Global Training Report

Jiu-Jitsu Training in Rio de Janeiro

(July, August, & September 2006) 

Global Training Report's 

 Jiu-Jitsu Training in Rio de Janeiro 

Summer 2006

 Alpha Release 1.0 October 20, 2006

Last revision July 26, 2008

　By Roberto Pedreira

. Links to the original GTR A Arte Suave articles are at the end where they should be rather than in the article where clicking on them will make it impossible to read the article.. 

Training with Bolão

Sergio "Bolão" de Souza was the type of professor I wanted to train with in 2006--someone from the pre-UFC boom epoch (Bolão was one of Carlson's top students from the 80's epoch) but pretty much unknown outside of Brazil. This way, I'd be sure to have plenty of Brazilian black and brown belts to train with, rather than lots of North American blue and purple belts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Blue and purple belts are people too. It just wasn't what I needed. Also, Bolão was not basing his reputation on the medals his students won in recent competitions (not that medals weren't nice to have). Bolão's reputation was already well established, having fought and defeated most of the best fighters of his time, such as JJ and John Machado, Roberto Traven, and Alexandre Paiva, to name a few, and most legendarily, Marcelo Behring, and having produced many well-known black belt fighters and teachers, many of them teaching in the USA and Europe. This meant that training would not be exclusively focused on point oriented sport jiu-jitsu. 

When GTR last visited Rio in 1999, Bolão had his own academy on Rua Francisco Sá (a short street that connects Copacabana with Ipanema),  about a one minute walk from Corpo Quatro, where was teaching Marcelo Behring's younger brother Sylvio. The first thing I did after arriving and checking in to the San Marco Hotel in Ipanema (Rua Visconde de Piraja 254), where I had  stayed in my first trip in 1997, was to head over to Copacabana to locate a seasonal apartment rental and to find the academia of Osvaldo Alves, legendary teacher of legendary jiu-jitsu fighter Sergio Penha, the man who almost beat the myth ("mito") Rickson Gracie in a legendary fight of truly epic proportions almost equaling those of Dempsey vs. Willard, Ali vs. Foreman, Bruce Lee vs. Mr, Han, and Bolão vs. Marcelo Behring. After much wandering around and asking people, I found Alves' academy at Ministro Viveiro de Castro 51, 204, 2nd Fl.). Luckily I knew the address, because there is no sign outside and because  Ministro Viveiro de Castro is actually more like a short alley than a street. It helped that there was a tough looking guy with cauliflower ears and a gym bag standing outside the front door.  "Academia do Prof. Alves?" I asked him. "Yes", he said. I went upstairs. The door was open. Two guys in quimonos were on the mat practicing an inverted spider guard sweep, several other guys lounging around observing. They took five and asked what I was looking for. I told them I was looking for Oswaldo Alves. I don't look like a typical jiu-jitsu guy, so they might have thought I was looking for the church that was in the same building, I guessed, otherwise I didn't know what to make of the question--what would someone coming to Oswaldo Alves' academy logically be looking for apart from Oswaldo Alves?  It was roughly 5:00 p.m. at the time. They told me he would be there at 7:00 that evening. They asked me if I wanted to train. I replied affirmatively, however, I first needed to find a place to stay, as the hotel was too expensive for a sojourn of the 7 weeks that I would be there. They said, you can sleep here, pointing to the mat. I thanked them politely but I didn't think I could live on a mat for 7 weeks, as poetic as it sounded. I said I'd come back at 7:00. I headed back up the street toward Ipanema with the plan to stop into any temporada (temporary apartment rental) agency I passed. Within a few minutes I had rented a basic apartment at Rua Paula Freitas, 66, which was within a two block walk of at least five jiu-jitsu academies that I was aware of, and there were probably others that I missed. I hung out at a nearby lanchonete for a couple hours and then strolled back to Alves' academy. At 7:00 there was small crowd of guys with tattoos,  mashed ears, and gym bags waiting out front. By 7:30 Alves had not arrived. One of the guys, who had come from Belo Horizonte to train with Alves, said "Alves is late." Another guy, Gabriel (a brown belt who had won the absoluto last year and gotten his nose broken in the process), said, anyway, he isn't going to teach today, is just special training for the guys who will enter in the Mundial Campeonata coming up on the weekend. He suggested coming back after the championship, on Monday. I said I would.

I headed back to Ipanema once again, walking along Av. N. S. de Copacabana in order to see what had changed since 1999. Ricardo de la Riva's academy was gone, as was Kiko Velozo's, and Aloisio's Dojo Jiu-jitsu. Jiu-Jitsu Fabricio was still there at 1017 Copacabana. Jiu-Jitsu Strauch  at 1063 Copacaba seemed to be new. Aloisio I knew had moved to Southern California. where the supply of jiu-jitsu  professors is not greater than the demand for jiu-jitsu instruction. Ricardo de la Riva, I learned later had simply moved down the street to a new location in the Equipe 1 Fitness Center. Later, I would notice several new academies, one an Alliance representative located in the Clube de Lutas on Rua Santa Clara, the other, Jiu-Jitsu no CIB,  located in the Clube Israelita Brasileiro at 489 Rua Barata Ribeiro directly behind de la Riva, and one block away from Carlson and the Clube de Lutas.  In due course I reached Rua Francisco Sá, 88 and  Corpo Quatro, headed by Alvaro Barreto, younger brother of legendary João Alberto Barreto, reputably the best Gracie representative  in the history of Brazilian vale tudo, according to knowledgeable researchers, and in any case, the only undefeated one. I stopped in to pay my respects. Alvaro was not there however and I had already been informed that Sylvio Behring had moved on. Taking his place was Sergio Bolão de Souza.  It was by that time close to 9:00 and training was in progress. I approached the training room. I had a speech prepared, explaining what I was doing there, but I didn't need it. Bolão recognized me from my brief visit to his academy seven years earlier.  "You're the guy who wrote that article on the internet about me", he recalled correctly, in more or less fluent English, which he had learned by watching TV and teaching jiu-jitsu in Pennsylvania a few years before. I scooped out the guys there. "Not so many guys training today" Bolão explained. The Mundial was imminent and Bolão doesn't like to see guys who are competing in the academy the two days prior to their fight. Nevertheless, Bolão's team consisted of older than usual guys, that is. mainly guys in their late 20's and a few in their early 30's and who mostly didn't care about medals. They trained jiu-jitsu because they liked jiu-jitsu. so they were training that night despite the Mundial. The mix of belts and physical types was encouraging from the point of view of my personal training objectives. Lots of black belts, brown belts, a few purple belts, fewer blue belts, and one or two white belts, who seldom showed up. Generally, the training was with black and  brown belts, and purple.belts. It was perfect. As always several guys asked me if I wanted to train. I said I definitely did. I would start the next day for sure.

　Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

Price of Training in Rio.

Classes were held 8:00 to 9:00 Monday through Friday. Bolão taught on Monday and Wednesday. Friday was "free training", which Bolão usually supervised.  Tuesday and Thursday classes were often taught by a tall black belt named Cazuza. Training was the same no matter who taught and in fact was the same even if no one taught. In other words, everyone was experienced enough to know exactly what to do on their own. Moreover, "teaching" is not precisely the right word to use when the students are black belts with 10 or more years of experience. They know the basics thoroughly and when the basics are abstracted away what remains is  the individual's "game", which he (not to be sexist, but there were no females there) develops in part  through personal experience but also through the instructors' ongoing monitoring of his  performance on the mat. That is what is known as "coaching", and accordingly most of training in Bolão's academy (and  probably, based on my observations, in most academies in Rio) consists of coaching rather than teaching. Now if a beginner shows up, which occasionally happens, then Bolão will ask a purple, brown, or black belt to show him the basic positions. Rather than having a set curriculum, new students learn piece by piece from the more experienced players.  Once they have the basic movements and finalizations (which, despite many variations, are few in number and simple in execution), they simply learn by doing it and by asking questions. With 10 or 20  black belts to learn from, there is no shortage of information, and everyone is happy to share what they know (although some are more willing to take the time to do it). Like other academies, no one trains on the weekends, with the exception of competitors as a competition approaches. But Brazil is a Catholic country. God rested on Sunday after creating the world and jiu-jitsu guys also rest on Sunday. The cost of training at Bolão's is 90 reais per month (about 41 US$ at current exchange rates). Since I had come halfway around the world and would have only 7 weeks, I thought it would be wise to invest in some privates, if nothing more than to be sure that I was technically ready to train with these guys. Like most people reading this now, I do not have 10-20 black belts to train with where I live. Privates with Bolão ran 100 reais (45$) per hour, which would have seemed like a steal if it hadn't cost $2,000 to get there. Supply and demand at work.

