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Ricardo de
la Riva
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By Roberto
Pedreira
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Ricardo
de la Riva is another of Carlson's many former students, but unlike most
of them, he doesn't use Carlson's name. He doesn't need to. He is famous
enough on his own. De la Riva is the first man to vanquish three Gracies. He
is also the only one with techniques named after him.
De
la Riva was very PR savvy, as one would expect of someone who owns one
academy in Rio, another in Orlando, Florida, fights in vale tudos, and
has a video series out. A year ago, DelaRiva taught in the Atlantico Rio
Health Club, about a ten-minute walk in the direction of Ponta de
Arpoador. De la Riva was a popular teacher and business was booming, so he
established his own academy, which he shares with Yudan Judo in a new
location at Av. N.S. de Copacabana, 1.141/Sobreloja. De la Riva's is a new
academy, so therefs a sign in front. Foreigners
passing by sometimes see the sign and go in. One who did was a Japanese
guy named Atsushi, who was learning jiu-jitsu from a blue belt at the
Seidokai-kan in Tokyo. Atsushi was a beginner, but big and with long
thick legs, and he was making the blue and purple belts work to get through them. They always did of course, and
clearly resenting
the trouble he had put them to, invariably choked him out in a
particularly violent way. Of course, Atsushi refused to tap, so what
could they do? It no doubt demonstrated the traditional and modern
Japanese virtues of endurance (gaman,
ä)
and persistence (ganbari, æ£è),
but it probably wasn't the most
efficient way to learn jiu-jitsu.

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I
bumped
into Atsushi later that evening out at a lanchonete up the street. He
seemed to be an intelligent guy--off the mat at least. He had read
an interview with Leka
and went to Brazil to meet her. But Leka was never at the academy (Dojo
Jiu-Jitsu) when he showed up so he wandered down to de la Riva's
school. I didn't like to imagine him getting Café pissed off. It
was probably fortunate for him that Leka was always busy somewhere else
at those times.
In
every academy, there is at least one guy who has lived in the US and
speaks English fluently, usually, more than one. Often the gProfessor
Responsávelh (head instructor) is also fluent in English.
That wasnft the case at de la Rivafs academy. Ricardo is starting to
learn English but is still a white belt, linguistically speaking.
Purple belt Ronnie offered to translate. He had been born and, for a
while, raised in Houston, Texas, where his father was at the University
of Houston studying for a Ph.D. in food engineering. Ronnie is also
studying food science, at a university in Rio. Seeing so many people
sleeping in the sidewalk gets one to wondering. How many kcals does a
homeless person need to survive in Rio? Ronnie
hadnft studied that yet, but informed me that "bananas are
cheap"—no one is going to starve in Rio.
Malnutrition is a possibility, but that is more the result of ignorance
about the nutritional values of various readily available foods than
insufficient supply. Nutritious foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes,
chicken, eggs) are cheap in Rio and money isnft hard to get.
Brazilians who donft have money arenft reluctant to ask passers-by
for some. Why should they? As they see it, they arenft begging, they
are just asking. You donft have to give them anything if you donft
want to. Brazilians donft believe people are defined by their jobs and
that money you earn through hard labor is somehow better than money
obtained in some other way. Quite the contrary. They also donft
believe that everyone can succeed if they try hard enough. Far from it,
most people will fail no matter what they do. Success is more a matter
of Godfs Will (gse Deus quiserh), or chance, or luck, than
human effort or ingenuity.
Ronnie had studied jiu-jitsu on and off for many years. He started in
order to get in shape for basketball. Jiu-jitsu was
already big in Rio before the UFC but it got bigger and spread to the
rest of Brazil. That hasn't necessarily been all good, he says, agreeing
with a lot of others. There are too many unqualified teachers now. They
may be, or may have been, good fighters, but they arenft teaching
their young students the things they most need to know, like
self-control. Too many cases of kids fighting in the streets. Itfs
giving jiu-jitsu a bad name.
I asked Ronnie why he came to
de la Riva when there are so many Gracies
teaching. He says it's because de la Riva has excellent technique.
That was easy to believe—anyone who has beaten three Gracies would
have to—and he is also a good teacher and a nice guy. Anyway,
itfs the academy more than the family that matters. The Gracie family
doesnft have an absolute monopoly on jiu-jitsu anymore. They wanted
jiu-jitsu to become a big business and it did. It got so big that itfs
too big even for a family as big as theirs to control it. The big
tournaments made it happen. Everyone can see whatfs happening, whofs
doing what, and there are video cameras everywhere. There are no secrets
anymore. The techniques are the same in every jiu-jitsu academy. Even
luta livre fighters can learn the best jiu-jitsu techniques if they want
to. All they need to do is buy the videos. Maybe they already have.
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DelaRiva
demonstrating the "joehlo na barriga"
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A
Arte Suave index
GTR
index
More
about de la Riva: Update 2006
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©2000-2007,
Roberto Pedreira. All rights reserved
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Revised
December 2001.
Revised
January 2, 2003.
Revised
December 30, 2007.
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