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| Gianni Tanza takes Jason "Mayhem" Miller's back during a sparing session at Easton Jiu-Jitsu in Denver. Miller ended up winning. (Photo provided by Gianni Tanza. Taken Feb. 2011) |
flambert@valenciavoice.com
Young Gianni Tanza wanted to be a master spy when he grew up. It was a standard pick for some kids, but his second choice – custodian -- was not.
In the end he became neither, but Tanza, 27, of Denver has yet to complete his story. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blue belt and former Marine infantryman has lived in the Mile-High City since early 2007. He drifted there after the Marines, and has been schooling at multiple jiu-jitsu gyms since before the relocation. He now intends to ship off to Europe and join the French Foreign Legion next year. But there was an inauspicious start to his dreams.
“I wanted to be the lowest thing you could be, growing up,” Tanza said. “I saw the school custodian when I was in fifth grade, and he was a gnarly, big-old fat dude. He only wore flannel shirts, and he was older. Other kids made fun of him, but I told them they were stupid. He looked like he’d had a hard life.”
Tanza was born in Coronado, Calif., but raised in the desert of the Antelope Valley, in Lancaster and Palmdale, northeast of Los Angeles.
“High school was kind of rough, because it was just a bad area,” he said. “I wasn’t very popular, so I just did sports and kept to myself.”
Tanza’s upbringing was barely lower-middle class; his mother was a nurse and his stepfather a prop-maker. He was on the swim-team and wrestled at Little Rock High School in Lancaster before joining the Marines in late 2002. After serving a somewhat uneventful tour in Iraq during the next summer, he was introduced to jiu-jitsu in 2004 while sparring with another Marine named Diego Quintana.
“Diego took about a year of jiu-jitsu. He also trained from the internet,” Tanza explained. “I came from wrestling in high-school, and I was kind of good at it. He would always beat me with submissions, and I would say, ‘That’s cheating,’ and he would say, ‘No, that’s jiu-jitsu.’”
Tanza finally gave in and started going to the gym more, adopting the style. He started training with other Marines in “sloppy, second-hand barracks jiu-jitsu.” After his enlistment, he upgraded to a school in Lancaster called Gracie Barra, headed by Kazeka Muniz.
Since then, Tanza has trained, grappled and taken seminars with multiple MMA greats like Dan Severn, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Anthony Johnson, Shane Carwin, and Brendan Shaub. Most of these sessions occurred at Denver schools like Grappler’s Edge and Easton Jiu-Jitsu, but Tanza takes classes wherever he travels, including Elite MMA in Orlando, Fla. and at Tenth Planet Jiu-Jitsu in Hollywood, Calif.; the latter under the tutelage of rubber-guard inventor Eddie Bravo.
He claims some of his most monstrous sparing partners have been jiu-jitsu masters Braulio Estima and Rodolfo Viera. Submission expert Jeff Glover, Tanza said, was “impossible,” and he likens grappling with Shane Carwin to a match against the giant boulder from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Tanza notes that his Marine Corps training prepared him for the pace of the warm-ups and “Round-Robin” sessions, where sparring partners cycle through each other in five to ten minute intervals, sometimes known as Randori.
“In the Marines you have to push yourself,” he said. “There are points where you say, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ You have to say, ‘Shut up. Of course you can do it, and you’ll pass out trying.’”
Tanza has been steadily training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for five-and-a-half years now, minus a few months of recovery time from injuries. He received his blue belt in 2009 from Amal Easton.
Easton Jiu-Jitsu instructor and black belt Jeff Suskin described Tanza as “relentless.”
“He is a sponge for new info and highly coachable,” Suskin said. “He’s tenacious to train with. Gianni doesn't give up, and has a kill or be killed attitude. But he’s always smiling afterward.”
When Tanza’s colleagues hear about his decision to join the Foreign Legion, the response is usually bewildered shock.
“I think he’s crazy as hell,” said Curtis Wallach, 28, of Denver. He befriended Tanza in 2007 when the former Marine first moved to Colorado. Wallach, who has visited France, was skeptical of how welcoming the French would be toward an American alpha-male.
“They might like him more because he’s going to fight for them,” Wallach said. “But I can’t imagine the French accepting militant Americans with open arms.”
If asked why he’s chosen this path, Tanza’s response is calculated and revealing. He’s been out of the Marines since February 2006, and has regretted the departure ever since.
“I’m over civilian life,” Tanza said. “I got out of the Marine Corps on bad terms, because I smoked marijuana. I missed some serious combat deployments that my unit got to go on, and I lost some friends on those deployments. I think I have a lot of survivor’s guilt, and I’m kind of disappointed about not finishing my four years, or doing more. This is an opportunity to rectify myself."
Tanza’s goal is to serve his five years in the Legion, hopefully with the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment; once out, he looks to earn his black belt and finish school – if he makes it through training and survives any forward deployments.
