Las Vegas (pictured) will host the IBJJF Vegas Spring Open on April 27. (Photo by Kirby Lee/Getty Images)

The summer has always been the time for Las Vegas to host its annual IBJJF Vegas Open Championship since 2011. Growing from a smaller tournament to what is now considered a staple after the World Championships, Vegas tournaments allow for some gold medals and good times.

With the addition of the IBJJF Vegas Spring Open, athletes can now take a trip over to the strip between the Pan Ams and Worlds as a warm-up without dealing with exhausting heat. Tune up your technique in Sin City, but be sure to exercise your discipline as not to wander from tournament mentality!

Win big in Las Vegas on Saturday April 27 by registering today. Make sure you make it official before the higher price deadline nears! Save $15 if you sign up before March 29 and don’t miss the final deadline of April 19.

To register and see more information, click here.

Every month, GRACIEMAG endeavors to demonstrate for readers the importance of consistency in Jiu-Jitsu, of setting goals in physical conditioning and life, of breathing and eating right. But what about training in the gi? Is the practitioner really using his hours in the academy as best fit?

To help you find out what you’ve been doing right and wrong in training, we took a close look at the training routines of Wanderlei Silva, Rafael Mendes and Vinicius Draculino, three very distinct athletes, but with similarly successful paths.

To spice up the article, we smuggled our black belt photographer into a special class with Rickson Gracie, who would scrutinize the details of every hold taught with his students, and would give an exclusive T-shirt to whoever got everything just right. You’ll find all these lessons in this month’s issue.

And that’s not all there is in the April GRACIEMAG. In Training Program, a black belt who puts in service for the art in Brazil and Abu Dhabi shows what he knows with his back to the ground. Fernando Paradeda, a Jiu-Jitsu champion since he was a kid, hands over the omoplata lock dossier. There are pages and pages for you to learn, over one week, the tricks to refining one of the holds most used in competition.

If the spirit of the issue is to train smart, we invested in masters and champions from several areas to address the issue. For example, Jake Shields, interviewee of the month, gives his take on the issue, and explains what his “American Jiu-Jitsu” is all about and how it helps him in the ring.

But it’s not just through those guys that we learn to conduct our training (and lives) in an intelligent and optimal manner: physical conditioning coach Martin Rooney, traveler Bráulio Carcará and even Nelson Mandela offer valuable lessons.

GRACIEMAG also suggest the “fighter’s retreat” to benefit practitioners’ bodies and minds.

And there’s more: Saulo teaches how to defend the triangle against Romulo Barral in the Anthology section; the poetry that was the 1st Pan Kids; Bruno Bastos, Gustavo Siri and the highlights of the Houston Open; and the secrets of Ginástica Natural, Gracie Diet and the best of what our GMAs did this month.

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