^{Kiko Velozo}

By Roberto Pedreira

  On my second trip to Rio, in 1998, I lived on the 12th floor of a building at 1216 Av. Copacabana. At that time there was a health club in the sobreloja. When I returned in 1999 the health club was gone. In its place there was a Carlson Gracie Team Academy. The Professor Responsável was Kiko Velozo (Kiko is the big one with his hands on hips below). By this time I had my rap polished to perfection, but as in most academies, there was a student who had just come back from several years study in the US. He liked using his English for practical purposes and was enthusiastic about jiu-jitsu. I didn’t need to speak much Portuguese. 

           

   

  Kiko looked mean, almost angry in fact, he but wasn’t. He just looked that way, like many other former Carlson Gracie team fighters, and Kiko had been one of the best, along with Ricardo DelaRiva. But DelaRiva, a macetoso if ever there was one, reigned in the lighter weights, vanquishing even Royler, using technique, sending Royler ballistic as a result (Royler, in an emotional outburst over his loss, accused his daddy Helio and friend Jacare of being traitors for judging DelaRiva the winner in their match). 

  Unlike DelaRiva, Kiko fought in the super heavy division and was not known as a particularly technical fighter. But that was ok. Winning was what mattered. Pictures lining the wall depicted him with profusion of trophies and belts and of course arm-in-arm with his coach, Carlson. How long had I been training, he asked? About three years, more or less, I answered. That’s enough, he said. Your belt color? “Azul”, I said. That sounded about right, he said. You seem to be in good shape, he said, patting his substantial belly as he spoke. I wasn’t quite sure what the significance of the gesture was. Alvaro Barreto, who also is not a paragon of sveltness, said and did the same thing a while before. Actually, at 79.5 kilos I was slightly over the weight limit for the medio division. I should have tipped at more like 75 kilos. I confessed that the reason was that I enjoyed choppe (draft beer), and after training I would often quaff a few at the Copa Bar outside my former residence, or at the Napolis facing the Praça Gal. Osorio, or at some other relatively sanitary looking lanchonete in the neighborhood, from which I could and occasionally did observe various expressions of violent and aberrant human behavior. Kiko admitted that he enjoyed an occasional choppe too, but only on weekends. 

                 

                              

 

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(c) 2000, R.A. Pedreira. All rights reserved.

^{Revised December 2001}