Next day, I began the privates. I thought maybe one or two privates before jumping into the general training would be about right. So, what did I want to learn? Bolão asked. Some really new and complicated maneuvers, like everyone seems to want to learn? Actually, no, I said.  Just basics I said. the details that a black belt has that a brown belt or purple belt doesn't have. But anything you want to teach will probably be more than I already know, I went on. No matter what the technique is, or how basic, different black belts will have their own personal variations and details, and one or more of those details might an improvement on what you are already doing, or the solution to a puzzle that has been perplexing you. So I suggested that he teach whatever he wanted to teach and I'd ask questions if I had any.

Bolão was surprised that I already seemed to know (more or less) the techniques he showed. I explained that I watched a lot of videos, which was true. But obviously, what you can't get from a video is the feeling of a prepared  opponent's reaction. For that you need an opponent who knows what the appropriate reaction is and can do it. It is also possible to miss some of the details from a video (and also possible that the person making the video didn't point out the details because he wasn't aware that he was doing them).

Bolão is an intimidating looking person. Imagine Saulo Ribeiro (like Bolão, also from Manaus,  which contributes more than its share of Brazil's tough guys, except taller and 15 kg.(33 lbs.)  heavier. But looks are deceiving. He is actually a friendly, animated guy. Naturally he had lots of stories to tell during the private lessons, and at all other times as well. The first day I arrived early. Bolão was teaching a private aerobics class to George Mehdi's son-in-law. I mentioned that I had met Mehdi in 1999. "Everyone who wanted to learn judo went to Mehdi," Bolão said. That's a slight exaggeration but a lot of jiu-jitsu people did, for sure.  "Mehdi is a scary guy" I said, remembering the many stories I had heard. "Yes, he is" the son-in-law agreed, "but he probably won't hurt you." I was glad to hear that.  Of course, any of the original fighters from the original Rio Branco Gracie academy would have to be very very tough guys and Mehdi, along with João Alberto Barreto were among the toughest. But Mehdi, it is well known, did not like the Gracie's personal style (although he never minded teaching judo to their kids) and was deeply influenced by the Japanese judokas he trained with in Japan in the 1950's. Mehdi believed that a certain amount of  discipline is a good, if not absolutely necessary, thing, which some jiu-jitsu guys, including, Sylvio Behring and Bolão agree with. Rather than being cruel, being strict is a form of kindness in that it maximizes the chances that the student will actually learn. This at least, is what the Japanese think, and Mehdi seems to agree with them. At least that's one interpretation. Another equally popular interpretation is that it's just better not to piss Mehdi off if you can avoid it. Like Mehdi, Bolão is not a person that it would strike you as a good idea to piss off and I did my part in not disrupting his equanimity. Anything he asked, I agreed to. "Are you tired Roberto?" after sparring 30 straight minutes with two large black belts and two fast technical brown belts. "Without a doubt, I am not tired at all", I replied, although I doubt that anyone believed me, but just gave me credit for knowing the right thing to say. In Rio you can never say you are not tudo bom even if you are limping around on crutches with your head wrapped in bandages, and  arm in a cast.  There's no "I'm injured, let's go light" in the training vocabulary here (if you aren't in condition to train, then stay home and recuperate). "Ok, go spar with that purple belt for the next 8 minutes," he'd say. The two purple belts who were usually there were huge, strong guys. Frankly, although I never said so, I never looked forward to sparring with huge young guys when I was already tired. But having done it, I 'm happy I did. Like hitting yourself on the head with a mallet; it feels so good when it's over.

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

A typical class at Bolão Academia  starts at 10 minutes after 8:00 p.m. Everyone who is there early enough forms several lines facing Bolão, black belts in front, white belts if any (usually not) in back, and bows, Japanese style (a ritual not many Rio academies follow, but which is endorsed by more than a few, who think a little of this Japanese style ritualism might be a good thing). The first thing is running and pushups and various other aerobic activities, which lasts about 20-30 minutes, enough to get you warmed up, or physically tired, as the case may be. There generally is no stretching. You do that on your own before the class starts. Usually, there is no technique/positions part of the class, the assumptions being that everyone knows the basics and a lot more and can review these on their own. They can also add to their personal game at their own pace by working with the more experienced guys. They are not dependent on one professor for all knowledge. After the aerobics, we get right into sparring. Bolão assigns people who to spar with,  rather than letting people just spar with (or avoid) who they want or rest more than they really need to. Often a good coach knows what the athlete needs more than the athlete does, which is why athletes have coaches. How tired you think you are is not how tired you always really are. Moreover, if you are tired, so what? Do it anyway, rest later. In fact, especially do it if you are tired, and Bolão's "warm-up" seems designed to ensure that you are already  tired before the sparring starts.  The sparring lasts 30 minutes, occasionally longer, and then everyone lines up and bows again. Class finished. Very efficient. As noted above, Bolão's students are older guys, with jobs and families, and they don't seem to want to hang out too much in the academy. Other academies with younger students may be different. Of course, guys who want to train more or work on particular positions just come earlier and do it before the class. On most days, there were a few guys doing that. A few guys train with outside coaches to work on non-jiu-jitsu skills. Chico, a black belt who was hoping to make a pro vale tudo debut, in Japan (where they actually pay fighters), trains boxing with a coach from the BTT, and from what I observed, has good fundamentals. At the time of my visit, Chico was preparing for his second boxing match (he won his debut fight by KO).  It can be hard to acquire boxing skills and experience in Brazil. where despite a huge reservoir of poor people (which is the primary prerequisite for good representation in the realm of professional pugilism), there have been just two world boxing champions. The first was Eder Jofre, the second, more recently, Acelino Popo Freitas. (Incidentally Eder Jofre is regarded by boxing authorities as one of the best pound for pound boxers in ring history). When I asked Chico how his boxing match went, he said, looking disappointed, "opponent didn't show up." It didn't surprise me too much. Boxing has never been the national sport of Brazil. The reason may be that Brazilians dislike getting punched in the face, and that, in a nutshell, is what boxing is about and what jiu-jitsu is designed to avoid.  Now if you can combine punching with grappling, that would be cool. Indeed, that would be "vale tudo", which Brazilians adore as much as they adore samba and big bundas on linda garotas.  But even, or possibly especially, for  those people who don't like getting punched in the face, boxing skills can be useful. Though not an expert, as he admits, Bolão teaches private lessons in basic boxing to all who feel the need. His students ranged from aspiring professionals, like Chico, to busy businessmen, to gals who looked like fashion models and desired the weight maintenance that a rigorous boxing  workout provides.  Bolão sometimes included some boxing drills in his regular classes too. Rorion Gracie may be the only member of his family with a college degree, but well-educated people are not rare in the jiu-jitsu world. João Alberto Barreto, one of the toughest and most technical fighters of all time, is now a well-known professor of psychology and author of a standard textbook on sports psychology and much-in-demand lecturer. Bolão too is an educated man with a degree in physical education, and he uses his knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics to design special stretching and conditioning programs for his athletes and clients. The bottom line for most guys in his charge is  performance on the mat as a form of self-fulfillment, rather than as a major source of income, hence they have no incentives to boost their short term success rates at the cost of  longer term health consequences. As all athletes know, whether they apply their knowledge or not, the key to training longevity lies in preserving the productive assets of their trade. That means conditioning and stretching, both of which are well accounted for in Bolão's classes. 

