Lang doing an ice bath after a hard day of training.

After recovering from a serious motorcycle accident in 2013, Professor Rafael Lang, from Octagon MMA, was able to write his own story of overcoming obstacles in life and in Jiu-Jitsu.

Although recovery was a delicate matter, the athlete did not let his resolve waver. He dedicated himself even more and earned titles in the meantime, including when he stepped on the podium twice in the Pan Jiu-Jitsu 2020 .

For this to be possible, the black belt followed a rigorous training and sent us the five tips that guided him through the most difficult moment of his career. Check out the lines below!

1. Accept that your plans are going to have to change, readjusting your goals will be necessary.

2. Discipline. Take your recovery as seriously as training for your fights.

3. Surround yourself with the right people, competent people who will assist you in your recovery, positive people and those who’ll cheer for you.

4. Invest in yourself, remember that your body and mind are the main tools for your success.

5. Respect the right time for your return, but always remain as active as possible, you can always do something, staying put is the worst decision.

Professor Rodrigo Antunes with his trophy from Pan 2020 Novice

Text: Rodrigo Antunes

The more difficult, for me the more interesting.

I hate that comfort zone. I am restless, but not inconsequential. Always be careful with my steps.

In the middle of this pandemic, I received an invitation to a fight, and it made sense to me. I had time available, my city has outdoor spaces for training, and I still had the help of my assistant instructor, a guy even more plundered than me (and younger, obviously).

As the flexibilization rules became milder, the training became more intense and frequent.

As soon as the IBJJF resumed holding championships, I signed up for the Pan of Jiu-Jitsu. Okay, after two years of dealing with changes, opening new gyms and branches, and dedicating more time to the family, I was finally back!

Generally, we do the hardest training outside of business hours, so as not to hinder students’ learning. After the reopening of the academy, on a rainy Friday with few students, we decided to go out of the standard and gave a “more pulled” roll.

A student, when experiencing that, then released the comment: “Teacher, can white belt compete?”

I have to go back in time. Two years earlier, a father came to enroll the two 12-year-old twin daughters in Jiu-Jitsu, one of the sweetest girls I have ever met. At a Sunday lunch, during dessert, they then asked the key question: “Dad, if you think Jiu-Jitsu is so important to us, why don’t you practice it?”

What a tight skirt! Well, be an example. Monday, this father enrolled in our school.

Going back to the present. Two years have passed, the girls have taken a break, but I hope they will come back. But the father is active, firm, and strong, with three honorable degrees in white. This father is vice president of one of the largest multinationals in the world, at the height of his 48 years, without an athlete background, and wanted to test himself in yet another challenge. He wanted to compete and that’s it.

I like to analyze my purpose as a teacher, at this stage of my life. My school today is for training, geared towards practitioners, taking Jiu-Jitsu seriously and democratizing access for everyone, without the goal of forming world champions.

Some questions then arose in my mind: “What if that father gets hurt in training”, “What if he gets hurt in a competition”, “How the family will react to training, since he will spend more time on training and diet ”,“ How will this affect the attention I need to give to my other students ”, etc.

I raised these points together with him, asked to talk to the family, while I was going to talk to my assistant instructor, and on Monday we would decide together if it was worth it.

Monday morning, I receive the message early: “What’s up, master? Can I fight? ” How to say no to a guy like that?

With our endorsement, on the second we started. Two more students were immediately interested, and by the end of the week, we already had so many other students thirsty to participate. All businessmen, super executive in the master category, mostly white belts, with no tournaments in their lives. One of the students even had to be removed. We held his momentum because it was not yet his time – in addition to not having time for training, without enough classes to develop his technical skills, he needed to focus on fitness. There, a team formed with the students, and still with me and my assistant instructor.

 

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Pan 2020 ? Novice ? . . . @alliancekb @alliancecoconutgrove @alliancenaples . . . @gigipaivabjj @lucasaraujobjj @rafademartins @mateus_lasco @ale.silvajj

Uma publicação compartilhada por Rodrigo Antunes (@rodrigoantunesbjj) em 9 de Out, 2020 às 7:59 PDT

During the first weekend, we need to make an important decision. How to reconcile the fact of competing with the activity of a coach. And how to prepare them without jeopardizing the functioning of classes at our school.

