May started off with great news for the ZUMA team. On the 4th our own Sarah Kaufman won her 20th fight as well as her 3rd world title, she finished her opponent in the 3rd round via RNC to secure the Invicta Bantam Weight Title. Sarah and Cris Cyborg are the only two women to have won the Strike Force world title and the Invicta World title.
May 19th Dan and A A RON flew to Chicago to compete at the NAGA Chicago Open. Yup, the Chicago open is in Chicago!!! Dan had a great showing in his division and then coached A A RON who won the purple belt division securing a fancy shmancy belt. After the tournament they ordered a Chicago style pizza which completely tapped them both out after they had one slice each. I heard it took them a week to finish the entire pizza!!!
On May 26th many of the ZUMA BJJ students from the Adult and Kids team competed at the Katana Open. Some of you were competing for different reasons than just winning a medal and it was amazing to see! Thank you to all the great competitors, coaches and staff who showed how great our sport of BJJ is. The ZUMA team was very fortunate to win the 1st place kids trophy and the 1st place adult trophy as well as 80 medals.
On May 29th the ZUMA BJJ Black Belts awarded a well deserved brown belt to Aaron Berke. Berke is a fantastic athlete who has won many tournaments at purple belt so we look forward to watching his journey at brown belt. But, more importantly he is a great person who everyone loves to be around. This sounds like the comment you read on a kindergarten report card but it's actually true, the guy is absolutely amazing. We feel that once he learns how to bridge he will be unstoppable!!!!