He currently has two-and-a-half years of college under his belt, and has been pursuing a degree in Modern Languages at the University of Colorado Denver -- something he financed on his own, lacking the VA benefits of an honorable discharge.
In the end he became neither, but Tanza, 27, of Denver has yet to complete his story. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu blue belt and former Marine infantryman has lived in the Mile-High City since early 2007. He drifted there after the Marines, and has been schooling at multiple jiu-jitsu gyms since before the relocation. He now intends to ship off to Europe and join the French Foreign Legion next year. But there was an inauspicious start to his dreams.
“I wanted to be the lowest thing you could be, growing up,” Tanza said. “I saw the school custodian when I was in fifth grade, and he was a gnarly, big-old fat dude. He only wore flannel shirts, and he was older. Other kids made fun of him, but I told them they were stupid. He looked like he’d had a hard life.”
Tanza was born in Coronado, Calif., but raised in the desert of the Antelope Valley, in Lancaster and Palmdale, northeast of Los Angeles.
“High school was kind of rough, because it was just a bad area,” he said. “I wasn’t very popular, so I just did sports and kept to myself.”
Tanza’s upbringing was barely lower-middle class; his mother was a nurse and his stepfather a prop-maker. He was on the swim-team and wrestled at Little Rock High School in Lancaster before joining the Marines in late 2002. After serving a somewhat uneventful tour in Iraq during the next summer, he was introduced to jiu-jitsu in 2004 while sparring with another Marine named Diego Quintana.
“Diego took about a year of jiu-jitsu. He also trained from the internet,” Tanza explained. “I came from wrestling in high-school, and I was kind of good at it. He would always beat me with submissions, and I would say, ‘That’s cheating,’ and he would say, ‘No, that’s jiu-jitsu.’”
Tanza finally gave in and started going to the gym more, adopting the style. He started training with other Marines in “sloppy, second-hand barracks jiu-jitsu.” After his enlistment, he upgraded to a school in Lancaster called Gracie Barra, headed by Kazeka Muniz.
Since then, Tanza has trained, grappled and taken seminars with multiple MMA greats like Dan Severn, Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Anthony Johnson, Shane Carwin, and Brendan Shaub. Most of these sessions occurred at Denver schools like Grappler’s Edge and Easton Jiu-Jitsu, but Tanza takes classes wherever he travels, including Elite MMA in Orlando, Fla. and at Tenth Planet Jiu-Jitsu in Hollywood, Calif.; the latter under the tutelage of rubber-guard inventor Eddie Bravo.
He claims some of his most monstrous sparing partners have been jiu-jitsu masters Braulio Estima and Rodolfo Viera. Submission expert Jeff Glover, Tanza said, was “impossible,” and he likens grappling with Shane Carwin to a match against the giant boulder from the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Tanza notes that his Marine Corps training prepared him for the pace of the warm-ups and “Round-Robin” sessions, where sparring partners cycle through each other in five to ten minute intervals, sometimes known as Randori.
“In the Marines you have to push yourself,” he said. “There are points where you say, ‘I can’t do it anymore.’ You have to say, ‘Shut up. Of course you can do it, and you’ll pass out trying.’”
Tanza has been steadily training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for five-and-a-half years now, minus a few months of recovery time from injuries. He received his blue belt in 2009 from Amal Easton.
Easton Jiu-Jitsu instructor and black belt Jeff Suskin described Tanza as “relentless.”
“He is a sponge for new info and highly coachable,” Suskin said. “He’s tenacious to train with. Gianni doesn't give up, and has a kill or be killed attitude. But he’s always smiling afterward.”
When Tanza’s colleagues hear about his decision to join the Foreign Legion, the response is usually bewildered shock.
“I think he’s crazy as hell,” said Curtis Wallach, 28, of Denver. He befriended Tanza in 2007 when the former Marine first moved to Colorado. Wallach, who has visited France, was skeptical of how welcoming the French would be toward an American alpha-male.
“They might like him more because he’s going to fight for them,” Wallach said. “But I can’t imagine the French accepting militant Americans with open arms.”
If asked why he’s chosen this path, Tanza’s response is calculated and revealing. He’s been out of the Marines since February 2006, and has regretted the departure ever since.
“I’m over civilian life,” Tanza said. “I got out of the Marine Corps on bad terms, because I smoked marijuana. I missed some serious combat deployments that my unit got to go on, and I lost some friends on those deployments. I think I have a lot of survivor’s guilt, and I’m kind of disappointed about not finishing my four years, or doing more. This is an opportunity to rectify myself."
Tanza’s goal is to serve his five years in the Legion, hopefully with the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment; once out, he looks to earn his black belt and finish school – if he makes it through training and survives any forward deployments.
He currently has two-and-a-half years of college under his belt, and has been pursuing a degree in Modern Languages at the University of Colorado Denver -- something he financed on his own, lacking the VA benefits of an honorable discharge.
“I don’t think I’m really meant to live a normal life, anyway,” Tanza said. "I don’t even care what other people think at this point, because this is what I’m going to do.”