The first was easy. Today, even though I still have a fighting warrior inside me, my students are a priority. I took my name to focus on them.

As for the second, I analyzed our timetable, chose two shifts of intermediate classes with less frequency, and changed to intermediate/advanced. I explained that, during those next six weeks, we would be focusing on drills, falls, and strategies.

Motivating successful people is easy.

As we got closer to the championship, we realized that even businessmen have fears, fears, and need support. They are guys who analyze and supervise billionaire businesses and study everything thoroughly before making decisions. In that case, they were treading on a whole new terrain, which they would only be able to get to know in-depth when the opponent was going to grab their kimono and try to take them down.

After each workout, I tried to tell my experience in the weeks of competition, the difficulty to lose weight, the importance of a good night’s sleep, what to eat, how to exercise on D-day.

I also talked about the step by step of IBJJF events: preliminary weigh-in, gi measurement, official weigh-in, introducing yourself to the ring coordinator, the time between fights, the rules, which coach will be next to which student on the verge from the ring.

Another important point: we reserve rooms in the same hotel so that we are close to each other so that we can eat and return together from the gym. And as it was in Orlando, the families were able to go later, to cheer on the day of the fight.

The Pan started on a Thursday and ended Sunday. Big fights, lots of emotions. Everything went better than planned. All students won at least one fight and only one of them did not win any medal. I was happy to be able to help Alliance secure first place in the Pan, in the rookie division, Novice.

Remember the father, the twin daughters? At the Pan, he won the bronze medal and then took our test for blue belt. He went into the house looking silly, with the new sash tied around his waist. The twins? They are all proud of their big daddy and will start training Jiu-Jitsu next week.

* Rodrigo Antunes is our GMI and runs Alliance Key Biscayne academies,
Alliance Coconut Grove and Alliance Naples, Florida, USA.

Lo uses his usual sweep on Michael Langhi. Ivan Trindade/GRACIEMAG

In 2014, GRACIEMAG got to closely follow the training of Leandro Lo, Felipe Preguiça and Rodolfo Vieira on Governador Island, Rio de Janeiro. In one of these exclusive sessions, Leandro got right down to business, teaching one of his favorite sweeps starting from the spider guard.

He showed the details of the unbalancing applied with the guard in order to make his opponent’s feet parallel — the right position for sweeping by holding the feet. As soon as he comes up, Leandro is careful about getting dealt a foot lock; he fans out and reaches the side.

Though the audio is very rough, here’s our attempt at a translated transcript:

“I get the hook and bring him to me. Once I’ve held his pants, I’ll put my foot on the ground. Why? To bring him either up, here, or to the side — doesn’t matter. I’ve brought him. I lock this in place [0:27]. Now my hand comes down. Having reached this position, we get up…”

The champion Ffiona Davies stabilizing the mount in London. Ane Nunes/AJP

1. The mount is the supreme position, from which the BJJ player exerts ample control over their rival — and can even give themselves the luxury of resting without pressure from the ref to attack. It’s from there, with full view of the match, that they must work to finish. But it’s normal for a white-belt to relax and lose the position — so the first commandment is: adjust your weight on your opponent’s hips to they can’t upa and send you flying.

2. Upon mounting you must have this in mind: I want my opponent to carry all my weight. If you are poorly seated, sustaining your weight with your knees, you are giving your opponent space and time to breathe. Another thought: their hips cannot be allowed to move.

3. BJJ is balance — always. On the mount, like in other positions, it’s necessary to stay in constant balance, which means less risk. To exercise your balance, strive to practice your mount stability since your warm-up. Sit down without giving spaces and consult your teacher and check whether your knee, feet and hooks are good.

4. If you are attacking, you are keeping your opponent busy — and worried. That is why it’s necessary to repeat and repeat until you have one or two effective attacks. Remember that if you attack the collar or the neck, your opponent will need to defend with one of their arms, which opens up room for armbars. Also study the kata-gatame — the favorite move of nine out of ten MMA fighters when they reach the mount.

5. Attention to your opponent’s shoulders. Most mount escapes are set in motion by shoulder movement — necessary for the bottom fighter to get up, turn on their side, counter-attack, etc. Keep your opponent’s shoulders always on the mat, foiling their posture and escape.

