20 tips to enhance your play

If you only read and keep the teachings presented here, you’re not going anywhere with your
ground techniques. The following advices – useful in tournaments with gi, grappling, MMA and
for the athletes personal evolution – ought to be studied between trainings. On this case, our
little script here can change everything you had been doing wrong – or simply didn’t know
existed. Aiming at bringing you a large and carefully wrought guide (whether you are or not a
beginner), we have asked the main masters of the sport: what would you like to have found
out earlier? What’s behind the gold medals and amazing titles? What are the shortcuts? What
are the secrets? Each Jiu-Jitsu exponent brought their own delicacy to this feast. Enjoy,
therefore, this manual if you wish to evolve. In Jiu-Jitsu, life – everything.

1. Exercise your ears

“The first rule to perfect your Jiu-Jitsu is to never be deaf to other people’s knowledge,” says
Renzo Gracie. “It’s common to see guys who deem themselves professors decline a new
teaching, ignoring a pupil who shows something new. To grow better you must understand
how people think and how they got to that position. Even if it’s not perfect, it’s up to you to
enhance it.” A clear example was a coup with which Gracie surprised Canadian fighter Carlos
Newton in the Pride Bushido 1: “I nearly submitted him on the foot lock, in a position a white-
belt had taught me. Starting from the tip I perfected and developed the leg attack, from the
knee lock to the foot lock.” To Renzo, it doesn’t matter whether the student is a blue-, white-
belt, or someone who’s never fought: the moment they show you something, shut your mouth
and pay attention. “Even if the move is not efficient, the concept might help your play. When
you don’t allow yourself to accept any other form of knowledge, you become a limited
professor,” he teaches.

2. Always believe in the move

If you follow Rodrigo Minotauro’s MMA bouts, you can probably figure out his tip to make your
Jiu-Jitsu better. A combative athlete, always with a surprising coup at hand, he shoots: “Fight
to get a grip on your opponent.” How do you do that? Well, the Brazilian Top Team star
suggests that every fighter ignores the clock and the points during the combats. This measure
may result in defeats in the beginning, but on the long run it’ll leave the fighter “light and
loose” (Nogueira’s definition). “There is nothing better than fighting naturally and pressure-
free,” he says. “The secret is to believe He’s got to believe,” adds Wallid Ismail. Carlson
Gracie’s black-belt’s advice is based on three elements: stamina, attitude and will to win. “At
the time of the position or the fight, the main thing is to believe. To make the move work,
you’ve got to believe it will work. And it doesn’t matter who’s on the other side, because there
lies the difference between winner and loser. The winner is never intimidated. He may even
fear, but he must have something greater inside – the attitude.”

3. Practice an outdoor sport

Soccer, jogging, outdoor work out – there’s always a healthy activity waiting for the athlete
who takes off the gi after hours of grappling in the academy. One can then dive into a
commonplace sport (surf, for instance, is practised by nine in every ten fighters) or even
invent their own distraction. This strategy keeps the body in shape without making the fighter
stressed from the training routine. “Every physical activity, not only Jiu-Jitsu, is useful for
working out heart and mind, leading the guy to thinking that, instead of smoking a joint or
using drugs, he can dedicate his time to exercise,” says Royler Gracie, who has since 1999
been climbing the Rock of Gavea, at Rio de Janeiro: “It’s a workout similar to the Macacos Hill
trail at Teresopolis, which I would cross with Rickson when he was preparing for MMA fights,”
he recollects.
4. Repeat the moves over and over
Leaders of victorious academies in Jiu-Jitsu and MMA, Andre Pederneiras (Nova Uniao) and
Sylvio Behring (Winner-Behring) don’t fear being repetitive when they assure that the motto is
to persist and persist and then persist some more when it comes to position-training.
“Definitely the key is the positions. In judo, the athlete makes 1,000 takedowns on every
session. It’s sad to see that in the Jiu-Jitsu milieu people think it’s a waste of time. We repeat
the basic positions in the warm up about 5 times before every practice”, says Pederneiras.
Master Sylvio corroborates: “Every title we conquered in the last years with Mario Reis and
Fabricio Werdum were due to this philosophy: repeating the basics and go through a training
fight under supervision, which is the sparring game. One of the athletes executes every type
of attack, arm, triangle, and the other tries to defend from the blitz”, says Marcelo Behring’s
brother, who demands 90 seconds or a series of 100 repetitions after training. “Thus the
athlete reaches exhaustion and lets the movement flow naturally.” After all, as professor Jean
Jacques Machado puts it, it’s better to repeat a position a thousand times, working on it for a
month, than learning one a day.
The phenomenon Nino “Elvis” Schembri also agrees on the tip: “More and more I convince
myself that one should pay attention to the positions, from the white all the way to the black
belt. The main thing in Jiu-Jitsu, a sport in which, I believe, the most technical player gets the
advantage, is to repeat the positions. Everybody does that in boxing, judo, but in Jiu-Jitsu the
guys are a little lazy. Including me.” To Nino, it’s reasonable to reserve the beginning of the
practice to repeating 50 positions for each side, thrice a week. “And don’t even think of giving
up”, he smiles.