Jiu-Jitsu Revolution

The first person I rolled with was Bolão. I assumed that Bolão would not take me very seriously, since no one else does either until after they roll with me--sometimes not then either, unfortunately, but I'm working on that (compared to me Ricardo de la Riva looks like Jeff Momson, to put it in perspective). So I wasn't too surprised when I passed his guard using a pass that he had just shown me. I knew he let me do it, or at least didn't stop me, confident that he could escape. But I was surprised when he rolled outside to escape. Many beginners try to do this, with predictable results. So I was perplexed when Bolão did it. What would stop me from stepping up with my near foot and taking his back?  It  might seem too simple and too obvious to actually work--at least until you watch  Marcelo Garcia in action (particularly against Shaolin) . I suspected that Bolão had a trick up his sleeve but I did it anyway and took his back, with one hand gripping his collar under his one arm, the other around his neck gripping his collar. I am not going to try to tap someone who is teaching me and has essentially given me the position, so I waited, thinking about what to do next. I neglected to keep Bolão's hips flat and he posted up, then dived  forward, in the direction of my hand that was around his neck. I had to release my grip to avoid smashing my face on the mat with his weight (220 lbs., or 100 kg.) on top of me. Obviously he used that opportunity to make his exit. Later someone else tried that escape. I decided not to release the grip. My face was smashed against the mat with his weight on top. I ended up releasing the grip anyway. "You ok?" he asked. "Education has a cost" I replied. Now if I hadn't let them post up, it might have been different. So this rolling out escape is potentially risky. But almost everyone did it, preferring it to the standard "turn in to guard" or "turn out to knees" escapes. I had learned different versions of this escape on previous trips to Rio, but I hadn't seen many people doing it before. Now almost everyone was doing it. 

Two months later, back in Japan, I heard about Saulo Ribeiro's revolutionary "running escape."  I hadn't heard of running escapes in Rio, or whatever the Portuguese expression might be, if in fact there is one. But I  suspected it was something that I had seen in Bolão's academy that was so ordinary and so taken for granted that no one bothered talking about it.  The "running escape" turned out to be the side control escape that everyone was doing that I just described above. (It can also be used to escape the joelho na barriga--aka "knee on the belly".) Of course, Saulo tells you to do this when you can't turn inside, and that is exactly when everyone at Bolão's did it. It must be noted that guys in Rio do not like to give their backs. There are some details to this movement that tends to make it hard  for you to get their back when they do it. The first is that they keep their outside arm straight and glued to the their side pointing to the feet. (Saulo keeps his elbow down, hand up, which has the same effect.) This means that if you do step over their back, they will have that arm on the inside of your leg, preventing you from getting good control and giving them an exit route. It goes without saying also that they do not merely "roll" to the side. Rather, they bridge and walk their feet out to the point that they are face to face with you. The farther away they are the harder for you to step over their back with your weight where you need it to be. Once they are out there, forget about the back, it's gone. But there is something you can do. Dominate their wrist, pass it over their head as they roll while you change your angle relative to his torso, and use it to keep him from continuing to turn. He will have a lot of weight in play (the rips being the body's  center of gravity) but if you keep the grip close to his neck, you can potentially keep him there forever. You could also grab the opposite side wrist or sleeve and avoid him to roll out. Leo Vieira uses this a lot, and he seems to know what he's doing. Obviously, you have to change your high grip, which would give space for him to turn in. Needless to say, every move has its time and place to do it, and success depends on how well you do it and how well your opponent can defend it. Timing is never unimportant. 

The running escape at first sight seems counter-intuitive. But you can be pretty sure these guys wouldn't be doing it if it didn't work a lot of the time. Nothing is out of the question in jiu-jitsu. Sooner or later someone will find a way to do everything. As Sylvio Behring said in 1999, about some other technique, "if you asked me that a few years ago I would have said it's impossible. Now guys are doing impossible things all the time." 

Master of Sweeps

Bolão is famous for his sweeps, and invented a lot of the sweeps that everyone takes for granted today. One sweep Bolão showed me I already knew. I learned it from a student of Rey Diogo. "Rey Diogo was my student", Bolão told me. Possibly I learned the sweep from someone who learned it from someone who learned it from Bolão. But it was cool to learn it again from Bolão. Bolão showed me a sweep that looked like Marcelo Garcia's X-guard sweep. "The what guard?" he asked, baffled. He hadn't heard of "X-guard", but he knew the sweep because he invented it when Marcelo Garcia was probably about five years old.  "Some people think de la Riva invented this sweep", he said, "but it was me." However, the sweep wasn't the sweep that I associate with de la Riva (which is actually a hook position that precedes a number of potential sweeps), but rather a set-up for a number of now familiar sweeps. It consists essentially of pushing the opponent's arm with your shin, lifting his belly with your other shin, and lifting his leg with your free arm. There are lots of variations as to what part of your leg you can push his arm with, or where you can apply to pressure (you can also use the back of your thigh on his deltoid).

Another sweep that has many variations is the one that Bolão sweeped Marcelo Behring with. In the photo sequence below, Bolão shows how it works.

Despite the fact that Marcelo was Rickson's top student and a legend in his own right, Marcelo was a simple, nice guy, says Bolão. Some guys get all weird when you beat them, Bolão says, but Marcelo just complimented Bolão on his game. "You're good fighter man," Marcelo said to Bolão, "let's get a suco". Bolão approves of that attitude. Competitions should be fun and for personal growth, not life or death tests of one's ultimate worth as a human being.  If you win, it's all good, be proud of your medal. If you lose, get a suco and start training for the next tournament. 

Bolão used to share an academy with UFC/ Pride veteran Murilo Bustamante.  Bolão took charge of the gi classes, while Murilo ran the no gi classes. After a while Murilo wanted to focus on his own MMA career so Bolão went off on his own and took about 180 students who wanted to train with gi. But then, lured by the promise of huge bucks, Bolão relocated to Pennsylvania to teach jiu-jitsu. His black belt Cazuza taught in his absence. Little by little his student base dwindled down to ten guys. Bolão attributed this to sensationalism in the press. Anytime anyone would get in a fight in a club or in the street, the papers would say they were jiu-jitsu fighters. The period 1997-2000 was a dark age for the popular image of jiu-jitsu. Bolão decided to return to Rio to reassemble his students. The money in the USA wasn't that good anyway, and the weather sucked, and you had to drive to get anywhere (in Copacabana you can walk to almost anywhere you need to be) and there wasn't anywhere to go anyway. It didn't seem to occur to Bolão that one reason that his students shrunk from 180 to 10 might have been that he was in Pennsylvania rather than Rio. But then again maybe not. Carlson's academy has not been short of students despite the fact that Carlson himself has had nothing to do with the academy for many many years. His name along, with the capacious facilities, convenient location, and expert teaching staff,  is enough to attract students.  In Rio, Bolão is almost as well known as Carlson. When I showed someone across town a picture of myself with Bolão, he said "oh, is that your professor? He's crazy", but quickly--very quickly and somewhat nervously--added  ".....but I like him."  Bolão's rebuilding effort is paying off. About 80 guys are training with him now, and most of them have black belts. Obviously, this is a good place to train if you are a brown belt. 

Why Bolão isn't More Famous?

If ever there was anyone who needed to make a DVD, it is Bolão. Not only is his knowledge of sweeps encyclopedic, but he is the one who invented most of them. Who better to teach them than the man who created them? "Why don't you make a DVD?" I asked Bolão. "Don't have sponsor" he answered. Which leads to the next question: Why doesn't Bolão have a sponsor? Someone in the DVD business. Making tapes is not difficult, as is shown by the fact that almost everyone makes them. Selling them of course is a different matter but depends largely on the reputation of the person on the cover of the box. Bolão has the reputation in Rio, but the market for tapes is in the USA, where Bolão is little known. Which leads to the next question: Why isn't Bolão, the creator of most of the sweeps that literally everyone does, not better known outside of Rio? One reason, possibly the sole reason, is that being well-known usually requires active self-promotion and Bolão does not actively promote himself. (After you are already well-known, a professional promoter--a "publicist"--can take on the job for a cut of the profits).   I suggested doing an interview with him. Bolão said, "I already did an interview before," implying that since the information was already out there somewhere, it wouldn't serve any useful purpose to repeat it. He recommended that I read the interview. It appeared in Black Belt Magazine, or was it Grappling Illustrated? He didn't remember which magazine. Anyway, it was some American magazine. When did it appear? "Oh man, a while ago, I don't remember." Bolão lacked the PR sense that made Rorion Gracie a rich man. Or even de la Riva's. De la Riva had the good luck to have bad knees and consequently had a leg position named after him. He didn't have to register the name or even actively promote it. Every time anyone does a de la Riva guard, de la Riva is getting free publicity. Bolão wasn't that lucky.  De la Riva also has a knack for PR, proactively meeting the press and even making himself available to obscure little internet sites like GTR. De la Riva is never too busy for an interview and doesn't mind repeating the same information a hundred times if necessary. He understands that with PR, unlike techniques and aspirin, more actually is better. Whatever is worth saying is worth saying again and usually has to be repeated many times before it sinks in. But Bolão is a little too modest for his own good, it seems. This is a genuine tragedy for the BJJ community. 

