BJ Penn

[luke]

Who is BJ Penn's instructor?

Is Matt Serra a student of Renzo's?

Thanks,

Luke

[PatrickH]

Hey Luke

I don't know who you would call BJ's "instructor"now, but he was previously with Ralph Gracie at his Mt. View academy and now in Vegas as a member of team "Novo Unio" or "New Union".

As for Matt Serra, he is a blackbelt under Renzo Gracie in New York however he now has his own academy in Long Island. He still trains with Renzo daily from what I understand.


PatrickH

[luke]

Thanks for the info.

Luke

[HOWARD KIMONOS]

BJ Penn started BJJ in Hilo, Hawaii with Charuto Verissimo. When he moved to Northern Calif, he trained at Ralph Gracie's school and achieved the rank of purple belt. While at Ralph's BJ would go back home to Hilo for extended peiods of time and would train with Charuto. After BJ left Ralph's school he went back home to Hawaii for a while. Nova Uniao joined forces with Egan Inoue and opened a school in Honolulu. Charuto went to Honolulu to teach. BJ then trained with both Egan and Charuto. When BJ came back to the mainland he would train in Las Vegas with Steve da Silva and John Lewis. He also learned wrestling at a community college in San Jose. He has also trained in Brasil with the Nova Uniao team.

Howard Liu

HOWARD COMBAT KIMONOS

https://www.howardliu.com

[Oberleutnant]

He was awarded his blackbelt from Andre Pederneiras.

[macdawg]

thanks Howard, BJ is the man