5. Set goals
In the nineties, when he was among the best competitors in Jiu-Jitsu, Ze Mario Sperry had a
notebook where he would right the goals to be reached in training, in a given period. The
black-belt used to rip the leaves and leave them on all corners of his house. “I’d go to the
bathroom to shave and would find a note glued to the mirror: ‘If you want to be a champion,
you’ve got one week to do this or train that’,” he recalls. Sperry explains that setting goals
helps in the evaluation and control of what is being produced in the training. “The ideal is that
the fighter define what he wants. Afterwards, find ways to get there, reckoning the time
necessary to reach it.” For an example, the black-belt recollects the time he set the goal of
getting a perfect physical condition. To achieve it, he designed a series that focused on several
exercises, such as squatting, weight lifting and running-sprints. “By keeping my heart-beat
accelerated with this workout, I made progress until I conditioned my body to the rhythm of
the combats.” This “note pursuit” enabled the BTT master to keep focus on his career’s
objectives, being sure what he had to improve in a near future.
Black-belt Vitor Shaolin warns his students about this up to this day: “You must set up your
training in such a way that you define what are the two most important competitions for you
to be in that year. No matter how much you try it, you can never be 100% in all
tournaments,” he guarantees. “Then you must establish the rules: ‘I want to be well in the
Brazilian and World championships.’ And prepare to place well only in these tournaments, not
minding whatever you win or lose in the rest of the competitions. The body is not a machine
and cannot remain on a level 8 or 9 all the time, be it in Jiu-Jitsu or MMA, which is the
Triathlon of fighting,” the Shooto champion concludes.

6. Be dynamic
To Amaury Bitetti, Jiu-Jitsu is like chess: you only move a piece thinking of the next move.
The two-time world open champion in ’96-’97 says an attacking position during the fight must
always be connected to other future positions whose objective is the submission or – just to
follow the comparison – the check-mate. In order to achieve that, Amaury advises that the
attack-trainings should be made in a logical progression. For instance: a takedown leads to a
guard-pass, which in its turn leads us to a mount, which leads to a choke. The combinations
are infinite; what matters is that your game be not static. Just as in the whiskey
advertisement: keep walking. Turn your Jiu-Jitsu into a motor gear.

7. You are an athlete, not a weight-lifter

Two-time world open champion 02-03, Marcio Pe de Pano strives to convince the athletes of
the fact that they don’t need to look for a superathlete’s body at any cost. To the black-belt,
the secret lies, above all, in training to ally technique and good conditioning. “If you train Jiu-
Jitsu, you ought to work out, but not make a monstrous physical preparation,” he comments.
“If you fight MMA or wrestling, you might need such a body. In Jiu-Jitsu, physical preparation
is not all: one must work to become a technical and conditional athlete.” Therefore, don’t go
try anything silly.