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

Faixas

Judging by some of the more popular internet forums, belts are an obsession with North Americans, and from my experience in Japan, jiu-jitsu belts (but not belts in karate or judo, where dan ratings rather than belt colors are more meaningful) are highly prized. But Brazilians, at least in Rio, do not care much about belts. There are two reasons. One is that belts are relatively easy to obtain. If you train alot and with the required intensity, in due course you will receive new belts. Jiu-jitsu is not quantum physics (although it might seem that way to most white belts, myself included 12 years ago). Everyone knows that if you train long enough, listen to what the professor says, and do what he tells you to do,  you will acquire the skills and then the belts to go with the skills. The requirements for belt promotions in Bolão's academy are based on (1) frequencia of training, (2) assidudade of training, and (3) competitions. Frequency means training regularly, which of course is subject to interpretation but might equal three days per week. Assiduity means training with focus, intensity, and balls, i.e., doing what everyone else is doing (they train hard here), ducking no one in sparring, not being too tired to roll, not making excuses, and basically performing at a level equal to others with the same belt color, and maybe a little better. Competitions are a way to test your courage, but Bolão acknowledges that some guys don't have jobs and can't afford the entrance fees, and other guys just don't care about winning medals. Or at least the value of the medal is not worth the stress and hassle of waiting for the matches to start (fighting is easy, waiting is hard). The second reason is that having a belt, even the coveted black belt, doesn't provide much prestige or economic advantage, because so many people already have them in Rio. You are not going to take your new black belt and open an academy in Rio, even if you win the gold medal in the Mundial. There are simply too many well-established academies in Rio with professors who have accomplished more than you probably ever will. Now if you are ready to set up shop in a foreign country that would be a different story, but most Brazilians do not plan to do that. And even in this case, making an economic success of it requires much more than a belt and some medals. So, in short, Brazilians focus more on the day to day training and less on the belts. Belts will happen when it is time for them to happen, like most other things. Bolão makes this even more clear by scheduling a "new belt" day once a year, after than Mundial of Masters and Seniors in August. The rest of the year no one wastes time obsessing  about belts. At the same time, everyone knows that with consistent effort and diligence, their time will come and they can pretty much predict when it will happen too. The key is consistent and assiduous  effort--otherwise known as "training hard".  Other academies have different, but similar,  policies. I asked Alan Moraes, professor at the Carlson Gracie Academy, located a few blocks down the road on the corner of Rua Figueiredo de Magalhaes and Rua Silva Castro. A group of juvenil white belts were training, one rolling with an adult  blue belt, and seemed to be about equal in skill. I asked Alan how long the white belt had been training. "Six months," he said. What does he need for have blue belt? I asked. Alan explained, when a white belt shows an interest in jiu-jitsu by asking questions and training everyday, and entering competitions, then he is ready for a blue belt. Do you award belts on a particular day of the year, like Bolão (who formerly taught at the Carlson academy and who Alan knew well) does, he replied "sometimes but not always." I asked other professors the same question. No one mentioned particular skills, techniques, or demonstrating dominance over lower belts. Belts are awarded based on commitment to the art. It is simply taken for granted that with the right sort of training, and enough of it, the skills will be acquired.  Some professors have special days for awarding new belts--Oswaldo Alves did for example--while others just award belts when the student is "ready." When he student is ready is a more or less intuitive judgment. No one as far as I could tell had anything like a checklist of techniques that a student needed to know in order to be promoted to any particular belt. 

Concerning competitions, Bolão (and everyone else) realizes that some medals mean more than others. If you beat the four best adult black belts in the world at that time, that means something that beating the two super senior blue belts who happened to show up doesn't mean. (You could also win a gold medal and hence be a world champion if your category has only one opponent and even if that opponent doesn't show up for the fight!). But in each case it means that you had the balls to do it, and that is an important purpose of competing, whether you medal or not. Competing does not necessarily make your jiu-jitsu better, it makes it different.  I was watching two juvenil white belts practicing some complicated de la Riva and X-guard positions. at Carlson Academy.  I expressed some surprise that white belts were working on these moves when more basic moves might seem more appropriate. "They want to compete," their professor Alan explained, "when you compete you have to train differently." Naturally, business managers of academies like students to compete because competitions motivate people to train, even if they personally aren't competing, and also because medals are a form of advertising. Carlson knew this well. During the 80's epoch, he let the guys who competed pay half price, according to Bolão.

"Jiu-Jitsu is just Common Sense"

As Bolão says, jiu-jitsu is just "common sense." Of course it doesn't always seem that way when you are getting started. And might not seem that way for a long time. All expert knowledge is like that. As Bruce Lee said, after you are good enough, a punch is just a punch. Similar ideas are offered by Franz Kafka in The Trial, in the chapter in which Joseph K. discovers that all the time he was trying to figure out how to get through the heavily guarded  door to the room where he would be able to learn what crimes he had been charged with, he had been free to walk through it any time he wanted to. Or by the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, Doogen, who said--this is my paraphrase---"once you figure  out what's it's all about, you realize that it wasn't about anything" although what that means is open to interpretation (one interpretation is that it means that a lot of things, usually the big things, can't be figured out so don't waste time trying).  I had suffered the problem of training with guys (not in Rio of course) who insist of being on top and  stay crouched down low, with arms tucked tightly in like a threatened snail, in  my guard without making the risks necessary to pass, rendering the training pointless. You can't sweep someone who refuses to pass or attack. I had devised a way to force them back out to their knees, where they don't want to be because they might have to play guard themselves, which they don't want to do. My solution was basic common sense: Take a thumb down grip high in their collar, frame against their neck, while escaping my hip back into sitting or one knee up position. You can grab their pants with your free hand and possibly put them on their back too, if they don't scramble out fast enough. "That's a good way,"  Bolão said, "but here's a better way." I acted the part of the the guy stalling on top.  Bolão just laid there doing nothing. I said "you aren't stopping me from stalling." He said, "I don't need to, the ref will penalize you and you'll lose the fight" (which happens in the Mundial--Marcelo Garcia won his first fight because his opponent did what I just described above). He went on, "you can also look at the ref and say ' hey ref, look at this guy, he doesn't want to fight.'" "But I'm not talking about competition" I said, "I'm talking about training."  Bolão looked baffled. Why would anyone do something like this in training? What would be the point? I had to explain that, sadly, pathetically, tragically, some people do this despite the fact that even they probably know that there is no point in doing it. Why, I don't know; it is one of those things that Doogen said not to try to figure out. But they do it.  Bolão's solution was again common sense in action: "If they don't want to train,  train with someone else." You can't train with someone who doesn't want to train.  

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

The Linear Function Fallacy 

Having gone to school in the USA, training jiu-jitsu while there in 1994-95, and having many American friends, I know that many jiu-jitsu students are eager to advance up the ranks and be better than most other people, which is a general tendency of North Americans, according to psychologists. And of course they are not surrounding with black belts, like you would be in almost any academy in Rio. So North Americans buy a lot of tapes and CDs, and DVDs to learn the new and spectacular techniques of their herois and idols. And so they know and try a lot of techniques. But Brazilians don't have the excess money for tapes, and don't need them anyway. All the techniques on the tapes are being done by someone in the same room, who will show them for free. More importantly, Brazilians are not interested in knowing ten thousand different techniques. Unless they are teachers, they don't need to. What they concentrate on is developing a "game," that is, a group of techniques that work for them and that work well together. One reason Brazilians are good is that they spend most of their training time perfecting relatively few techniques rather than incessantly trying to  learn  new techniques. This is also why professors don't teach many techniques in a class. Bolão would typically teach between zero and two  techniques. On the four or five times I visited his academy, de la Riva taught the same  one technique (a basic back escape) every day and his assistant instructor Vincente Junior taught no techniques to his class. Carlson's highest ranking student Rosado, whose academy is located at Av. N. S. Sr. de Copacabana 450, 2 andar, taught no techniques in the adult class, and Alan at Carlson Gracie Academy taught only the greenest beginners the most basic movements.  I am not implying that anyone is holding anything back. Rather, professors teach what the students need to know when they need to know it. And also if they need to learn it from the professor, if for example he is the only one who possesses the relevant knowledge. Such situations are rare and when they occur are brief.  Every black belt by definition has a wealth of knowledge and it is impossible that any one man knows everything that there is to know and that no one knows anything that he doesn't already know. Logically guys can, and observation shows that they do, learn from other guys. Sometimes higher belts learn new moves from lower belts. No one cares where the techniques come from.  By the time someone has been training 10 years they (1) know a lot and (2) know how to learn whatever else they need to know or can use to bring their game up to a new level. It is assumed that a blue belt knows the basics and blue belts take about 6 months to earn, given about 3 days a week of quality training. In addition, people have different personalities and body types so they also have different games with different needs and potentials for evolution. A one-size fits-all class approach couldn't begin to be adequate.