6. Double attacks, always. From the mount, the guard, the back, the double attack is the best way to thwart the defense — and the way to avoid the obvious attacks that anyone will see coming. When you mount, try to study thoroughly the transition between chokes and armlocks, between chokes with the hand and the kata-gatame, and be a fearsome fighter on top. Always have a plan B!

7. Watch videos to study how the great specialists mount — with or without the gi, and even in MMA. Watching the best do it can take you a long way.

8. Having an effective mount does not mean you need to sit on top of your opponents like a stone. Take note of movement on top and how to keep them tired. Use your hands for support, throw your head forward and move your legs intelligently when your opponent pushes you. But don’t forget the bigger goal: to keep the mount.

9. One of the most common alternative plans from the mount is to allow your opponent to spin and give you their back, so you can more easily squeeze their neck. Keep this move under your sleeve.

10. When you reach the mount on the street or in a real-life scenario, remember the advice of the old masters: watch out for the bite! A dominated aggressor can get desperate and use their teeth. Use your shoulder on their chin to get yourself away from their mouth.

Even though there is an infinity of options on the ground to choose from, a BJJ fighter should never forget that the fight starts standing. And if you’re looking for a good takedown to add to your game, what better place to find inspiration than at the Judo World Championships? So here’s a collection of the twenty best ippons employed by competitors at this year’s edition.

Enjoy and have a good week of training.

Paulo and Thalison roll at the hotel.

Before they compete at the 2019 Abu Dhabi World Pro Jiu-Jitsu Championship, teammates Paulo Miyao and Thalison Soares put on their gis and headed for the mat assembled at the athletes’ hotel for a friendly — albeit not dull — roll.

With enthralling grip exchanges, quick shifting of positions, and lots of pressure throughout, Paulo and Thalison fought hard for every inch of space, showing why they can always be found at the top of their divisions.

Click below to see Graciemag’s exclusive video featuring black-belt Paulo Miyao and brown-belt Thalison Soares.

Durinho working on his neck chopper.

As the masters of Brazilian jiu-jitsu say, the guillotine is much more a matter of subtlety than force. But, often, we come across really resistant opponents who must be tamed through a long, persistent squeeze — one which inevitably sucks up a whole lot of energy.

To get his body used to this sort of exhausting situation, Gilbert Durinho’s training routine explores this specific kind of exercise. In a video made by his team, Durinho works on the isometrics of the act of squeezing the guillotine to make it as sharp as it will get.

Watch him do it right here (you could do a lot worse than copying him, after all):

Kyra Gracie adjusts a choke on Malvino Salvador. Carlos Arthur Jr.

Our partner school Gracie Kore, which has welcomed names like Robson Gracie, Roger Gracie and even Brazilian megastar Zeca Pagodinho, had last month a day of training featuring owner couple Kyra Gracie and Malvino Salvador testing out a few BJJ positions.

The session, documented exclusively by the Graciemag team, took place during the seminar with Roger Gracie. The ten-time world champion taught details for choking from the back, and the disciplined student Malvino, a purple-belt actor who has appeared in telenovelas for the past 15 years, recruited Kyra to perform the move.

With Roger’s tips, Malvino tried out the choke, and then it was Kyra’s turn to return the present, with her well-known pressure when attacking from the back.

Watch the happy couple roll here:

Raphael Abi-Rihan controls Filipe Jerry’s arm on his way to gold at the 2009 Brazilian Nationals. Gustavo Aragão.

[First published in 2012.]

Coming up on the 10^th of March, the Copa Jacques Lemans Jiu-Jitsu tournament will go down in Pilares, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Vincenzo Cittadino-promoted event is sponsored by timepiece manufacturer Jacques Lemans and will be covered by GRACIEMAG.com.

Besides featuring contests for all belt groups, there will be the added draw of paying out cash prizes for the winners of the blue belt to black belt absolute divisions and three supermatches, each with one Brazilian national champion and one police special forces representative.

• Pedro Silveira (Sinho) vs. Fabrício Batista (Rio Fight)
• Raphael Abi-Rihan (Abi-Rihan) vs. Renato Oliveira (Rio Fight)
• Submission grappling: Félix Mau-Mau (Carlson Gracie/BOPE) vs. Leandro Bad (Sinho)

Pleased with the call-up, black belt Raphael Abi-Rihan has been having a successful time of juggling training with his various projects (newfound paternal duties, restructuring his academy, a training camp for visiting Turkish students with his partner Igor Silva, organizing events…).

