By Mark Gregory
Editorial Director
@Hear_The_Beard
mark@buglenewspapers.com
For 10 years, Caitlin McHale showed power, strength and elegance as a gymnast.
After leaving the sport, she was looking for a new challenge and she found one that carried over two of the three traits she used as a gymnast in martial arts.
Now 17-years-old, McHale is part of the Hill Brothers Team training out of SUDA International Training Center in Plainfield.
She will be heading to Columbia to compete in the Pan-American Championships for Team USA in Jiu-Jitsu.
“I had to adjust a lot of what I did because one is a nice, elegant sport and the other is beating people up,” McHale said with a smile. “The flexibility has helped a lot and the sports work ethic has carried over.”
Originally after giving up gymnastics, McHale joined out of a desire for self-preservation.
“I was in gymnastic for 10 years and I quit and I knew I wanted to do an individual sport that still felt like a team and I wanted to know how to protect myself,” she said. “So, I started two-and-a-half years ago and I loved it automatically. “
What started as wanting to learn striking, McHale started Jiu-Jitsu and rose through the ranks quickly and now will make her first trip to compete abroad.
“I started competing after six months and I never expected it to come this soon for me,” she said. “It has been a lot of hard work and dedication. I come in every day and train hard and there is no set time when something is going to happen, you can’t expect anything, you just have to go hard. Since I started, it has been my dream [to compete overseas] and I honestly didn’t think I was good enough, but I have always tried my best.”
McHale said she was never sure if she was ready for the next step, but believes in what coaches Ron and James Hill say. The Hill Brothers are also the coach for the US team she will compete on.
“I trust my coaches that whatever they think I can do,” McHale said. “I believe in them and they think I am ready – so I am going to go and give it my best and hopefully win.”
McHale has had another mentor in the training room in 21-year-old of Joliet.
Barillas has been part of SUDA International for nearly 10 years and will be making her fourth trip out of the country to compete when she heads to Sweden in November to compete in the Jiu-Jitsu World Championships.
While she is getting ready for her own tournament, Barillas is also happy to help McHale.
“I am excited I can be there for her and we can be there and push each other. I know what she is going to see, I know what to expect, so I can help her get there,” Barillas said. “We all inspire each other and it is good that we have girl power in here too.”
Barillas first started with SUDA after watching her younger brother, Christian, at one of his classes.
“When I saw my little brother out there grappling, I knew I wanted to do this, so I joined,” she said.
Barillas was no stranger to rough sports before joining, as she played soccer and rugby at Plainfield Central.
“I never expected to go this far and when I was given the opportunity I was so blessed. I have my whole family who believes in me and I believe in myself,” Barillas said. “I am extremely excited and I am already getting pumped. I have been getting ready for a few months because I am determined to win.”
Like McHale, the Hill brothers will be the head coaches for Team USA when Barillas heads to Sweden.
Travel and coaching internationally is nothing new to the Hills.
“Our first time coaching a US National Team was in 2008 was and we have been everywhere,” he said. “We have been to Russia three times, we have been inside the Kremlin – we had a private, government tour of the Kremlin and we were in rooms that only three US Presidents have been in,” Ron Hill said. “We went from just trying to make a tough team to going all over the world.”
The Hills will coach athletes from all across the United States as well as their homegrown athletes that are making the trips.
“We have local athletes earning spots on US National teams right in their back yard and people don’t know about it,” Hill said. “Caitlin is our 32nd person to make a US National team and this is James and I, our sixth US National team that we are coaching. The worlds are crazy because that is all some people do. Some of the countries are government funded, it is Olympic caliber.”
While SUDA International has sent more than 30 athletes overseas, that is not all the Hill Brothers Team focuses on.
“We have business owners, police officers and we still have the element of a world-wide team,” Ron said. “We are going to make better people out of them by teaching them martial arts and then what comes of it is what comes of it.”