Of course, when the students are young, the professors teach them in the more traditional manner, but with a Carioca twist. Adult beginners are not common. I saw a few, but the majority of beginners are children. Rosado teaches a children's class two nights a week,  and Saporito has for many years been teaching kids  at Carlson's. Professors also weigh whether the technique is best taught to the class as a whole or simply suggested to the one guy who happens to need it at the time. Professors do not invent new techniques every day just to have something new to teach. For one thing, if most of the latest 20 variations  can be stopped with one simple basic defense, people have incentives to learn the one defense rather than the 20 variations--unless they are making a video for sales in the USA or Japan. If someone does somehow come up with or find something new  (as Rolls is said to have rediscovered the triangle in an old judo book, according to his student Romero Jacare Cavalcanti, even though it was introduced to Helio by a visiting judoca many years before) it spreads very quickly. I saw de la Riva's assistant instructor Vincente Junior training and sharing techniques with the white, blue, and purple belts at Carlson's Academy--his friend Alan Moraes teaches there--and several times I met Alan hanging out at de la Riva's Academy. Sometimes guys from Carlson train at Bolão's. Of course, they are all descendents of Carlson and part of the same unofficial  network. I did not see any guys from Barra, Alliance, or Humaita there but from Bolão I gathered that that could be more a matter of locations and personal friendships than any team's attempt to maintain secrecy. In other words, the professor is sort of the organizing factor and guiding inspiration around whom the other guys gather. He is not expected to be the sole source of all knowledge or to be able to kick everyone's ass every time in sparring (in fact, I did not see a professor sparring with a student with the very occasional exception of an assistant professor who was still actively competing sparring with a beginner student. Brazilians do not have illusions about the invincibility or infinite perfectability of technique. Which is why when Royce's cousin Reyson heard that Royce was supposed to fight Mark Kerr back around 1999, Reyson snorted disdainfully,"ridiculo".) 

Brazilians believe in lots of sparring. They know that knowing  one technique that you can do well is better than knowing a thousand from all the latest DVDs that you can't do and will never be able to do, and possibly the guy who made the tape doesn't even do (he just needed material for the tape). Training in Rio is more like boxing or wrestling training in  the USA: relatively few techniques, but dialed in very well, lots of  physical conditioning, and lots of sparring to develop the sensitivity to the opponent, without which it is all nothing more than gist for an Inside Kung Fu article.

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

After purple belt in a Rio academy most of what you  learn comes from your own experience and analysis of what is and what isn't working for you, with input from  the other guys, rather than directly from the professor, who is there to assist when needed but does not attempt to micromanage anyone's training or to keep them dependent on him. For this reason Bolão says that the most important thing you need to do to learn jiu-jitsu is to have a good relationship with the people you train with. That doesn't require more than common sense: Say hello when you come in, goodbye when you leave, and wash your quimono when it needs it. For some people, this provides a useful incentive to develop valuable social skills that will extend to and enhance other areas of life in civil society. In this way, jiu-jitsu can contribute to personal growth, just as the routines and rituals of a traditional judo curriculum, such as is practiced by Mehdi,  promote self-control and self-discipline. I did five privates with Bolão and learned a lot, but I learned almost as much after the class from the brown and black belts (Chico, Big Ricardo, Little Ricardo, Cazuza, Bruno and a couple other guys whose names I'm sorry to say I thought I would easily remember but obviously don't). Big Ricardo and Little Ricardo were especially helpful in solving particular problems and uncomplainingly cooperated while I did many repetitions of what must have seemed to them basic movements. Chico was one on occasion considerate enough to choke me with a choke that Bolão had just minutes before taught me during one of my privates. "That's the choke Bolão taught you before," Chico reminded me. "Yes, I remember it well," I said, and then added, "by the way, what is the defense?", which Chico then showed me. This is how people learn jiu-jitsu in Rio. Eventually, I began to make some progress. Jiu-jitsu is not quantum physics, but is not like falling off a log either, when what you have to figure out is how to get your arms free when  a guy with strong grips holds your both sleeves, and posts his feet on your hip bone or in your antecubital fossa. This has always been my least favorite position to be in, which is probably why so many guys did it, but here too I began to see light at the end of the tunnel. To my embarrassment, none of them had any problem quickly clearing my grips when I attempted this position.  Live and learn.

Herois and Lendas

To a rock guitar player, Stevie Ray Vaughan was the second coming of Hendrix, and Hendrix was the human incarnation of God. But for someone who knew Steve Vaughan before he became Stevie Ray Vaughan, like GTR's Roberto Pedreira did when he was student at the University of Texas at Austin from 1977-1980, he was an inarticulate, socially awkward, academically challenged, adolescent kid with gnarly  teeth and a bad complexion.....who just happened to play the guitar extremely well (and eventually learned to sing well too). No matter how famous someone like that becomes, it is hard to idolize them. The public image and the known reality are too disparate. The same might be said of jiu-jitsu herois and legends too. Those who seem to us bigger than life don't necessarily seem that way to the guys who came up the ranks with them, or possibly even taught them. To us someone might seem to be a genius on the mat. To someone who knew them better, they are just another guy who does the basics the way they are supposed to be done. Sometimes people will contribute to the glorification of someone else because it serves their own interest to do it. If you are a musician who played with Charlie Parker, it is to your benefit to promote Charlie Parker. Merit accrues to you by association. There is a certain element of mystification and fabrication in most recollections and assessments of famous people. But Bolão is a person who is incapable of  subterfuge or prevarication. If you ask him a straight question about someone, you will get a straight answer. (Bolão's father was a judge, so perhaps he taught Bolão the value of truthfulness.) In such case, it sometimes happens that feelings get hurt, grudges are held, and people regret what they said, true though it may have been. So GTR is not going to report any critical things that Bolão said about anyone--he did have high praise for Oswaldo Alves though. When I told him that I had met Alves a few days before, he said "Alves is a great professor." Mehdi's name too came up a few times and he was always spoken of respectfully. But when I mentioned wanting to interview another well known professor from Alves' generation, Bolão  just asked "why?", seeming to imply that there would be nothing valuable to earn from him. When I said that I wanted to meet a certain Carlson graduate, who I will call X, Bolão, looking puzzled, asked why. I said it was because I had heard from Mario Sperry (Bolão's team mate during the 80's) that he, X, had invented a certain technique that is now part of the repertoire of everyone's bottom game. I wanted to ask him, "how did you come up with this  move?" Bolão sort of grimaced and  said "I don't think so" with an intonation that meant "not!" Possibly Zé Mario was attempting to boost a friends' career (which, rumor has it, needs boosting) by publicly crediting him with the invention of what is now a classic technique. When I mentioned a well-known competidor that I had met in 1999, Bolão surprised me with his opinion that the competidor had "no technique."  He seemed to have plenty of technique when I rolled with him, but then, my assessment as a blue belt in 1999 and Bolão's assessment might have been different. Most of the people who I regarded as legends, Bolão regarded as just ordinary guys who trained jiu-jitsu long enough to become pretty good at it. After all, it isn't quantum physics. 

