Gazzy Parman is one of the competitors on the ADCC 2005 6th Submission Wrestling World Championships held later this month in Long Beach, the first year women are invited to compete. Gazzy is competing in the under 60 kg division. One aspect of Gazzy?s career that makes her so interesting is she is a modern day Ronin, training with some of the top names in the sport but having no master. A brown belt in jiu-jitsu with a background in Kempo and even Kung Fu Gazzy is one of the best known competitors with several of the women that are also competing citing her as one to watch. She currently trains at Freestyle Fighting Academy in Miami. We start off catching up by clarifying her past. KM: How is your training for the ADCC Worlds going? GP: Great. Things could be a little bit better right now, I went to Brazil for a couple months. I planned on staying there for four months but I had to come back early. KM: May I ask in public why you had to come back early? GP: It is different for women out there, they aren?t taken as seriously so I didn?t get the support I needed. I went out there to train with my team Nova Unaio. We have a lot of great Lightweights so the training was great. KM: I remember hearing you were down there and thinking both ?fantastic, Gazzi is in Brazil!? and at the same time wondering if the rumors I?ve head regarding the way the women are treated in training down there are true. GP: What it is with Kyra is she has the whole Gracie family behind her. She has a lot of supporters, people who want to defend the Gracie name. People are gung ho over her already. She has a huge advantage over a lot of the girls in (ADCC 2005). Lutecia, same thing with her because she has been with Royler for quite a long time and she is defending Royler?s name. I?ve been doing no-gi a little longer than they have been but like I said I don?t know about Leka but Lutecia and Kyra have all the support in the world. Especially being a foreigner going to Brazil just got treated totally differently. It was overall an honor for me to go and train in Braisl with team Nova Uniao, but I needed more attention and Andre Pederneiras was so busy travelling with his professional fighters under him like Shaolin and Joao Roque, Leo Santos, that he had to fly back and forth to Japan?.Abu Dhabi for women was like peanuts. It was a good experience but not this close to ADCC. KM: I read before from some women that have gone down that didn?t have a reputation like you and how they were basically ignored. Even competitors from opposing teams were talking about helping each other out, saying ?we have to stick together?. GP: I was pretty much one of the only girls training. There was another girl there but?it is so much more of a competitive scene out there. One of the guys had to stop training with me because of his girlfriend. I couldn?t go running with them because they would be like ?wait for a day all the girlfriends go?. I wanted to go like ?are any of the girlfriends fighting in Abu Dhabi? Did I miss something here?? Everything was so much harder for me and I really didn?t have as much support as I expected. I did what I could but I should have stayed in the States and come straight here to the Freestyle Fighting Academy here with Marcos and David Avellan. KM: How long have you been back in the US? GP: About three weeks ago. Straight from Brazil straight over here. KM: And before that you were with Nova Unaio. GP: Yes. I was with John Lewis. KM: And that was in Las Vegas? GP: Actually from John Lewis? I went to Dean Lister?s. KM: Really. I missed that part. Okay, why did you leave John Lewis? GP: I didn?t have any training partners. Everybody was really heavy for me. KM: Next up was Dean Lister?s in San Diego. GP: Yes. My Mom lives in California and my goal is to always stay local to my Mom. I moved out to San Diego for a few months to train with Dean Lister. The guy out there running the gym?. KM: Dean or the owner of City Boxing? GP: City Boxing. This guy didn?t treat his people right. He asked me to leave because he thought I was going to close a deal with another manager. Dean Lister left probably three weeks after that. That guy offers (bad) contracts and is really greedy. He wanted to open a kids program with me because he knows I?m one of the top or the top kids coaches in the US. My kids team took first place three years in a row at Grapplers Quest. That is huge. Between seven kids they had fourteen submissions. KM: I?m told kids classes are the bread and butter of NA academies. GP: Yes, it is. It is very hard to know how to handle a group of kids and hold their attention. I can speak their language and know what is going on. I know when they are trying to fib, when they are really in pain, what kind of motivation they need. Finding someone that can be at that level with the kids is tough to find. So when it’s there, when an academy has the right person for the job, parents will pay just about anything to have their kids in good hands. KM: Where did you learn this? GP: I?ve been working with kids for about ten years actually. I did Kempo karate for about five or six years. I taught intro lessons there and I did kung fu long long time ago. KM: Is this your career goal or something you jus stumbled into? GP: I?ve been always attracted to children. I have this aura or presence, they just listen to me. I don?t know what it is. KM: Do you have and/o train kids of your own? GP: No. KM: Why FFA? GP: Marcos is a friend of mine and we always see each other at tournaments. I like to train with the best of the best. In my opinion the Avellan brothers are the best but the biggest thing is they are so supportive of me, the nicest guys. KM: What about after ADCC? Are you going to stay at FFA for any length of time or is the road already calling? GP: I?m a free agent. Gazzy is Gazzy. When I fight I fight not just for myself but for whoever got me there. Over the years it has been very hard for me to maintain that consistent support for other places I have been because they either wanted money or I wasn?t able to teach and make money. Like with John Lewis there was a point I had to leave and train somewhere else and he had to give the class to someone else. When I came back he couldn?t just fire the guy. Wherever I train I have to be able to teach. Am I going to stay with FFA? The goal is to be close to my mother. My mother lives in California and this has been the biggest problem for me yet. If I do go back to FFA I?m thinking about staying out in Cali for a month with her and moving back out here for about a year getting ready for NHB. This is the perfect place to do it. I will always continue representing FFA as long as they continue supporting me.