8. Strengthen your grip

The first attitude necessary to follow this hint by Vitor Shaolin is: tighten that rope well! After
all, the principle behind this task is to use a thick rope tied to the academy’s ceiling in order to
strengthen the fighter’s grip on the opponent’s gi. An important detail is that this exercise is
good to another very important muscle for the athlete: the abdomen.
As Shaolin demonstrates, there are three ways of climbing, each of which improves a specific
group of moves. In the first exercise (picture A), the athlete uses short grips to get to the top,
which helps in the chokes executed with the hands near and the arms bent. As he shows, the
climb can be made with the hand reversed (picture B). In the following task (picture C) he
goes upwards with wider grips, ideal to strengthen a pull from the ground with a hip escape
(bottom picture) or any position that demands a strong grip with the arms stretched. The
detail is to keep the legs always elevated, which toughens the abs. “You go up, stop for a few
seconds with the legs stretched, and then descend in the same fashion,” explains the Nova
Uniao professor. “The wider grip is the hardest, so I do it only once a day, five times a week.
The other one, easier, I repeat ten times a week, twice on one day, thrice on the next, then
twice… Always after training, when the arms are more tired.”

9. Strive to be complete
What good is it to get an A+ in guard-passing but flunk attack-from-the-back? To stand out in
Jiu-Jitsu, the fighter can’t excel at one or two moves. He must play in the eleven, as we say in
football. Black-belt Saulo Ribeiro teaches a simple way of reaching versatility: “Many people
despises the warm-up before practising. Well, dedicate the first 15 minutes in the academy to
doing the basic: escape from the back, from the mount, and side-mount. In the next 15,
practise submission from the back, the mount and the side-mount. Do this every day in your
Jiu-Jitsu career. It may be boring, but it’ll make you complete. No matter what belt. I am a
black-belt and still discipline myself into doing it till today. Oh, I nearly missed it. Practise judo
at least twice a week. Knowing how to fight standing is also fundamental. That it my formula
for becoming complete.”

10. Posture is everything

By training Jiu-Jitsu frequently, three or four times a week, our physical preparation specialist
Martin Rooney’s attention was caught by a simple, though essential, tip. “It was something
that changed the way I looked at workout itself: whether on the mat or with the dumb-bells,
always pay attention to your posture. That is the most important, both if you are trying pass a
guard or lifting tremendous weight. Without the adequate posture you don’t spare moves, you
worsen the strike’s execution and augment the health hazards – or loss hazards.” In case the
reader suspects on Martin for the fact that he isn’t a great BJJ star, remember that is one of
the aspects Rickson Gracie stresses the most while training. So, straight neck, lined-up
shoulders, firm back and off you go.

11. Learn from defeat

Many fighters absorb but negativity from losses. They get depressed, blame God and the
world for the result and, sometimes, deem their careers finished. Leonardo Vieira does the
exact opposite. He uses the defeats (preferably in practices, of course) to reflect on what he
can do better. “I’m convinced that everybody who submits all of their opponents in the
trainings is actually learning nothing,” says Leo. Like the child, who only learns how to walk by
stumbling, it’s by tapping that the Jiu-Jitsu practitioner improves their art. Therefore, the
Brasa black-belt advises that the masters mix athletes of different graduations in the
trainings. Thus the fights aren’t too even, leaving room for adversities. Martin Rooney agrees:
“The athlete who reacts with bad feelings to the defeats isn’t learning the incredible lessons
that have been taught him, and that would make his chances of losing again much smaller.
There’s no such thing as winning and losing, but only winning and learning,” says Renzo’s and
Ricardo Cachorrao’s trainer. “Only you can your reaction and spirits to grow as an athlete. I
believe the person that has been submitted the most is the toughest to beat. That’s what a
tough guy is made of. That’s of a black-belt is made of,” he summarizes. Leo Vieira calls the
attention to the fact that the losses out of the mats are just as fundamental to form a
champion, above all in what concerns character. “When there was a dissidence at the first
formation of the Alliance team and I was alone in Sao Paulo, I went through one of the most
difficult moments of my life. However, I became a much stronger person and learned a lot
about life. I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t gone through that,” he evaluates.

