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.
