Rafa and Gui celebrate Courtney Cardoza’s win at the 2013 Kids Pan Ams. Photo: Ivan Trindade

The Mendes Bros, Rafael and Guilherme or Rafa and Gui for short, are champions who are now extending their knowledge and experience to their students. Their academy, GMA Art of Jiu-Jitsu, is full of many students looking to achieve their individual goals although many of which aren’t even old enough to drive.

The kids program at Art of Jiu-Jitsu has fostered little champions while also teaching valuable life lessons. Many have wondered how they maintain such a large group, how they have built such a strong competition team in such short amount of time, what type of training they do and what attracts the young crowd to their Costa Mesa, CA location.

In an exclusive chat with Graciemag, the Mendes Bros let us in on how such a program is run:

GRACIEMAG: How many kids do you have training at your academy?

MENDES BROS: We have close to 200 kids training at our academy and our program is still growing. It was our goal when we first opened to develop a very strong kids program since they are the future of the sport. We offer 6 kids classes per day. We separate the kids by age and belt level so we can be sure we teach the appropriate techniques for their age groups. We also do this so we can manage the class size, otherwise the classes would be too large and we would not be able to give each child the attention that they need.

How many of them compete?

About 25% of our kids compete. Although we have a very large group of kid competitors, the majority of our students just train to learn and have fun. We always let the students decide if they want to compete. If they show interest and think they want to compete, then we will help them and make sure it is a good experience. We always make sure to give the students the same level of attention whether they are a competitor or just train for fun.

What kind of sacrifices do your kids make when they choose to compete?

Our students are hard workers! We are very proud of the commitment they show, especially at such young ages. One thing that we feel very strongly about however, is that all of the kids need to have the passion for Jiu-Jitsu on their own. In Jiu-Jitsu and in other youth sports, we see many parents pushing their kids too hard at a young age and it makes the kids lose their enjoyment for the sport. So we don’t really feel that our kids are making big sacrifices because they enjoy being here and training with their friends, and the kids that choose to compete enjoy the competitions.

Would you say that these kids are already working as full-time athletes?

We like to say they are doing all the right things to become future champions. We always do our best to be good role models for the kids and we want to give them all the right tools to achieve their dreams. We love to teach the kids and we admire their dedication. It inspires us to keep pushing forward to achieve our goals since we know all of the kids are looking to us to lead them. We know that as long as they keep up the good training, work hard, and believe in their dreams, they will be able to achieve their dreams.

What type of training do you have for the competitors?

We drill a lot of everything: takedowns, guard, submissions, passes, back attacks. After competitions we always study the mistakes to fix our game and improve to the next tournament and of course we do many rounds of sparring and specific training (this is their favorite part of the class).

How is it the same or different from the adult training for competitors?

The kids competition class is just like the adults competition class; we do a lot of speed drills, talk about tournament situations, and lots of sparring. I think this is the biggest difference between our training and most of the other schools. We teach them the same techniques that the adults drill when they are preparing for the biggest tournaments.

Check out more information about the kids program by going to www.artofjiujitsu.com

Celebration for the one year anniversary at GMA Art of Jiu-Jitsu in Costa Mesa, CA. Photo: Nick “The Tooth”

The Mendes brothers, Rafael and Guilherme, are two of the top black belt competitors on the sport Jiu-Jitsu scene. One year ago they opened their first academy on a busy street of Costa Mesa, California, close to the venue for the Pan Ams. There in the white building, lined with white walls, filled with white mats, houses two champions who work hard to maintain their own skill level while passing it on to their students.

The academy celebrated their one year anniversary last month. The brothers spoke to GRACIEMAG about their year so far and what we can expect from them and their students in the future.

A full class at AOJ. Photo: Nick “The Tooth”

GRACIEMAG: How much has your academy grown?

MENDES BROS: Our academy has grown more than we had ever expected. The support we have recieved from the community has been incredible. We have so many families in our local community that have become part of the AOJ family. Some are new to Jiu-Jitsu and others have trained before, but we are thankful for all of them. We even have many students that commute an hour or more to train with us at our Academy. This is so amazing to us.What can you say about teaching at your own academy full-time with your own students?