12. Look for the best version of the move for you
Master Osvaldo Alves says that up until the nineteen-seventies one only gave and armbar-in-
guard by uncrossing and wide-opening the legs. “I realized this coup was vulnerable, for it
enabled the opponent to flee and pass the guard easily. So I invented the climbing-armbar,”
recalls the red-and-black-belt. As you can see on the image, this armlock version makes it a
lot harder for the adversary to escape. “The thing is to not lock the opponent’s arm, but
his/her shoulder,” clears up the master, who uses his own calf against the sparring’s shoulder,
stopping him from getting up. Summarizing: if you don’t get along with a certain move, try to
perfect it, adapt it to your physical and technical traits, always searching new versions for it.
That’s what makes Jiu-Jitsu evolve continuously.

13. The best strategy is the attack

“I always try to attack. While I’m on the offensive, my opponent can think of nothing but
defending, that is, I’m protected,” Marcelo Garcia teaches. As an example, the Alliance black-
belt recalls the time when he didn’t know to keep an open guard. He would cross the legs on
the opponent’s back and pray for the time to elapse. “I was afraid of attacking,” he evaluates.
After noticing the deficiency Marcelo started uncrossing the feet and practising sweeps. He
realised that, if he went right onto the adversary, he’d run a much smaller risk of being
submitted than if he played defending, applying but rare counter-strikes. Garcia also realised
that, by being the first to attack, he would make his opponents abandon their former plan. If
he prolonged the blitz, Marcelo also prolonged this “untouchable” state. But there are those
who say that repeated attacks tend to tire the athlete. “What really tires is to hold the fight
back the whole time,” Marcelo argues. Notwithstanding, the black-belt gives some advice on
physical preparation for those who agree that the best defense is the attack: “Climbing stairs
and ramps is the best option for an amazing guard,” he reveals.

14. Don’t forget to enhance your defense

Despite liking the attacking strategy suggested by Marcelo Garcia, Rillion Gracie stresses the
importance of training submission-escapes (remembering that the other guy may attack first).
“Look at Roger Gracie’s performances in the last World Championship. He suffered fulminating
attacks right in the beginning of the battles but was able to defend like a master to then
counter-attack,” Rillion recalls. The Gracie Leblon Master says that, while practising defense,
the competitor learns exactly what the opponent feels like in situations of adversity. “Learning
defense improves the attack. I f the lion knows how the prey can escape, it’ll capture it in a
much more precise way,” he ponders. To practise defense in Jiu-Jitsu, Rillion advises the
reader into forgetting s/he is strong. “Exercise your patience. Use the weight and the force of
the levers,” he explains. “Start practising defense as soon as possible, to awake just as soon
the survival instinct in your fighter’s soul.”

15. Stretch!
Ever since he was a kid, Antonio Schembri has been used to stretching daily. And he never
complained, unlike his opponents, whom, in time and practice, he began to submit in the most
varied ways. “I’m very flexible, so I always take a strong session before and after training.
Some people are stiffer, they don’t like it, but stretching is essential, especially the bottom
half, legs, spine and lumbar,” says the Chute Boxe athlete. According to “Elvis,” stretching is
vital even for improving the guard. “What I realize in competitions, even black-belts’, is that
everybody gets along well on top, but not everyone can keep a good guard. So besides
stretching, which improves the de-passing, the athlete must set up a schedule and program
himself and persist in training every single variation, butterfly guard, closed guard, with inside
hooks… You can’t let the guy cross the knee line, or else you’ll have to pull something out of
your ass to stop the guy from passing,” Schembri teaches.

16. Develop self-knowledge

According to Fabio Gurgel, competition-Jiu-Jitsu is so leveled nowadays that the small details
can make the difference in the fight’s result. Considering that you, fearless reader, have
already looked after the technique and physical preparation, the Alliance general calls the
attention to a “detail” that can turn you into a giant of the mats: self-knowledge. “I advise my
students to talk to themselves. Self-evaluation makes the athlete know himself better, finding
out his true virtues and weaknesses. He starts being conscious of his own instincts, develops
self-confidence and doesn’t chiken out. Thus the athlete can design an ideal fighting plan,”
Gurgel analyses, and then describes the state of mind with which one should enter the ring:
“The fighter’s self-knowledge must turn the battler into something pleasant. The Jiu-Jitsu
practitioner must have fun in the championships. That way, it all becomes easy.”

