Catania – Palermo – Agrigento

Hello Globetrotters

I’m still cruising around in Sicily. On my way to Catania I saw the how some landscapes were burning and I always thought, how beautiful it looks. And I also thought that this Island is some pre stadium of hell. After arriving in my beautiful Airbnb room, I did a nap, some stretching and watched some BJJ videos, before going to BJJ training. In Catania is an American military base, so I trained with many guys from USA and got even saluted at saying goodbye (what an honour!).

On the next morning I had a cute little Training session with another guy I met in Mesina, before climbing up Etna. They gave me recommendations where to eat and what I can’t miss. So I went to an all you can eat Sushi/Italian Restaurant and just ate for 3 hours, unfortunately alone. A little company would have been really appreciated.

I climbed up Etna for like 2 hours and then walked down slowly another hour, listening to music and gazing at the stunning view of Sea, City & Nature mixed. I didn’t went to the top, cause I would have spent another two hours and I was so exhausted from doing much BJJ and this night I didn’t sleep well, because the room where I slept had no shutters (so at 6 am I gtt the sun straight in my face).

After Catania I went to Palermo, where Ruben Stabile, another BJJ Globetrotter and Matsurfer was waiting for me. They did wrestling on 2:30 and because of my injured foot I’m not able to do standup. So, after the wrestling training some guys put the gi on and trained with me and a guy from Stockholm, till 6 pm. And at 20:00 I went to the evening training, where another one hour sparring session awaited me. As well a Brazilian guy called Hygor from Cicero Costha Sao Paolo was staying at Rubens place for 3 months, so the school could develop. Hygor even won the biggest Italian Tournament in Florence, so I was asking questions where I could to improve my BJJ.

On Friday then I got injured really bad on my neck. I was stuck with my head on the floor while my sparring partner was putting pression on my hips, blocking me from moving but at the same time nearly breaking my neck. Unfortunately, he didn’t hear it at first (because obviously it was no position to tap) and he raised the pressure, where I screamed to stop. At the beginning I was good, but after 4 hours my spine started to hurt and I couldn’t get any sleep on that night, because every movement was hurting my spine so bad. After a sleepless night I called an Osteopath to cure my backache and after having called 20, one agreed to give me a treatment.

On Saturday morning then, he massaged me for one hour. After that he told me to cough and swallow and walk around. In my head I was thinking: “It still hurt’s like hell, my money is wasted and I’m not able to keep on traveling like that” and after 3 minutes I started crying like a baby! Suddenly the tension in my back was relieved and I could move significantly better than before crying. He told me, that my body just experienced a trauma and that with letting my emotion out, my cell started to heal. Luckily there was no damage on my spin and just my muscles are so stiff, that the pull on my nerves and that’s where the pain comes from.

So after being half healed, I went on to Agrigento. And it was a hell of a 2 hours ride with my back! Arrived at the hostel all people that saw me offered to help me wherever they could (cause they saw that I was walking like an 80 years old guy). I slept really good the whole night and on the next morning I went to the “Valle dei Templi”, a valley full with temple of the Greek culture.

The rest of the weekend I spent being on diet, relaxing and hoping that my back heals fast.

See you next week

Oss