Day Two of training! Feeling better and better..still rusty, have 3 lung as opposed to the 10 I like to have before competitions.. My knee keeps shrinking in size.
I went pretty hard tonight, so I feel in about a week or two I will be back to feeling good about my Jiu-Jitsu again. Anywho I think I will be right on time for the tournaments mid-March.
Loving my new Fushida CompGS, loving it! http://www.fushida.ca
Truthfully..it used to be that..
My guard was thought to be (even by me) to be the best thing I had going. It is still pretty good, but now I think that my passing is much better. I still tend to get what I want off my back, but lately training nogi, the sweeps are way different and it just feels like my passing is universal whereas my guard playing is not. Which is cool, and I embrace the challenge of improving my guard at nogi. And its not like my guard is getting passed more or less, I am just commenting on the effectiveness of the attacks and sweeps I have in my arsenal.
This is FUN!
iInterview: Marcelinho Freitas
This time I am interviewing one of my favorite guys to watch in one of Jiu-Jitsu’s talent riden divisions, Marcelinho Freitas. Multiple Time World Champion, Pan Am runner up, New York Open Champion, among other titles. Check out what he had to say about growing up in Jiu-Jitsu, how he improved, and how he looks to knock off his competitors.
Hows training going these days?
MF: At the moment I’m not training, I have two knee injuries and one knee needs surgery but I’ll be back soon.
I know you have a new school, but besides your students, what are you focused on as far a competitions coming up?
MF: My focus now is fix my body for the competitions next year because im not young anymore hahaha! Next year I’ll be 30 years old and sure I will be sure train my students for the competitions here in Australia.
You started bjj at the very young age of 12 and continue to represent bjj at 29, what made you keep going after so many years?
MF: The first thing is, I love Jiu-jitsu and bjj is my life and I was lucky enough to have an excellent teacher and great teammates.
Being a world champion at every level, what would you say is the difference in your training each time you won?
MF: I won my world titles starting 10 years ago at blue, purple and brown and I never did anything different only train everyday. A lot things have changed now and people are more professional and do a lot of different kinds of training and use a lot supplements. So this is the difference now.
I had the pleasure of training with you in Abu Dhabi. You stated before that you would drill all the time. How much drilling did you do through blue belt to brown belt? And now at black belt, what are your focuses for improving your to fight the best guys?
MF: Blue to brown is always good to do drills. Don’t do it too much, so do before and after rolls. Drill the positions you did during the week and at black belt, I try to study my opponents and keep updated.
What are some qualities a fighter should have to be successful at BJJ events?
MF: Fight in as many tournaments from white to blue because experience is very important and you will learn about concentration to keep ur mind calm [during future competitions].
What do you believe separates first place on the podium from 2nd and 3rd place?
MF: Experience in competitions, good cardio, technique and you always believe you can beat everyone.
What do you think of Physical Fitness for BJJ? And what are some of the things that you do to stay in fighting shape?
MF:What I said before nowadays is very important and I’m looking for personal trainer because I never liked working out but now I see that I need to. I’m glad to have a good genetics but I like run and bike to keep in shape but I need to more
What is a typical day for you ?
MF: Wake up between 8am 9am go run, 12pm bjj class maybe some rolls after lunch and then rest. 6:30 train bjj and teach again until 9pm, After training I eat dinner and rest.
Andre Pederneiras is a legendary BJJ coach with top athletes such as yourself, Jose Aldo, Robson Moura and many more, what sets him apart from other coaches?
MF: Andre is amazing person he treat everybody well he doesnt have stupid rules in our school, he always try to look at our future, not to only make a good fighter but good person. He is an amazing coach, Im, glad I started with him 17 years ago and stay with him till now.
Are there anyone youd like to thank?
MF:My coach Andre my teamates my students
Check out his website here http://www.marcelinobjj.com. And his highlight video down below!
And here is a technique! An awesome technique by Marcelinho!”
Next week, look out for another interview!
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An article about me”Radhames Familia Jr’s Study of Champions”
My good friend, Dan Faggella, interviewed me then wrote this amazing article on me. It’s really cool, and I am really touched by it. Please check out the website at which this article originated on Science of skill.
Besides being an excellent student of the best athletes and grapplers in the world (he probably owns more Jiu Jitsu DVDs and has read more books on the topic than just about anyone I know), Radhames (AKA: “Junior”) Familia is also not a slouch.
Radhames Familia after winning his division in the 2011 ADCC Tournament in Abu Dhabi.
Having first seen grappling through his experiences in Army Combatives, he quickly became fascinated with this kind of “body chess,” and after a little experience with Judo, he came home eager to take the study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu seriously. Having recently won a number of medals and $5,000 in the 2011 ADCC pro trials (in Abu Dhabi, where he fought and defeated the sons of Arab sheiks), Junior now has his heart set on the BJJ Pan Ams and Worlds.