Capital Cafe: An Unexpected Encounter with Darrell Gholar

It was a cold and rainy night before my match in the International  Masters & Seniors Championship, Saturday August 26. I compete, occasionally, primarily for pragmatic reasons but I also  like seeing how I'll react under pressure. No one actually knows in advance how they will react under pressure (freeze, freak out, focus, flee, etc.) and this is crucial information to have when you formulate a self-defense plan. Because the best plan won't work if you can't do it when you need to (also when the enemy doesn't react the way you expect him to when you try to "shock and awe" him). Competing is not the same as self-defense  and your reactions are not the same so competing is not preparation for self-defense. Your endocrine activity before a stressful event is not the same as it is during the event. But competing can tell you something about yourself anyway. For example, if you suffer excruciatingly from performance anxiety, it is helpful to know that, and it is valuable to find out what you will do in such a case. Do you look for a pretext to  wimp out? Do you freeze once the performance begins? Do you click into a different emotional mode and perform effectively despite the previous anxiety? Knowing how you will react under stress and pressure is not merely incidental knowledge, but on the contrary is essential; your combat plans are meaningless without it. Similarly, cutting lots of weight and developing aerobic capacity that you can't maintain makes sense only if the purpose of your activity is to win a medal and in that case you have to ask yourself why you want the medal. What you can do when you are in competition condition is not what you can do when you are in walking around condition. Of course, if you are a professional athlete, you have no choice but to be in shape. For other people, it makes more sense to try to be in good condition that you can maintain under the conditions of your real life but not the superb condition that you can get into only with supreme effort and sacrifice and then can't maintain when your competition career wraps. Some professors, like Sylvio Behring,  recommend to "compete if you like to compete, don't compete if you don't like to." Others think it is important to compete even if you don't like to, just as it is good to study and diet even though you'd rather watch teenage lesbian nude mud wrestling while sucking down copious quantities of Duff beer between handfuls of pork rinds and Cheetos.

So it happened that on Friday August 25 I walked over to the lanchonete Capital Cafe a block across Av. N. S. Copacabana on Rua Paul Freitas, as was my nightly custom. Sitting at the counter facing the sidewalk, eating bean soup, drinking Skol beer, and  singing a Brazilian pop song with energetic abandon was a heavily muscled male who I had seen somewhere before but couldn't quite at the moment remember where.  I took up my usual spot at the counter which happened to be next to where he was sitting and asked him, "speak English?" "Yes, I do," he answered. And then I remembered where I had seen him. It was on the Darrell Gholar wrestling tapes. He was Darrell Gholar. He lives around the corner on Av. Atlantico with his ballerina dancer girlfriend, who was on tour in China at the time. "I'm a big fan of your material" I said, honestly and with no greater than normal intent to flatter.  He said "thanks." I said "it seems like it wouldn't hurt a lot of jiu-jitsu guys  to study your material more."  "I think so too," he said. Of course, he was in Rio teaching stand up to the Brazilian Top Team. I ordered a Skol beer. "You like Skol?" I somewhat redundantly asked (because he was drinking Skol).  "It's like water, but better than Brahma and Antarctica." I couldn't disagree with him there. "I'm almost embarrassed to say," I said as I took a sip of my own Skol, "that I'm competing in the Mundial tomorrow." He raised his eyebrows. "But the match isn't until 6:00" I said "and it's just one fight." I don't believe in changing my routine merely for a single match and my previous competition performances had never been noticeably affected by a beer or two  the night before. "Well, you'll have enough time to recover if it's 6:00", he said. In due course, the counter guy, well familiar with my habit, brought over another Skol without my asking for one. Now Darrell was a little more surprised. "No problem" I explained, "I did this before in 2002 and won a national title. Like you said, Skol is more like water than beer anyway." He offered to buy me a shot of whisky. I declined the offer. "I was testing you" he said. 

"Are you ready for the contest?" he asked. "Yes I am" I answered, "but nervous." "I'll tell you the secret to dealing with nerves," he said. Just keep telling yourself, "this is a sport. I'm doing it because I like it." That was good advice, although it didn't help me--I wasn't doing it because I liked it. To clarify, I like the competition, but I don't like the waiting.  The plus of the fight is not equal to the minus of the waiting; there has to be another reason to make the equation balance out. That other reason  could be a medal. It could be making your coach happy. It could be finding out how you perform under pressure. It could be just having had the experience of competing internationally.  It could be all of the above, as it was for me, and I learned something useful, although probably obvious--you fight the way you train. In my previous competitions I tended to be too cautious probably because that was the way I  trained. Since then, inspired by BJ Penn's fight with Escobar, Margarida in general, and later by Marcelo Garcia,  I adopted a more active, aggressive, open game, and despite my pre-fight jitters this is basically how I performed. So I was encouraged by that. You really do fight the way you train. The automaticity of the training overwhelms even sources of anxiety that are rooted deep in the brain. This suggests that other types of anxiety can also be addressed by skills training that emphasize automatic responses rather than intellectual understanding. The things you can learn from jiu-jitsu!

Being a Greco-Roman  wrestler, and a successful one at the elite level (6-0 against Randy Couture, for example) Darrell would be the one to talk to about upper body tie ups, which is one of my favorite topics, since it applies equally to striking and to grappling. Good clinch technique makes everything else possible, yet paradoxically is relatively neglected outside of Greco-Roman and Muay Thai. Possibly because to the novice it doesn't look impressive enough. You just hug the guy, right? Nothing could be farther from the truth (see "Clinch" link at end of this article for some insights into the science of the Muay Thai clinch).  Strikers in VTs could learn a lot from Greco wrestlers, I thought aloud. I mean, if you have two good underhooks, there isn't much a man can do to hurt you. Darrell agreed. The only problem I said, would be when you punch the guy, then you have to give him the chance to get his own double underhooks. "No you don't" Darrell　disagreed. I was skeptical. "Wrestlers grow up with their elbows glued to their sides. Beginning wrestlers use belts to get used to keeping their elbows close to their ribs." That made sense (boxers also need to keep their elbows in and Ringside.com sells contraptions that force them to do it). The defense against any Muay Thai clinch technique and probably against any off-balancing techniques in any grappling art, is plain old good posture, which includes keeping your elbows down and tight. But if you punch you have to extend your arms, which gives the opponent a chance to seize the underhooks. "No," he more emphatically disagreed. "I have a technique for punching where you will NOT give any space for the man to get underhooks." "That's something I want to see," I said, "you should put it on your next tapes." "I will never put that on any tape," Darrell replied. 

Darrell is an outgoing, friendly, accessible guy, open to conversation on many subjects. To me, talking with Darrell Gholar would be like  meeting Bertrand Russell and having the chance to talk about the foundations of  mathematics or Dizzy Gillespie and asking about how he (along with Charlie Parker) developed Bebop music. Opportunities like this don't happen often. The subject of fight strategy came up. I mentioned a conversation I had with Bas Rutten around 1998 when Bas was trying to talk his way into a mega money match with Rickson Gracie. I had asked Bas what his training was for the fight if it ever happened. A lot of ground fighting no doubt? Bas said he didn't think it was likely that he could learn enough fast enough to do him much good against Rickson on the ground. So what was he training then? "Getting off the ground" he replied. In other words, not fighting on the ground but getting back to where he can be effective. " Rutten said that? "Darrell asked.  I'm not sure what he thought about Bas' strategy but it seemed smart to me. Around that same time, Mark Kerr wanted to fight Rickson and his training partner Ricco Rodriguez explained Mark's game plan to me. Kerr knows he can take Rickson down and Rickson can't take Kerr down, and Kerr knows that Rickson also knows this. Rickson wants to be on the ground so the only way that will happen is if Kerr takes him there. Rickson naturally won't resist this and indeed will encourage it. He will almost certainly end up with Kerr in his guard.  Rickson would rather be on top but against Kerr he knows it isn't going to happen. So no doubt he is working on his bottom game. Kerr knows this too, because he is training with Ricco, Bas, and Marco Ruas. So what is Kerr going to do to win the fight? "He's going to try to knock Rickson out standing" Ricco said. Darrell arched his eyebrow and said nothing. I don't know what he thought about Kerr's plan. I did not ask him about Mario Sperry's fights with Yuuki Kondo or Kosaka. Sometimes a bad result happens because of a bad plan, other times because the opponent won't let you execute your plan or has a better plan. George Foreman used to explain his fight strategy as "draw back and knock the sucka out." Simple as it was, it had always worked. Then he went to Zaire. 

As I was leaving, Darrell, recognizing my keen interest in upper body tie ups, invited me to visit the training at the Brazilian Top Team Academy. I asked for the address. "I don't remember but everyone knows where it is, just ask anyone where AABB is." Darrell was wrong. Everyone didn't know. But his assumption that they would is shared by other BTT guys. I met two of them at the Mundial and they both told me the same thing, that they didn't remember the address but that everyone knows where it is, just ask anyone. Unfortunately Darrell would be off to Japan the next week and I did not have time enough to find someone who both knew the address and could tell me what it was. (However I accidentally discovered the address after returning to Japan so I will visit for sure next summer).