Many of our students that have been training here with us for a year are great training partners for us. We are always pushing each other in the training and making each other better. It is really an incredible feeling to watch the students learn our style of Jiu-Jitsu and do well in the tournaments. We feel that many of our students will be future champions. It is really nice for us to have our own academy because it helps us with our schedule. We live close by our academy so we can spend all day teaching and training with our students, and then go home and sleep in our own home. This is the first year we have been able to do this.

Showing a technique to the class. Photo: Nick “The Tooth”

What are the lessons you’ve learned after building a successful team of students and competitors while competing and winning at the highest level yourselves?

Many people say it is not possible to be a full-time professor and win the biggest tournaments at the same time; we disagree. We have already proven that it is possible to be a champion competitor and still dedicate ourselves as full time professors as well. It takes a lot of hard work on our end; most days we start with our conditioning at 6 a.m. and then go to the academy and are teaching and training in the classes until 9 p.m. We are thankful that we have the support from our wives and all of the students at our academy. Without their support, there is no way we could be successful competitors and professors.

Compared to what you had planned one year ago, what have you accomplished?

Pan Kids team trophy, first place. Photo: Personal Archive

We have achieved more than we had planned in the one year our academy has been open. When our kids team won Kids Pan Ams it made us very happy as professors. We had the goal to put a lot of focus on our kids when we opened our academy, and now we already have the best kids team in the world. We have many kids moving here from different states to join the team, and we are so proud of how well it has all worked out. We are also seeing many kids working hard and training like top adult competitors. We know in the future many of our kids will be future champions.

We have also seen our adult competitors really develop their game and gain confidence. We are proud of their hard work they put in, and know they will go far. Also we have seen brand new white belt students get exposed to Jiu-Jitsu for the first time and develop the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle. This is a big accomplishment for us because we know we are giving back to our community by improving the lives of all of our students.

What do you have planned for the future?

We are very motivated to keep developing our team and build champions for the future. We are confident many of our students will be big names in the next few years. We are also very motivated to keep competing and win more championships for ourselves. We are still young, and have a lot more that we want to achieve in the sport. We are always looking to push ourselves. We don’t just want to win titles, but we want to leave our mark on the sport by creating new techniques, and winning our fights by submission. We want to say thank you to our sponsors RVCA, Storm Kimonos, and Bull Terrier. Thank you for the interview, God Bless, and Believe & Achieve!

Check out the celebration below and to see what GMA Art of Jiu-Jitsu is all about, visit www.ArtofJiuJitsu.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72nmEN8xQOc

The IBJJF New York Open is set for April 20 in the big apple. With many academies representing some of the largest teams such as Alliance, Nova Uniao, Gracie Elite and Gracie Barra the turn-out is sure to bring much competition. Right in the middle of tournament season between Pan Ams and Worlds, learn with the team that has won every major tournament including the 2012 NY Open.

In order to prepare, Fabio Clemente and his team of instructors are inviting you to their GMA New York academy. The training is from April 9-18 and includes top competitors and instructors like Babs, the Iturralde brothers Francisco “Sinistro” and Leo from Alliance Ecuador. There will be two training sessions a day at the academy. You can read about the atmosphere here when GracieMag made a visit earlier this year.

The camp is open to any team, affiliation and rank. If you are traveling and need accommodation, you can pay $40 a night to stay at the Alliance house with other members of the team and camp. For the entire camp, pay $300 and for just a week you can pay $200.

The Alliance NYC academy is located at: 93 3rd Avenue 2nd floor New York, NY 10003.

If you haven’t registered for the NY International Open yet, you can go here to confirm your spot.

To reserve your spot at the camp, please contact sinistroiturralde@gmail.com

Check out this video of the competition team at GMA academy Art of Jiu-Jitsu. Rafael and Guilherme Mendes have been preparing their kids for the 2013 tournament season and one of the biggest tournaments in their league is here.

Kids Pan Ams is a big tournament with much prestige in the realm of kids so take a look at how these AOJ kids have been getting ready:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-tqDtbvg8U