Roger Gracie | In the mind of a Jiu-jitsu Master
As a BJJ or Grappling student at any level the odds are you’re familiar with Roger Gracie. We recently saw him appear on the podcast breaking down a lot of his time as a jiujitsu practitioner & competition.
This interview is great because it delves into the mentality behind the man – its a long one so here at the topical time stamps
0:00 – Introduction 0:25 – The moments before a match 8:16 – Confidence 22:41 – Greatest jiu jitsu match of all time 44:03 – Renzo Gracie 56:20 – Braveheart 57:43 – Self-belief 1:11:49 – Cross-collar choke 1:15:52 – Mount position 1:32:06 – How to progress in jiu jitsu 1:34:21 – Best submission in jiu jitsu 1:38:54 – The greatest competitor of all time 1:41:00 – Roger’s statistics 1:48:56 – MMA vs jiu jitsu 1:57:24 – Gordon Ryan 2:09:50 – John Danaher 2:12:22 – Bear fight 2:15:20 – Tie 2:25:52 – Advice for beginners 2:35:12 – Drilling 2:43:08 – Roger vs Bear, Lion, Gorilla, and Anaconda 2:48:13 – Advice for young people 2:58:01 – Love
The big lesson anyone can take away from this as a martial artist or BJJ practitioner comes at the 109 min mark when asked about why he decided to maintain a “basic game” and he explained it’s not “basic” but rather so intricate that people who don’t put in the time to master those techniques won’t really 100% know them, or in most cases be able to even see what is going on.
As the saying goes..years of practice.. 10’000 reps etc
what others are saying about the interview
“Interesting things Roger said:
– His game was never the basics done well. That’s just a misconception.
– People don’t train bad positions enough.
– Roger really prefers mount to the back.
– ‘I’m not very strong for my weight class’, just had better technique.
– Gordon is as good as he is because of the technicality of his training. Other competitors are often just very tough.
– The first Buchecha match really affected him. “
“So I listened to Roger on Lex’s podcast and enjoyed it a lot.
No special techniques. Just train a lot and get good. Have good defense. Believe in yourself. If you’re a hobbyist that trains only twice a week that’s fine too. 99.9% of us are hobbyists. Oh and the mount is better than back!
” “Position before submission” is a really old saying in BJJ, I think the current popularity of sub-only formats have made some people forget that.”
Pure Jiu-jitsu in Action
Rogers approach to the art of jiu-jitsu is something he carried over in every match he competed in BJJ or NO-GI, applying both the technique and mentality of the true submission artist to every match. Not flashy or doing anything most blue belts haven’t seen before we still had the opportunity to see Gracie completely dominate world-class competitors in sport BJJ while not really taking a sport BJJ approach to any matches.
In a sport famous for mutual stalling and tactical play to earn out a last-minute decision or win on judges score cards it was very refreshing to see him dominate all in his path using what many called “Blue belt-level” jiu-jitsu.
Never trying to game the system and always pushing the match to a clear ending usually by mounted cross choke. ” In one event he finished all 8 of his matches in the world championship by the same submission!!! )
BJJ Mastery in 10’000 reps
instead of chasing the newest strategy, sweep or submission delivering quick competitive results. Roger refined his skill set to a level he was able to BEAT all the best of his era using the same approach of bread-and-butter techniques applied from blue belt all the way through to black belt world champion.
A throwback martial artist that brought his game to the mat and faced all opposition trying whatever tricks they had in mind, putting them all away in a clear fashion with what many considered blue belt level jiujitsu, not jumping after hail mary submissions but instead exemplifying Gracie jiu-jitsu in BJJ to the highest level by creating situations even the Best couldn’t come up with answers to.
attached are a few matches so you can get the idea more clearly
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