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

Ricardo de la Riva

Other than Gracie, no name is better known outside of Brazil than de la Riva's. As expected, there were a lot of American white, blue, and purple belts training there, along with plenty of Brazilians of all colors, but predominately brown and black.  Classes are offered  four times a day Monday through Friday's at de la  Riva's academy in the Equipe 1 Fitness Center on Av. N. S. Sr. de Copacabana. The first day I visited, de la  Riva was late for the 4:00 class but would arrive in 10 minutes, Vincente Junior, who was substituting, told me. I suspected that de la Riva would not show up at all that day, which was the pattern generally when a professor was late. Prof. de la Riva in fact didn't show up, but I watched anyway and it turned out to be much like the other four classes that I watched when de la Riva did show up, except that fewer people were there that day. There was one black belt, one brown belt, three purple belts, two blue belts, and one white belt. Two of the guys (one blue, one purple) were from the USA. The training consisted of 5 minutes of running, some stretching, lots of ab work, and then sparring (no positions). Sparring was for 10 minutes. Guys rest when they want to. Sparring went on until 5:15. Vincente sparred once with a blue belt. Professors do not typically spar indiscriminately with students, but no doubt they have people to spar with who are appropriate to spar with if they need sparring. Vincente for example is still young and competes, so he spars with guys who can help him get ready for jiu-jitsu fights. I did not see de la  Riva spar but if he does I suspect it is with other people near his own rank. Neither on this day nor the other four days I observed sparring at de la Riva did anyone attempt to do the de la Riva Guard, with one exception, and he was one of the white belts. Prof. de la Riva apparently is not teaching a lot of specialized guard techniques and sweeps. In fact, I could detect no difference at all between the games of the guys at de la Riva, Carlson and Bolão. Everyone had pretty similar games, with allowances for body type of course, and no one played the de la Riva guard game to any great extent.  But that's the way jiu-jitsu should be. Everyone finds their own game. Jiu-Jitsu is eclectic, accommodating guys as different as Wallid and de la Riva and everyone between.

Carlson Gracie Academy

The original Carlson Gracie Academy, still located where Carlson first started it when he and Helio went their separate ways in 1968, smack dab in the middle of Copacabana, would be an excellent place to train. Classes are offered five times a day, Monday through Friday, from 7:30 in the morning to 10:00 at night, plus a kids class (6-7 p.m.), and a kickboxing  class (apparently for kids, no adults were participating). Alan Moraes is one of the the professors (Saporito teaches the kids; Fernando teaches kickboxing). Alan has never been out of Brazil, but he speaks very well  English. He learned just by talking to all the foreigners who come to the Carlson Academy. Now with  29 years of old, Alan  has been training jiu-jitsu since he had 14 years, and teaching at the academy since 2001. His own teachers were Carlson's students Marcelo Alonso and Ricardo Liborio. Alan regrettably never had a chance to meet Carlson but regards him as the greatest fighter in Brazilian history. The academy was two short blocks from my apartment so I checked out the afternoon classes when I had time. The first time I showed up, Vincente Junior was there training. He told me that he was an assistant under de la Riva, and a friend of Alan's so they got together often to exchange notes. Vincente was sharing some difficult looking butterfly moves (warning: major flex required). Is it common for guys to train at other peoples academies, I asked Alan. It depends, he said. In this case, de la Riva was of course a student of Carlson, and Alan and Vincente are friends, and the two academies are just a few steps away from each other, so why not? Alan often popped into de la Riva's academy to shoot the breeze after his own  3:00-4:30 class finished. It was de la Riva who made the guard popular in jiu-jitsu, Alan told me. Before that, the guard was just a way to survive if you had to be on bottom. After de la Riva, the guard was a complete game with thousands of permutations and variations of both attack and defense, and ways to reconfigure the juxtapositions of forces (in regular English, i.e., sweeps and inversions). When I first met Alan, he asked me if I trained. I said I did and that in fact was why I was in Rio, since the beaches in Thailand are just as nice and a lot closer. He asked me how long I had been training. I said, 12 years, more or less. He asked me where I trained. It's a long story, I explained, (read GTR for details) but I started at Rickson's academy on Pico  in 1994 or 1995. Rickson was not teaching regularly at that time but he did, while watching me on my very first day of grappling training, from the corner of the mat, use body language to teach me a great move that I have been using effectively ever since. So in a sense, Rickson Gracie was my first jiu-jitsu teacher, even though I enjoyed exactly two lessons with him personally. "So you must be a black belt by now?" Alan asked. In a perfect world, or in Rio, that might be true, I answered, but I did not live in a perfect world or in Rio, most of the time. "Rickson prepared for his fight with Zulu in this room," Alan told me. When  he needed to get ready for the fight of his career (Rickson himself says)-- Zulu at that time was a veritable monster, according to first hand observers--Rickson sought out his cousin Carlson,  Rickson is the greatest fighter in Brazil, Alan said---after Carlson.

Rosado

Anyone who can say they tapped Rickson Gracie, even in training, is either exaggerating, joking, lying, or a very formidable fighter. Rosado never said that he tapped Rickson. I heard that from someone else. This was said to have happened when Rickson was preparing for his fight with Zulu. Rickson was training at Carlson's academy and Rosado was helping him. At some point during the training, Rosado tapped Rickson. Of course, that could mean anything or it could mean nothing, assuming it happened at all. It depends on what training they were doing and with what objectives. But it is testimony to the power of the myth [mito] of Rickson that even a vague rumor of someone having once under ambiguous conditions tapped him can serve as a mark of distinction. When I visited Rosado's academy, I didn't bring the subject up. I didn't really care what happened in training. Rosado is the "maior graduação da escola Carlson Gracie de jiu-jitsu." When I peeked in during the afternoon before training time earlier that week, I saw a speed bag and lots of boxing gear. I expected Rosado to be teaching the kind of guys with tattoos who walk around with  pitbulls on leashes (Carlson's logo after all was two pitbulls snarling at each other--see photo above). But in fact, Rosado is focusing on bringing up the new generation. Kids seem to be his specialty, and his kids' classes are well attended--lots of energetic kids, their upper middle and above class parents watching carefully as their offspring learn the essential skills for surviving in a cruel cold world. Rosado has a talent for motivating kids. One drill he had them doing was jumping through a rope being swung from both ends by Rosado and a white belt adolescent assistant. The kids jumped through in a single file line. Whoever missed was out and the last kid remaining was the champion. The last kid seemed to be the youngest, at least he was the smallest. But he persevered and came out on top. Rosado encouraged the other kids to give him a round of warm applause. The kids seemed too young to actually maintain their focus long enough to do any real jiu-jitsu, but by way of the rope jumping game, they learned valuable lessons in sticking at a difficult task, and in team spirit. Those would be useful in their later jiu-jitsu career.

Rosado was concerned that some of the pictures I took showed him leaning against the wall while coaching the class. He thought it might create the impression that he was unconscientious. But on the contrary, not knocking yourself out any more than you have to is a Carioca obsession. Work hard when you have to, take it easy when you can. Working for the sake of working is not a positive virtue in Brazil and does not demonstrate that one has been pre-chosen by God for salvation and a choice beach front spot in heaven. Leaning against the wall while standing was actually more strenuous activity than most other professors felt obliged to do. Most leaned while sitting, or laid down, saving their energy for when it was actually needed. Walking around  checking everyone's form, or whatever, just seems excessively nurturing and intrusive--too East Asian maybe. For kids maybe, but for adult Brazilians with  several years of grappling experience, it isn't appreciated. They know what they need to do and the professors let them do it.

