During my first trip to Brazil in 1999, I remember driving down the streets of Rio de Janeiro with my Jiu Jitsu team from Philadelphia. We are all in a small van heading to the next jiu jitsu academy for training to prepare for the World Jiu Jitsu Championships. I was a blue belt. Heading down the busy streets, I saw different academies. Many were Jiu Jitsu schools, others were fitness gyms and some were Luta Livre academies. I thought to myself, ” What is going on in there?” Interestingly enough the logos of these Luta Livre academies were the strong bear with muscles and a black belt cartoon character. I knew back then that this was the Luta Livre schools that had the rivalry with Jiu Jitsu.
Today it is very common that Jiu Jitsu academies train with and without the gi. No-gi training has helped evolve techniques and strategies for Jiu Jitsu. Furthermore, many grappling styles are starting to look so similar to each other as each new generation continues to use effective techniques from different grappling arts. Leglocks from Russian Sambo are now found and improved on in Jiu Jitsu; Judo practitioners are improving their ground fighting techniques much like the skillsets in Jiu Jitsu. Would this be the case for Luta Livre when I had my training session in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 some 20 years later?
These days I am 40 years old. I continue to evolve my training Jiu Jitsu and teaching methodologies. My practice of Martial Art has always been to use Jiu Jitsu as the core of my training and build around it. This is my advice to all new students that are trying to figure out what to do in a Martial Arts school. I tell them to train in the different arts for the next 6 months and gravitate to the one you enjoy. After this, get really good at this art and overtime build around it with inputs from other systems of Martial Arts. Along with this approach to training is the development of being open-minded. 20 years old I knew of the challenges and fights between Luta Livre and Jiu Jitsu in Brazil. I knew that these matches went all the way back to the 1950s, the ’40s, and the ’30s. Yet, I also knew of how times have changed with the development of the Abu Dhabi Combat Club in 1998, and the ADCC World Submission Wrestling event originally hosted in Abu Dhabi. Back in 1999, I knew that the country of Brazil was represented at the ADCC with the best from Luta Livre and Jiu Jitsu. One flag.
Renovação Fight Team | RFT Luta Livre
Mestre Marcio Cromad, a 5th-degree black belt in Luta Livre & head of RFT Luta Livre, welcomed me into the morning training at this academy. I was there with my wife and two other friends that were present to watch. The vibe of the academy was positive yet it was a fight team/MMA team setting. My wife quickly started having a fun interaction with the oldest Luta Livre fighter of the mat. Brazilians do this when they first met other Brazilians interacting with jokes and nicknames. It turns out that my wife gave this fighter a new nickname “Chaves” due to the fact that he looked like the old Brazilian comedian Juca Chaves. Everyone on the RFT mats agreed and with that, we were quickly part of the team.
We started out the training with a wrestling style warm-up. Lots are partner drills, sprawling, push-ups, etc. The instruction was broken into two parts: Stand-up and Ground. The first aspect of the instruction was a leglock entry off of a single leg takedown. The entry was the uniqueness of the technique. Marcio really had a nice leglock entry off the two wrestling style takedowns. We drilled this three times and switched with our partner. I was paired up with a Luta Livre black belt that was super strong, much heavier and wore wrestling shoes. The ground technique was a back mount escapes that again entered into a leglock.
Live sparring was in 4-minute rounds. I went 5 rounds with Luta Livre the original black belt, a purple belt, two brown belts, and a blue belt. You might be thinking of how the training well, and I was happy that no one submitted me and overall it was positive with no injuries. After the sparring on the ground, the class did some standup positioning drills where we paired up and worked upper-body takedowns. It was a lot of fighting for inside control, body-locks and positioning off the padded walls. The class ended and Mestre Cromad spoke with my wife and me. We were welcomed back for next time and appreciated this. He said I was “CASCA GROSSA!” I laughed a little bit, walked to the steps padding Chaves on the back and headed to the showers.
I originally started Gracie Jiu Jitsu in May of 1995 under Professor Steve Maxwell. He was a Purple Belt and Wrestler. Back then during the summer months, Jiu Jitsu academies in Brazil took off the gi top and trained No-gi. This was what we did in June, July, and August in Philadelphia. When I look back at my training from the start I was learning Gracie Jiu Jitsu, Vale Tudo (Anything Goes) fighting, Self-Defense, Wrestling and a lot of No-gi. This way my generation before all the Sport Jiu Jitsu techniques. Those summer months and light of summer were in a small way freestyle fighting or Luta Livre. I thought about all of this after the class and on my way to lunch with my family Brazil. A few days later I was officially ranked and recognized in Luta Livre as a purple belt by the Confederação Brasileira de Luta Livre Esportiva | CBLLE. When I returned to the States, I thought about traveling in the Air Force, training in No-gi, www.tatameair.com and those people I meet that enjoy Luta Livre. I decided to begin a division of Tatame Air – Training Surfaces for Luta Livre training called: Luz Do Verão. The translation of this is, “Light of Summer.”