17. Simulate hindrances and escapes

“Back at Carlson’s academy, I always trained with partners who would attack me full-on That’s
what’s bad about training in an academy where everybody wants to fight for real: you don’t
get used to the opponent that hinders the fighting in the competitions,” Ricardo de la Riva
points out, stressing the hard time he had developing his game against Japanese fighter Yuki
Nakai in September 2004.His hint, accordingly, is to simulate fights where the opponent
neither tries to pass nor to submit; to fight against a technical sparring – or one who runs
away. Marcelo Garcia also has a hint for those hard situations: stretching and breathing. “The
fighter has got to know how to stretch and move all of his members, besides breathing
properly, for the time when he is on the bottom, being smashed and smothered by the
adversary,” says the middle-weight world champion. In order to learn how to get out of the
tough situations, Garcia indicates: the good thing is to practise guard with heavier mates.

18. Try!
Jean Jacques Machado likes to awake his students’ creativity. The master organizes “lab
sessions” during the trainings in the academy where he teaches in Los Angeles. On these
moments he shows the classroom a move, asks the students to study it and to present a
defense a week later. “There are many ways to get to a goal. I like my pupils to use their
creativity and find out new ways to get there,” he evaluates. In other words, Jean doesn’t
make his apprentices “move repeaters.” By disseminating experimentalism in his lessons, the
black-bellt gives birth to classrooms full of creative and innovating athletes. Leo Vieira likes
Jacques’ methodology, but presents another way of making the students open minded: “Look
at the kids fighting. Notice how they’re always laughing and jumping around. That’s how I like
to fight. Children invent, use unexpected moves that, if adapted to adult Jiu-Jitsu, can be
fruitful. Teaching kids is a great source of knowledge to me.”

19. Regularity, always

Also to 1999 ADCC champion Jean Machado, there’s nothing more important than regularity.
Not vanishing from the academy is, therefore, essential for the athlete’s evolution – s/he must
avoid substituting wasted weeks with overtraining periods. Nearly every one of the gi-
superstars knows that by heart, as Pe de Pano Illustrates: “The secret is regularity: training
over and over and over. Twice a day if possible. As I began late, I would make it up by going
to the academy in the afternoon and at night.” According to him, training regularly leads to
evolving and injury-avoiding. “For the fact that you keep training, the body gets used to the
effort you make. It was after I began resuming and quitting that I began to have injuries
often,” he completes. A partisan to that idea, Vitor Shaolin exemplifies: “Besides training
often, you must divide the trainings, understand that there is a little something called resting.
So if in the afternoon the practice is slower, take the chance to rest. If your body doesn’t react
all that well in the morning but you know that in the morning the training is profitable, wake
up earlier to get your body prepared. Practise more heavily at night, but don’t let it go on till
too late, for you might go to bed tense, thinking of training – and end up not resting at all.”

20. Respect and reflect

Respect and dedication are utterly necessary to Ricardo de la Riva. “The idea is to arrive with
an open mind and to practise with pleasure, and not to simply want to win in the training. You
must respect, above all, not only the dojo and the professor, but also your practice-mate,
after all you need him/her,” says the master. According to Martin Rooney, the salutation can
afford great benefits that sometimes can go by unnoticed. “In all sports, athletes create rituals
that push the negative energy away. However, I realise that many Jiu-Jitsu beginners ignore
that fact, maybe for seeing martial arts as just a way of defending, a game of win or lose,” he
says. Martin refers to the simple and traditional act of bowing. Associated for centuries to
martial arts, the act should not be seen as only a demonstration of respect or a sign that the
fight has begun. As the American trainer explains, the time to bow is a great opportunity to
concentrate. The bow is the moment when the practice begins, so any negative thought or
attitude must be left aside – or out of the academy. “A salutation at the end of the practice
enables the athlete to go back to his normal life,” he says. “Develop, therefore, a strong
mental connection so that your mind is activated by the bow in the beginning. Just as in any
sport, if your head is not ready to practise, it’s impossible to learn anything,” Rooney
concludes.