As a high level competitor, he’s a bit out of place in the small state of Rhode Island – which produces almost no other IBJJF competitors. Hence, he must find his inspiration and insight from the best in the world – even if he never gets to meet these heroes in person. The three themes that we spoke of most in our overview of his “study of champions” were: drilling, training, and the mental game of combat sports.
Drilling in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
Right off the bat, Junior associates drilling with high level competitors – and essentially believes that through all the evidence and patterns he’s seen with great competitors, people who do not drill do not take competition seriously.
His belief is that to take drilling seriously you have to set the bar where the best competitors in the world set the bar. Through conversations in greats like Caio Terra, other BJJ champions, and world-class wrestlers, Junior sets the bar very high, but its about more than reps.
Drilling can be done in a myriad of ways, and needn’t just be the kind of mindless “going through the motions” that many people make it out to be. On the one hand there needs to be a time for a kind of slower, more exploratory drilling that focuses on refining the nuances of a technique – and on the other hand there needs to be faster (often timed) drilling that focuses on burning perfect technique and clean sequences into muscle memory – something Junior believes most champions do.
Variety in BJJ Training Strategies
In our interview, Junior brought up a point that I thought was particularly fascinating:
In most sports (IE: boxing, soccer, football, wrestling, etc…) , the biggest emphasis of practice is something between a pure technical focus and a pure competitive focus. In BJJ, people usually learn by either learning moves from an instructor, or from rolling live. In the grand scheme, those are two opposite extremes of training – and the BEST schools do activities that exist between these two opposite poles.
Junior refers to Olympic wrestlers and the athletes in the famous BJJ documentary called “Arte Suave” (like Andre Galvao, Rubens Charles, etc…), who do shadow grappling (grappling against an imaginary opponent), drilling of the essential motions of Jiu Jitsu (shrimping, stand-ups, etc…), flow grappling (a kind of light sparring where both partners just flow through positions and hit techniques on one another just to see where they end up and learn about new positions and moves) and other kinds of exercises that aren’t quite as light as learning a technique, and also aren’t quite as hard as competitive sparring.
Junior believes that using plenty of activities between these two extremes is how the best in the world in all sports develop their skills fastest and most sustainably.
Junior battling it out in another BJJ absolute division.
The ‘Mental Game’ of Combat Sports
Of everything that Junior has learned from wrestling and from the world’s best wrestlers, he says that far and above the aspect of ‘mental toughness’ is what stands out the most as a key factor in success (and he’s memorized a surprising number of their best quotes). There are a few key themes that came up time and time again in our conversation:
A) Taking the Harder Path
Henry Cejudo (US gold medalist in wrestling at the 2008 Beijing Olympics) says that we need to always do things we don’t want to do because this translates to the mentality we need on the mat.
Junior told me some crazy stories about how hard the best wrestlers would practice, and that often they may have crossed into the domain of “overtraining” and yielded less physical benefit from workouts because of it – but that the mentality developed from pushing through pain and agony time and time again - the mentality of choosing the harder path and taking it – proved more valuable on the mats than anything else.
Hence, Junior goes for runs in the early morning (a-la Rocky Balboa) not because he gets any more fitness benefit in the early hours, but because its just harder to do. He tells stories of world-class wrestlers running themselves into the ground in practices only describable and “mind-numbing,” then taking painfully cold showers in ice water without flinching. He believes that if Jiu Jitsu athletes trained this hard, the sport would reach another level entirely.
B) Setting Rigid and High Standards
Cael Sanderson says “You have to live every day like a champion.” Lee Kemp asks himself “Will this take me closer to, or farther away from being a chamion?” before he eats anything. The best in the world have less off-days… or even less “off-moments,” than their peers.
Its about finding a game plan and holding to it with religious fervor, never allowing the all-important little details of diet, sleep, and quality training slip away for even one minute. Most people are incapable of doing this.
C) Going Above and Beyond the Competition
Terry Brands once said something like “The difference between 1st and 2nd is doing something every day that your competition isn’t doing.”
It could be twenty extra reps of a takedown, it could be another round of calisthenics, it could be a morning drilling session. Whatever it is, it should go beyond what anyone in your division is even thinking about doing.
The important lesson that Junior learned from wrestling is that not only will this kind of practice yeild physical and mental toughness benefits, it also makes a competitor feel more worthy of victory – feel more deserving of the gold - which is an extremely important kind of mental attitude at the highest level of competition.
The athlete who knows he has worked harder than his opponent’s keeps this in the back of his mind and carries it into every match.
CUDDLE FUDDLE customized by Paulo Canabarro
