Alan Brandao
Q. Can you tell us about your background and how you got started in Jiujitsu?
A. I was born and raised in Brazil, where bjj is everywhere. I first started training around the age of 14/15 , with school friends who already had some experience... since then I never stopped training.
Q. What advice would you give to your younger self starting your jiujitsu journey? What advice should they ignore?
A. The advice I'd give to my younger self would be to train at least twice a day, paying more attention to the classes, realising the importance of drilling. They should ignore the advice of training harder because I actually did train hard lol.
Q. In your experience, what Intensity of training is best for learning? And how is this achieved? I.e. what proportion is drilling, sparring " light", And intense sparring across a session /week
A. Best intensity of training for a beginner also depends on the ultimate goals of that beginner... in general, I'd recommend training twice a day at least twice a week, drilling sessions everyday, light sparring everyday and intense sparring 3 times per week.
Q. How often are you experimenting with new moves and positions vs working on existing and established techniques within your arsenal?
A. Nowadays, At a black belt level, I've been experimenting new moves at the majority
of training time, working on existing and established techniques only on competition.
Q. Do you have any advice on recovery/preservation for BJJ, or any practices you wish you implemented earlier?
A. Complementary training such as yoga and any mobility workouts are great.
Q. Do you use strategies or game plans for upcoming matches or competition? If so can you provide an example
A. 100%. I always have a game plan/strategy based on each of my opponents. This usually provides me an insight of how to start the match and what to avoid during the match. For example, if I know he's going to pull guard, I'll be training to avoid getting caught on the guard he wants to play.
Q. Pre competition nerves is a thing allot of people deal with. Do you have any advice/tips on how to deal with it this that you or your students implement?
A. Bad news is: it'll never go away! But the good news is, the more you do it, the more familiar you are with the feeling which helps you to deal with your emotions. I like to ignore the fact that I'm going to fight, not thinking about it until the moment I step on the mat.
Q. Strength and conditioning can be the deciding factor in a match with opponents of equal technical skill, do you do any Strength & conditioning? Can you give any insight as to what that looks like?
A. I workout twice a week and do yoga 4 times a week. Every workout is specifically designed for BJJ performance.
Q. When preparing for a match/competition what does your training look like? (Eg 8 weeks out, training twice a day etc)
A. I usually keep the same volume of training throughout the whole year. I like the idea of : Be ready so you don't need to get ready! the only thing that would change when preparing for a match/comp, would be the increasing number of specific positional training.
Q. What’s something you now know, that you wish you knew earlier in your Jiujitsu journey? (techniques, training methods, business advice)
A. I wish I knew since my white belt how important it is to watch tutorials and matches (everyday) in order to speed up your learning.
Comments