ATTN: European Grapplers.

[Falero]

university in london is crazy expensive.

 

[Yozigi]

Pick Sweden. Now.

Or Finland ; ) And I'm not trying to start any country vs.coyntry -crap here as I'm fucking sick of it.

Anyways, the combat sport scene has exploded in all Scandinavian countries.

There seems to be an MMA club in most towns in Finland that are bigger than fly's shit (biggest have multiple) nowadays that most likely train submission wrestling or/and muay thai also. Finland has also a national MMA-federation that arranges a lot of amateur- and professional events and their mixtures in co-operation with clubs with few sets of standardized rules. There are also absolutely no laws here that would be against full-contact fightning ; ) Shooto has also grown it's roots here.

The number of pure sub.wrestling clubs is also huge compared to the size of this country. The level of Finnish Sub.Wrestling is top notch in Europe. BJJ clubs seem to increase also all the time and Alliance for example has a few clubs in here. Competitons, seminars etc. held in Finland usually gather around people from all over Scandinavia and there seems to be extensive cooperation between Swedish and Finnish clubs.

Every little town has a judo-club, bigger have many (Next year's EC's are going to be arranged here btw). I don't mean to diss other countries, but of Scandinavia, Finland is the biggest in judo. It may very well have something to do with the fact that we are located right next to Russia.
Something like 15 years ago we used to have medalists in world-class competitions [ those medalists are nowadays coaching ; ) ] but for a decade the class dropped (or it rose in other countries). Now it has risen again and Finland could actually get a few medals from the next years EC's. One of the best clubs, if not the best, are right in those cities where the Universities are. MMA is also quite popular in Finnish judo circles.

+ There are also shitloads of Muay thai-clubs in Finland, as it is also quite popular in here. The biggest clubs are located in the cities where Universities are (Jomhod has a club in Helsinki and actually trains there!1+!1+1+11!!!). Finland has also produced a large number of European champions and a few world champions both in amateur tournaments and in professionals ( If my memory serves me correctly, couple of years backwards Finland was something like 3rd or 4th best country in MT world championships in Thailand, not bad from a country which's population is only something like 5,4 million).

I'll later post some facts about studying in Finland as I'm in a hurry now. But generally it is pretty much like in Sweden and the quality of teaching is very high.

++ Everyone speaks English in here : )

 

[Falero]

Finland is very good as well.

 

[Bubble Boy]

A killer would be to choose a university town filled with drunken swedish blondes and BJJ.

Oh God were I young, single again, without kids, not working full time, not a full time student right now, and without house and car payments.
"This is not my beautiful house, this not my beautiful wife! My God, how did I get here?"

Mirada you better get on the plane so that the rest of us can start living vicariously through you.

Run, be free!

 

[genkisudo69]

spain here .

you can train with robin gracie in barcelona , fabrizio werdum in madrid or de la riva school in canarias . very good level in this three academies.
you have good weather all the year and some of the nicest girls in europe . good universitites too

good bjj , girls and weather . do you need more?

 

[elcapitan]

hahaha this is kinda ironic but I did actually move FROM gothenburg, Sweden to cali, and im filling out an aplication to chico state as we are speaking!!!any good places to trainm in chico? i can strongly recomend University of Gothenburg, great school, and TONS of great places to train http://www.fightercentre.com/ seems lika a pretty good school but as i said the town is filled with them. the town of gothenburg is an ocean town that is slightly bigger than sactown and has a friendly population that reminds me of san fransisco (minus the gay guys, (nothing bad about gay people)), also a great place if u wanna party and have fun (less party than chico though hahaha)

ps. training in sweden is dirt cheap compared to the states!!!!!!

 

[Mirada]

There's a gym in Chico, it's small but it's better than nothing for sure.

And yeah, the alcohol scene here is outrageous.

 

[Falero]

I want to move to Spain and Brazil, personally.

 

[Mirada]

Spain is on my mind as well, but honestly for me right now the point is anywhere but here.

I'll take what I can get, long as it's off this fucking continent.

 

[Falero]

Good luck, man.

 

[RNC]

In sweden training fees are around 150-200$ for 5-6 months at www.hiltibjj.com a great club affiliated with BTT. Also you have the university here as a post earlier linked and you got various of other schools aswell like the Royal Institute of Technology(KTH)
http://www.kth.se/eng/index.html

and the Stockholm University College of Physical Education and Sports
http://www.ihs.se/templates/ihsNormalPage.aspx?id=729

all for free, what you have to pay for are books etc only.
I know from experience that finding a place to live is easy via KTH of that your cup of tea.

 

[Falero]

Mirada, check out this thread:

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?t=307298

 

[RNC]

http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/SISFrontPage____4908.aspx

great link

 

[kimurense]

now why did mirada "forget" to put portugal?!!??

with the lack of a better country I would go with the UK.. england to be more precise

 

[Foolkiller]

England is looking up in terms of jiujitsu. Nelson Solari, Roger Gracie, Braulio Estima, Carlos Lemos, Roger Brooking, The Sukata brothers, Jude Samuel, Rick Young, Marc Walder, Eduardo Carreillos, Alexandre Izidro, Mauricio Gomes... all black belts over here. Add to that the improving quality of some of the better funded gyms (ZT Fight Skool, Wolfslair Gym, London Shootfighters new gym) and Cage Rage and UFC's popularity growing and I think things look good for the next couple of years.

However on the other side, we are turning into a smaller version of the USA so if you want off there, you may not want to be here either.

Spain is not a bad idea. I visited there for the BTT camp and aside from a strange political structure it was cool, nice place to visit but not sure I'd want to live there at this point in my life, maybe to retire. That aside, nice weather, nice women, good times.

 

[kimurense]

why does spain have a strange political structure?!? I m curious...

 

[Foolkiller]

Fro what the guys I stayed with said, referendums are illegal over there and the government is less democratic than it presents itself to be. The British government is heading the same way with the terrorist bills but the people at least can have a say even if it is ignored at times.

 

[kimurense]

I've been there plenty of times, but never really got in to the politics of the country, I thought it was pretty much like in portugal, and over in portugal the government is a little less PC then over in england, but that is just a cultural thing. when it comes to freedom and rights I think you have a much more liberty in portugal than in the UK (I thought the same thing whent for spain, but I might be terribly mistaken).. anyways, I love it in the UK as well, I just see it as diferent cultures, with diferent standars.

 

[Moving Shadow]

come to Edinburgh University (that's in Scotland, not England) and train at Rick Young's (BB) academy as mentioned by superbeast. it's way cheaper than anything in london and you'll love the uni/city.
the girls aren't that great though, got to be honest with you.

 

[Foolkiller]

Mancester Uni is pretty good and the Wolfslair Gym is not too far to get to in Widnes. Bristol is not too bad, lots of nice women there and Carlos Lemos teaches at Gracie Barra there.