“My weekly work routine is really intense and goes from Monday to Saturday, since besides the nine groups we have at the academy, I work around six hours per day on physical activities outside the realm of Jiu-Jitsu,” says Abi-Rihan.

At GRACIEMAG.com’s request, the 2009 Brazilian national champion lays out a routine optimized for Jiu-Jitsu training.

1. JIU-JITSU 4 TIMES A WEEK

“I have the privilege of being able to rely on a large group of students and nine black belts — the Abi-Rihan Jiu-Jitsu family — to help me with technical support, and I feel teaching is part of training for competition. I train Jiu-Jitsu four times a week, including technical, stamina, standing and training for fun.

2. METHOD FOR SHARPENING UP JIU-JITSU

“I determine which are my most advanced Jiu-Jitsu groups and pick a day of the week to train with each of them. On one day, I train technique with my Masters group at 7:30 in the morning. On another day, I do stamina training with my ‘sauna routine,’ which is at 12:30 pm with my ‘psycho’ group. Those are my students who are better equipped physically. On another day, I train standing and on the ground with the 8:30 pm group, which is fuller and has students of all levels. On Saturday, I go to the academy like a student; it’s the day I’m more laid back in training.

3. PHYSICAL CONDITIONING FOR JIU-JITSU

“I do physical conditioning three or four times a week, divided into: basic muscle workout, power lifting, Jiu-Jitsu-specific pulling exercises, and functional training. I prioritize my workouts according to what’s going on at the time. At the moment I’m doing more basic muscular and functional workouts. As a competition nears, I make a priority of competition-specific exercises and power lifting.

4. DIET FOR BECOMING A JIU-JITSU CHAMP

“I balance my diet across three categories: Health, War, and Party. The fact that my wife is a nutritionist helps me keep the three angles balanced. It works like this: At the end and beginning of the year, it’s party time. Starting now, it’s more health and less party. And closer to the big championships, it’s lots of health, war, and no partying whatsoever. The key word is ‘balance.’

* “Health equates to eating well on a day-to-day basis, keeping a balanced diet from Monday to Friday to keep weight under control and the immune system working strong. It’s a teacher’s obligation to always be in good health.

* “War equates to hard training-specific supplements and diet. The fighter should be a war-ready machine.

* “Party is a glass of wine with the wife and beer with friends while celebrating something or watching Brazilians fighting in the UFC. After all, the Jiu-Jitsu working man is human too.

5. LOVE AND LIFESTYLE

“This is my routine: I work an average of 50 hours per week, am a father and take care of my family, train with my students, and I compete because I love it. I don’t know if I’ll always be coming up with good results — I’ll do what I can. But I already consider myself to be victorious in my career because of the LIFESTYLE I lead today, thanks to my FAMILY and JIU-JITSU.”

Marco Imperial at a table rich in Gracie Diet foods: BJJ begins at the mouth. Gustavo Aragão

Breakthroughs in technology and medicine have brought a disastrous side effect: People eat all sorts of garbage, confident that chemical drugs will cure whatever they get. The result is an increase in obesity – child obesity has doubled in the past 30 years, and among adolescents it has quadrupled.

So if it’s difficult to eliminate these villains from your kitchen, which end up disrupting your performance in Jiu-Jitsu, we’ve listed ten tips for you to gradually get rid of a low-nutrient diet. Check them out!

1. Simple and essential: Do not bring to the table or store in the pantry processed foods, which are full of salt, sugar and fat.

2. Stop to reflect. On weekends, try to jot down or just remember what you’ve eaten over the last seven days. Rethink whether you ate fruits and vegetables, and seek more balance.

3. Treat the villains in your diet as opponents to be beaten: it may be that one beats you that day, but you must overcome them, one by one. The classic villains: margarine, oils, butter, sweets, refined sugar, chicken patties, soda, sausages, sandwich cookies, store-bought sauces.

