Israel Sousa Almeida, a black belt under Julio Cesar Pereira (GF Team), recently announced his move to Atos Jiu-Jitsu Headquarters in San Diego, CA, ahead of his entry at featherweight in the 2023 IBJJF World Championships.

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Israel has been training with Andre Galvao for the last month. In the last few days, the former GF Team athlete has officially switched his team to Atos on IBJJF documents. He will competing for Atos at the 2023 IBJJF Worlds. 

The 2021 AJP World Pro champ previously trained with his father and Professor Elinior Batista in Fortaleza, Ceará. He officially announced his move to Atos earlier this week.

"The decision to come to Atos was a significant one for me," Israel told FloGrappling in an exclusive interview. "I'd always admired what Professor Andre does here and sought to learn from him. I can say he exceeded my expectations." 

Almeida said he has already experienced some of the benefits of moving to Atos. "Every day after training, I feel like I've joined a seminar, and the energy here is amazing. I feel at home”.

As a black belt, Israel is making his second appearance at Worlds, after winning the blue belt (2017) and brown belt (2019). He will face his teammate Daniel Sathler in his first match on Saturday.