Si Deus Quiser

In  America two things have traditionally been  certain, death and taxes (it was Ben Franklin, Bill Clintonesque in his taste for young hotties, who first said it; Ben also proposed that the plump, dorky isolationist North American turkey, rather than the fierce, aggressive, world-policing, regime-changing bald eagle, be the national bird. Needless to say, Ben's suggestion was ignored). In Brazil taxes are not certain and in fact are usually avoided. No one in favelas pays taxes (partly because they don't have any money but also because who would be crazy enough to go up there to try to collect them? After all, even the police don't go up there unless it's with all barrels blazing away, and you can't collect taxes from bullet-riddled bodies).  Nor do the richest people pay taxes, and  on the contrary take the taxes, in the form of rents and  subsidies, that anyone else is unable to avoid paying. Death however is reasonably certain, and goes  along with another Brazilian certainty of life, at least in Rio, which is that bus drivers will not stop, slow down, or swerve to avoid running over anyone unlucky or foolish enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cariocas often willingly put themselves in the wrong  places--e.g., the middle of a busy one way street when the light is red. This in turn is related to a defining characteristic of the Brazilian mentality, the idea that things happen or don't happen depending on what God wants to happen (si Deus quiser). So it's ok to cross Av. N. S. de Copacabana against the light.  If God wants you to get to the other side safely, you will get there. Otherwise---well, everyone has to go sometime. You can avoid taxes if you have connections, but no one has the connections to avoid the Grim Reaper forever. So why waste precious time standing there waiting for a light to change when you could be across the street 30 seconds sooner? One sunny Sunday afternoon, I watched a guy in a wheelchair crossing Copacabana at Paula Freitas, with three buses barreling down from a half block away. He had it timed so that he would make it across---if nothing went wrong. And if God wanted nothing to go wrong, nothing would. Another time on a Sunday around dusk I was at a lachonete at Paula Freitas and Barato Ribeiro. A tall skinny middle aged guy, hands in pockets, was nonchalantly taking his time crossing the street against a red light, when he noticed a bus careening toward him, clearly not slowing down at all. He quickly sprinted to safety on the other side. When he got there, I recognized him: It was Ricardo de la Riva. Brazilian Bus drivers do not stop even for famous jiu-jitsu professors. If Jesus Christ himself were resurrected (again), a bus driver, if he recognized the Savior, might slow down  As always, don't bet more than you can afford to lose.

Concluding Comments

Time and circumstance did not permit GTR to visit academies in Ipanema, Leblon, or anywhere other than Copacabana. There are too many academies in Rio for one person even to visit let alone train at in a mere seven weeks time. Nevertheless, there are clearly an abundance of training options available within the compact Copacabana area. You can walk from one end (approximately Av. Princesa Isabel) to the other (approximately Rua Francisco Sa), in roughly 45 minutes. Along the way you could pass by (some without knowing it, because they don't have signs out front) the academies of Oswaldo Alves, Rosado Jiu-Jitsu, Carlson, de la Riva, Jiu-Jitsu no CIB, Alliance (Clube de Lutas), Jiu-Jitsu Fabrico, Jiu-Jitsu Strauch, and Corpo Quatro (Bolão), and there are probably others hosted by the many fitness centers in the area (as is de la Riva's). There are also judo (Oswaldo Simoes on Barata Ribeiro, and in the Equipe 1 Fitness Center where de la Riva teaches) and Krav Maga (on Av. Copacabana) academies, and doubtless others that are not visible from the outside (Helio Vigio reportedly has an academy in Copacabana). So you are not going to lack good training opportunities in Copacabana. Of course, Ipanema and Leblon are more upscale, and Barra even more so, if that's your preference, and there is no shortage of academies there too. For sure, a little of Copacabana goes a long way. It is noisy and crowded. That goes with the "movimento" that Brazilians like. Despite seeming rougher at the edges, Copacabana is probably as safe as the swankier areas. People who have seen Cidade de Deus will probably have the impression that Rio is a dangerous place. It has been and can be. According to World Health Organization stats, Brazil is the fourth most dangerous country on earth to be in, in terms of risk for being murdered (in case you are wondering, Columbia is most dangerous, Japan the least, and the USA ranks between Cuba and Trinidad & Tobago). But obviously, the prevalence of homicide is not evenly distributed throughout a country. Your actual risk will depend on where you go and what you do. In Copacabana, the greatest danger is from the buses, not drug gangs or street criminals. 

Epilogue

One of my ambitions on the GTR 2006 Update trip to Rio was to meet another of Oswaldo Alves' top students, Fredson Paixão, World Champion in the black belt division and famous for his wrist-locks, which unfortunately have been basically ignored in jiu-jitsu, despite their proven self-defense effectiveness. But Fredson wasn't in Rio. He was in Japan. As fate had it though, when I returned to Japan, Fredson was still there and I happened to meet him. I showed him the anti-stalling moves that I had shown to Bolão. Fredson asked, "Is it supposed to work against a strong guy?" I answered, "yes, against anyone who is stalling in this way." "If he's really strong, and if he knows what you are doing, it might not work," he replied. He offered to demonstrate. It was true, I could not do it without making a little more space, which I couldn't do without opening my legs. And when I opened my legs, he was over one of them with 100 quilos and 3 passing points on the scoreboard. That's what the staller is waiting for and gambling will happen. As described above, Bolão had a better way to deal with stallers. Fredson also had a better way. Fredson's better way involved about 14 mão de vaca (gooseneck wrist lock) variations, which are one of his specialties. These work well with or without gi and from almost any position the staller can stall from. Fredson should make a DVD. 

Fredson asked me how long I had been training jiu-jitsu. "About 12 years, more or less," I answered. "That's more than I have been training" he said. I looked at his belt, then looked at my belt and conceded that my first four or five years, most of which was spent either in the USA or Japan, had been "slow." Why was that, Fredson asked. Because my teachers didn't teach much I said, or so it seemed to me after training in Rio where the only limit on how much you can learn is how much you want to learn. And also because my training was limited to three hours a week due to the high cost of training in Los Angeles at that time (160.00 $US per month for three hours per week). Fredson laughed. They want to make money, he said, they being the Brazilian teachers in the USA and Japan. You can't blame them for that of course. It is less that jiu-jitsu teachers in Rio don't want to make money (I personally believe they want to make money) but that it is hard to make money in Brazil.  The reason isn't because Brazilians can't pay. The Brazilians who want to learn jiu-jitsu can and do pay and though it isn't much by American standards, neither is the cost of living in Brazil. The real reason is  obvious when you look at a map of the south zone of Rio. There is a famous academy on every block, and sometimes several academies on the same block. Just as you can stall the fight, you can also stall the teaching. But you can't stall the teaching when next door there is an equally illustrious professor teaching. If even one professor decides he wants medal winners, then a knowledge race will ensue. And that is exactly what happened in Rio de Janeiro.

*********

Below: Original 1999 GTR A Arte Suave articles about people and places described above.

Bolao

Bolao's web site: http://www.bolaojiujitsu.com/http:/

De la Riva

Carlson Academy

George Mehdi

More about George Mehdi here and here

Fabricio

Kiko Velozo

Alexandre Paiva

Original Gracie Academy on Rio Branco, Centro

Sylvio Behring Corpo Quatro

Self-defense training with Romero Jacare Cavalcanti at Alliance

Aloisio Silva, Dojo Jiu-Jitsu

Sergio Penha content is in the Dojo Jiu-Jitsu article

Rickson talks about Sergio Penha here

Upper Body Tie Ups & Muay Thai Clinch

More GTR articles about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu here and here

Global Training Report 2007.　　(c)2000-2006, Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved.

Beta release 1.0, October 8, 2006. Like all Beta releases, this one probably has some  bugs. For sure, the punctuation is chaotic. Subsequent releases will strive to impose some order on this chaos.. Content may also be revised at the author's discretion..

Edit History

Beta release 1.1 October 10, 2006. Punctuation cleaning,  and minor content revisions throughout.

Beta release 1.2 October 11, 2006. Punctuation cleaning, typo redaction,  and minor content revisions throughout.

Beta release 2.0  October 16, 2006. Punctuation cleaning, typo redaction,  major content augmentation throughout, epilogue and photo added..

Beta release 2.1  October 20, 2006. Minor morphological revisions.. Bolão web site link added. 

Beta Release Sequence fatally terminated October 20, 2006.

Alpha release 1.0 October 22, 2006. Minor punctuation corrections. Error regarding Chico's boxing debut corrected.

Alpha release 1.1 October 23, 2006. Minor punctuation corrections and rephrasing (the word "truly" added to the phrase "epic proportions").

Alpha release 1.2 October 30, 2006. Minor punctuation tweaking.

Alpha release 2.0. November 16, 2006. "Jiu-Jitsu Revolution" section added. Minor glitches redacted.

Alpha release 2.1. December 17, 2006. Spelling errors corrected, minor rephrasing of short parts of "Capital Cafe: An Unexpected Encounter with Darrell Gholar".

.Alpha release 2.2. February 10, 2007. Minor punctuation corrections and rephrasing.

Alpha release 2.3 April 14, 2007. Spelling error corrected. Minor rephrasing here and there.

Alpha release 2.4 July 5, 2007. Spelling error corrected. Minor rephrasing here and there.

Alpha release 2.5 April 10, 2008. Spelling error corrected. Minor rephrasing here and there.

Alpha release 2.6 July 26, 2008. Spelling error corrected. Minor rephrasing here and there.