4. If you eat tasty dishes that brighten up your brain to boot, you have come halfway to your food re-education. Invest in foods that help produce serotonin, known as the happiness hormone, and leave the table satisfied. Look for foods rich in folic acid (green leaves, legumes, avocado, orange, asparagus), sources of vitamin B6 (banana, beans, oats, lentils, avocados), magnesium sources (legumes, oysters, brown rice, salmon), and tryptophan foods (eggs, nuts, oats, peanuts, almonds, cheeses, fish and chicken).

5. Craving dessert? Look for naturally sweet foods, such as dates, coconut water, and other fruits and nuts.6. Bring the family to the table whenever possible. The habit helps to slow down chewing and eating, and break, from childhood, bad habits such as the fast snack with little nutritional value and fast food.

6. Bring the family to the table whenever possible. This helps to slow down chewing and eating, and break, from childhood, bad habits such as the fast snack with little nutritional value and fast food.

7. Get less red meat on your weekly menu. As food journalist and writer Michael Pollan teaches, the more steak, the less room for salad on your plate.

8. Take a few hours between meals and follow your routine like a samurai. To learn more about the topic, look for Gracie Diet on GRACIEMAG.com, and learn from Grandmaster Carlos Gracie, an expert on the subject.

9. Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored or anxious. Often a glass of water or juice satisfies your anxiety and does not disrupt your digestion schedule or the next meal.

10. Physical exercises and a healthy menu are inseparable siblings who help each other. Don’t neglect either one, and good training!

Roger and Rayron Gracie teaching a lesson in chokes from the back.

Over 40 students were present at Gracie Kore, in Rio, this Wednesday to learn from Roger Gracie. The ten-time world champion imparted details of his favorite positions in a seminar.

Roger spoke of his classic, effective positions, like the armbar from the guard, the choke from the back and the classic choke from the mount that back his trademark move. The secret to not lose the positions even against the toughest opponents in the world? Roger explained. “I sought to evolve my classic game until it started working at a high level. For example, until the black belt, I didn’t choke anybody from the mount. It’s easier to finish with a move like the flying triangle, which depends more on timing, than scissor-sweeping at black belt. To choke from the mount, you have to get about 15 essential details right during the process — otherwise, the whole pyramid of building the move collapses.”

Also noteworthy was his lesson in the choke from the back, which Roger revealed he likes applying “on the wrong side.” He says that he was always told to choke with the hand that is under the opponent, but he felt little mobility in the attack. So he studied the position and developed his own offensive plan, taking away his opponent’s chances of escaping, creating spaces to pass the hand and finish without the use of extreme force.

Watch this exclusive lesson right here:

Rickson Gracie.

[First published in 2014.]

Raised as a warrior from a young age, Rickson Gracie is an example of good health. For many years he has been creating a well-adjusted body structure for the practice of BJJ. Coupled with the power of the art, Master Rickson maintains his machine with the best fuel: the Gracie Diet, with some adjustments made ​​for him. An example is that he changed the time intervals between meals.

In an interview with the reporter Ana Luiza Leal for Alfa magazine, the coral-belt revealed his eating routines. Learn from the teacher himself, and improve your diet to get a better performance in your workouts!

Breakfast

• 1 cup of coffee • 2 slices of bread (rich in fiber) • 2 thick slices of white cheese

Morning snack

• 1 glass of 500 ml of mixed-fruits vitamin with 1 scoop of protein powder

Lunch

• 1 plate of green leaves with 3 tablespoons of cashew nuts

• 1/2 dessert plate of boiled vegetables • 3 tablespoons brown rice • 1/2 roasted chicken breast in the oven

Afternoon snack

• 300g frozen açaí pulp mixed with: – 1 papaya, 3 dried dates, and 3 tablespoons of granola

Evening snack

• 1 whole-grain baked pasty stuffed with ricotta cheese • 1 glass of 500 ml of beet juice

Dinner

• Omelet made ​​with 2 yolks and 5 egg whites • 1 large cooked sweet potato

Supper

• 2 slices of wholegrain bread • 2 thick slices of white cheese  • 10 chopped sweet oranges

In addition to the recipes, the Rickson also underscores the importance of not abusing red meat, replacing the common white bread with fiber-rich breads and cereals, the total abolition of added sugar, replaced by dried fruits like dates, and no processed foods such as ham and sausages, which are filled with sodium.

Another tip is related to preparing vegetables. In traditional cooking, when boiling your vegetables, much of the nutrients are left in the water. Prepare them steamed instead.