to update BJJEEE.com and also took a 30 mins power as the amount of of food eaten that day made me tired!
At 8pm, it was a full house with at least 35-40 people on the mats. Deger said that on a normal day (when there is no Ramadan) that number could be around 50-60. Everybody was very friendly and greeted me. Many of them were regular readers of BJJEE.com.

We started the training with a Q & A and Deger and myself did our best to answer various questions such as: How do you escape omoplata, how do you prevent someone from inverting, how do you set up your favorite takedown etc…

It was then time to roll and I was put in a group of around 10 purple and brown belts that were eager to roll with me. I was eager too as I always like to have new sparring partners. It’s the occasion to learn something new and be faced with different games. We had some really good rolls, a few in particular I will remember, Omer a brown belt originally from Azerbaijan had a really good two on one arm control and also did a very good job of countering my half guard. I asked him to teach me his very sneaky loop choke that he is famous for. Now that technique is mine! I also rolled with an absolute beast called Saygid who was from Dagestan. This kid according to Deger was a legend in the making. He had won silver at the Europeans at white, blue and purple (I may be mistaken though) and had tapped quite a few black belts in Brazil. He also took down during a roll, an elite black belt competitor that was visiting Istanbul. So I had to be extra careful when rolling with him! The roll was awesome. He has amazing balance, and moves like a monkey. One guy to watch out for sure. All the guys I rolled with were super tough and also super friendly and humble.

We finished the training session with a photo session and I also filmed some techniques that Deger demonstrated which will uploaded on watchbjj.com.
We then went for an epic meal with about ten team members. I’ll always remember the delicious Turkish fried dumplings in tomato and yoghurt sauce. I slept at Deger’s place that night and we exchanged T shirts of our academies: mine (Kimura BJJ Academy in Belgrade, Serbia) and his Corvos BJJ.

Deger dropped me off to the airport the next morning and I was on my way to my next destination: Denmark.

To be continued…