Isaque Paiva chokes Bruno Frazatto with his legs at the Gramado Trials in 2012 (photo by Ivan Trindade/GRACIEMAG).

Featherweight black belt Isaque Paiva was one of the Jiu-Jitsu revelations of 2012. The winner of the Gramado leg of the WPJJC Trials, he has one of the slickest triangles in the competition scene and will be aiming to sink it this weekend in Lisbon, Portugal, when he takes to the mats at the European Open, which kicked off today.

“It’s the first time I get to compete in Europe, and I want to give my all to represent my team and pay tribute to my grandmaster Masaaki Sinkai, who passed away this week. He’s the father of my teachers Massao and Daniel Sinkai, who are responsible for everything I’ve accomplished so far,” Isaque told GRACIEMAG.com.

The black belt born in Penápolis, São Paulo State, knows he’s going to have his work cut out for him. “I figure all the matches will be tough. To me, being able to face [Rubens] Cobrinha and [Augusto] Tanquinho will be new. I’m not studying one specific opponent. I’m concentrating on winning one match at a time,” said Isaque, one of over a hundred black belts who will compete in Lisbon starting Saturday.

“My plan this season is to win gold at the Worlds. I know my weight class is really deep and everyone is working harder and harder to win it, but that’s why I’m working on being more and more complete and not making mistakes,” he explained. “I’m aiming to be more strategic, and the fact that I’ve been getting to compete at the big tournaments has helped me a lot in identifying my mistakes and getting better and better every day.”

The IBJJF European Open is underway at Lisbon’s Casal Vistoso Municipal Sports Complex and will go till Sunday. Click here to check out the brackets.

Jiu-Jitsu revelation Davi Ramos wins in Gramado. Photo: Ivan Trindade/GRACIEMAG.com

One of César “Casquinha” Guimarães’s brood at Top Brothers, recent revelation Davi Ramos feels the time has come to shine among the lightweight elite. Ramos, representing team Atos, this month won the Gramado tryouts for the Abu Dhabi WPJJ without a point scored against him, but he feels he’ll fly even higher in 2012.

“I’m ready to fight for top spot in Abu Dhabi next April, and then at the Worlds in June. At last year’s worlds I was having a great match against Michael Langhi but I was missing fine tuning, and he turned the fight around. Now I managed to fight through the injuries and, with constancy, show a much more well-rounded and tighter game than I did before,” Davi told GRACIEMAG.com over the phone.

The Rio de Janeiro lightweight went on to state that his solid performance in Gramado came down to two key lessons he learned in Jiu-Jitsu, ones he was kind enough to share with GRACIEMAG.com readers.

“At the tryouts I had six matches, winning three by submission and without getting a point scored against me, advantage points neither,” he says, before remembering, “Truth be told, I did get a penalty point scored against me, but now I understand the new rule; I won’t make that mistake again. Now I learned two things that were key in making progress in Jiu-Jitsu. First, I had to sell my motorcycle. I had a motorcycle, and one day I suffered a near fatal accident in Rio; I got all messed up and had to stay in the hospital for ages. An artery burst, I lost lots of blood and then took forever to get back to training. I realized that motorcycles and Jiu-Jitsu don’t mix.”

WATCH DAVI RAMOS VS. THIAGO BAIANO IN GRAMADO

“The second lesson has to do with improving my guard. I’m really good at foot and leg locks but I had to improve my guard and reversals. So the thing I learned was that you should really strengthen your lower back, to make progress with sweeps. Have a good talk with your physical conditioning coach and strengthen your lower back. That will help prevent injury, get you more confident in your guard and in sweeping,” Davi prescribes.

Ramos has been training at Top Brother in Rio, and in the final stretch of training he will head over to Atos for Ramon Lemos to help him polish up his game and strategy. “I accompanied “Big Monster” for his fight at Bellator, but I’m already getting back to training with the guys for the World Pro; guys like Bruno Frazatto, Guto Campos, Ary Farias, Ed Ramos, Alan Salgado, Ronaldo Candido e Denilson Bischliari,” he said in closing.

Check out howDavi’s game has come along, in this final from Gramado against CheckMat black belt Thiago Baiano, another recent revelation.