#254 Marcelo Garcia

by Caleb on January 15, 2012

Marcelo Garcia winning his weight division at the 2007 ADCCs
Marcelo Garcia winning his weight division at the 2007 ADCCs. Photo credit European Fight Network

Marcelo Garcia is perhaps the most successful middleweight grappler in the history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The ever-smiling Alliance competitor has won the gold medal at the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship five times, at the ADCC Submission Grappling World Championship four times, and the Brazilian National Jiu-Jitsu Championship three times.

Garcia comes from a sleepy town in the province of Minas Gerais called Formiga, which means “ant” in English and has a population of less than 75,000 people. Remote and without much jiu-jitsu, Garcia headed for the city on a quest to learn more BJJ and found that upon arrival the differences in his accent and those of cariocas in Rio made it difficult to communicate! Later his path brought him to Sao Paulo where he came under the tutelage of Alliance leader Fabio Gurgel, who would later promote Garcia to black belt.

Marcelo Garcia winning his weight division at the 2007 ADCCs
Marcelo Garcia teaching a no gi armlock technique with assistant instructor Antonio Batista. Click to enlarge.

Several years and many gold medals later, Marcelo runs a successful Brazilian jiu-jitsu school in a radically different environment than Formiga: New York City. Just blocks from bustling Times Square and a quick elevator ride up six floors, newcomers to the academy are prone to spontaneous approach from Marcelo’s students who are quick to express that they feel lucky to train under the unassuming middleweight from a remote corner of Brazil. Those who are not nearby to his academy in the city are able to learn jiu-jitsu online via Garcia’s virtual BJJ school, MGinAction.com.

Join us this week as The FightWorks Podcast sits down with Garcia one-on-one in person at his school in Manhattan for a conversation about how the humble star began jiu-jitsu, details of his journey in the martial art, and his current plans.

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Times Square
New York City’s Times Square, just a few blocks from Marcelo Garcia’s academy.

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BJJ Poll: What is the Biggest Obstacle to Achieving Your BJJ Goals in 2012?

by Caleb on January 14, 2012

At the end of 2008 we asked what your New Years Resolution for BJJ was going in to 2009. Cohost Dan and I were thinking of the new year we have in front of us in 2012 and wondered what types of things might prevent a jiu-jitsu person from achieving their goals for the year we now have ahead of us.

There are probably many things that could come between you and the BJJ glory you have cooked up in your head (a gold medal at the Mundials, maybe?), but Dan and I decided the five options in this poll would cover many common problems that we face. So which of the options above do you see as the biggest issue for you and your BJJ this year?

Let us know by voting in the poll, and in the comments section for this post, let us know what you plan to do to overcome the obstacle you voted for!

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#253 Gracie Nationals Event Now Submission Only, Tests for Performance Enhancing Drugs; Alliance BJJ Holds its Own Submission Only Events

January 8, 2012

Roger Gracie, perhaps the most consistent BJJ athlete in submitting his opponents, prepares to finish Tarsis Humphries at the 2010 BJJ World Championships. Later this month, Rose Gracie (daughter of Rorion Gracie and wife of Javi Vazquez) will hold the Gracie Nationals BJJ and No Gi Tournament in Los Angeles. Rose has been holding this [...]

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BJJ Poll: If Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Became an Olympic Sport, Would that Be a Good Thing?

January 7, 2012

Last week’s Brazilian Jiu-jitsu poll asked you whether you think BJJ will become an Olympic sport and if so, what it will look like. Lots of interesting points of views came out in the comments section, and here at FightWorks Podcast headquarters we received a phone call on our toll free line 877-247-4662 raising the [...]

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2011: The Year of the Woman in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

January 6, 2012

The Girls in Gis 2 year anniversary in Texas. Click to enlarge. Image courtesy Mike Calimbas. by Jen Flannery We may one day look back and say that 2011 was the beginning of a new era in women’s Jiu-Jitsu. A record number of female competitors at the 2011 world championships in Long Beach (a 30% [...]

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BJJ Poll: Will BJJ Ever Be an Olympic Sport?

December 10, 2011

The idea for this week’s poll comes from – you guessed it – the most inquisitive mind in Brazilian jiu-jitsu: Ross, one of the Mighty 600,000 from Northern California. He wrote us here at FightWorks Podcast and said, “This is something that you’ve discussed on the Podcast several times, but I don’t think it’s ever [...]

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#252: Learning About Jiu-Jitsu Around the World with BJJ Polls

November 20, 2011

Whenever possible, we try to bring you an episode of The FightWorks Podcast every week, and in each of those episodes we’ll review the most recent BJJ Poll that we had on our website for the prior week. Life can get pretty busy of course, so there are some Sundays when a new show isn’t [...]

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BJJ Poll: Have You Ever Trained Jiu-Jitsu with a Member of the Gracie Family?

November 19, 2011

Jiu-jitsu as most of us know it today began with the Gracie family in Brazil. In the 1990′s Rorion Gracie and his business partners created the UFC, which introduced the world outside Brazil to the Gracie style of jiu-jitsu. Since then, the large Gracie family has continued to actively spread jiu-jitsu across the globe. Our [...]

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#251 BJJ Gi Survey!

November 6, 2011

You spend a lot of time on the mats. It’s what Brazilian jiu-jitsu people do. You also may spend a lot of money to train BJJ. For example, we know that even two years ago more than half of the people who train were paying more than $100 per month for classes! In the same [...]

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BJJ Poll: Does Your Instructor Still Compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Tournaments?

November 5, 2011

In 2010 we asked you if you think your Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor continues to actively increase his or her knowledge about BJJ. Our unofficial head pollmaster Ross from Northern California mentioned that a good follow up to that would be to ask how many BJJ instructors still compete in tournaments. We know that competing pushes [...]

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