It wasn't long before the Machado brothers could no longer keep their "secret weapon" under wraps. Bob Bass has been terrorizing the west coast Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu scene for more years than I can remember. He fought in an America versus Brazil BJJ tournament where his opponent took off his black belt and put on a brown belt to compete against Bob (at the time Bob was a brown belt), but Bob won anyway. He also had a few wars with multiple-time BJJ World Champion Marcio Feitosa, again proving that he can compete with the best in the world. I met Bob Bass at a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu seminar held at Schofield Barracks, a military facility in Hawaii. I got back in touch with Bob over the telephone on November 11, 1999 to discuss his background, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, training with the Machado brothers, his new instructional videos, and some of his friends that are going into NHB.

FCF: Bob, let's first start off with your background. I know you used to wrestle. Tell us about that and any other thing leading up to and including BJJ?
Bob Bass: I pretty much wrestled a bit and took some Thai boxing when I was younger. I took a little bit of Karate and stuff like that, but I found out that most of the time when you start clinching and getting close the wrestling always overcame the Karate stuff and you went to the ground. That pretty much made me want to take Jiu-Jitsu because basically, groundfighting is Jiu-Jitsu and I was looking for something to complement my wrestling, something with submissions. And the only thing really out there was Aikido, which wasn't the stuff I wanted, and I found Jiu-Jitsu and that was it, I was hooked.

FCF: How many years have you trained in wrestling and in Jiu-Jitsu?
BB: I've trained in wrestling, probably about five years and I probably had about 13 or 14 years of Jiu-Jitsu now.

FCF: The Machados came to the US with the Gracies, but later had a falling out and broke off to do their own thing. Since then, they have made quite a name for themselves in America. They were already wellknown in Brazil. What is it like training with them?
BB: I think it was the very best. I heard of people with really nice places to train, but I would say that the best training wasn't really where the Taj Mahal was. I always thought that the best training was in Rigan's garage. I thought that was the best. I feel that it wasn't watered down Jiu-Jitsu. I was really interested in finding the" source" of Jiu-Jitsu and I thought that the Machados at that time, and still at this time, were the main source and the new kids on the block. I was ecstatic [to train with them].

FCF: Did you help train Rigan Machado for Abu Dhabi?
BB: A little bit. We trained a little bit for Abu Dhabi, but I'm kind of too small for him. So he pretty much trained with the bigger guys. I trained a little bit with him for his endurance training and stuff like that, but mostly bigger guys trained with him.

FCF: You along with a few other American BJJ black belts seemed to have effectively mixed wrestling with your BJJ. What are your comments concerning this?
BB: Well, I think Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the supreme art when you are on your back, but I think wrestling has a lot to do with Jiu-Jitsu because when you are on your hands and knees it's pretty much wrestling. I think they both complement each other perfectly. Where I see Jiu-Jitsu lacking is on the takedowns. When I used to wrestle, 90% of the matches were won on the takedowns. And I see a lot of Jiu-Jitsu tournaments that look like Judo, so wrestling is definitely helpful to Jiu-Jitsu.

FCF: How you would describe your style?
BB: I would say at least 80% Jiu-Jitsu, and the other 20% is wrestling.

FCF: BJJ has always been an evolving art, always looking to absorb effective techniques from other arts. Most top BJJ competitors are Judo black belts, Americans who practice BJJ are contributing wrestling, and now, the most recent ground breaking move is the introduction of leg locks into a lot of academies. What are your thoughts of the evolution of BJJ over the years?
BB: Well, leg locks used to be really big in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a long time ago. They used to go for legbars a lot until people were getting hurt, so they had to water it down in sport Jiu-Jitsu. Now, since people have seen Jiu-Jitsu, people are trying to figure out how to beat it. And seeing as Jiu-Jitsu has a lot of leg work in it, legbars are coming back to Jiu-Jitsu. I think leg locks are great. I think every part of the body should be attacked, but at a certain level. Maybe like purple belt and up can go for leg locks and stuff, but I would leave that for purple belts and up.

FCF: When were leg locks used in BJJ?
BB: Way back when. Rigan used to tell me that when he was coming up in Jiu-Jitsu, a lot of people used to do leg locks, but it was new to them and dangerous and a lot of people were getting hurt. Before this generation, and I'm sure a generation back, Rigan told me that a lot of leg bars were being used.

FCF: I know that Relson has a pretty mean footlock, but I haven't seen too many Brazilians use leg locks until recently.
BB: I think that Carlos Gracie and those guys were doing it. When I started pulling out leg bars, he [Regan] already knew about them and started countering my stuff and showing me that he has seen a lot of it. At the time, when Jiu-Jitsu came here [to the U.S.], he didn't want to teach any leg bars because people would go straight for the leg, and don't understand how dangerous and easy it is to break a leg or how you don't feel [the application of pain] as much. Most of the time Rigan would teach us all the [regular] Jiu-Jitsu stuff and once in a while, we would get him to teach us some leg lock stuff, at the higher belts.

FCF: You and another Machado black belt, Rick Williams, just released some BJJ instructional video tapes. Tell us about those?
BB: Well, I think that they're the best tapes on the market, myself. They have a lot to do with getting right to the point and the concept of everything, instead of fighting some drunk guy that doesn't know anything. The tapes are designed for you to fight against purple belts, maybe brown belts…higher level guys. It's not just for the white belts. I think it's anybody's game, especially if you're a blue belt or above. It's the best tapes on the market and it's pretty much showing it if you look on the Internet and look at the reviews. We explain the techniques in pure, simple English and that's what I think about them.

FCF: I heard that some of the Machado brothers were rubbed the wrong way with the making of those videos. What happened and is everything cool now?
BB: Yeah, there's always something, some kind of speculation. When you have five brothers, it's always hard to make everybody happy. But the one person who means the most to us is Rigan Machado and as long as I can make Rigan happy…well, it's hard to make the rest of them happy. If my coach is fine with it, then that's all I care about it.

FCF: Have you trained in Brazil? If so, how does training in the U.S. differ from training in Brazil?
BB: Well, what I seen in Brazil, there was a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioners, so, at the time, I didn't really see a lot of private lessons being done. I would see Carlos Gracie, Jr. come in a lot [at the Gracie Barra academy] and show one position and do a little exercise and then just wrestle, a lot of wrestling time. What I see here in America, is a lot of positions being shown, but not as much wrestling as the Brazilians. But we are behind in positions, so I guess that's why we show so many positions, trying to get our guys ready for the Brazilians. We don't condition our guys as much, but it's getting there.

FCF: Would you personally lean toward more mat training or making your students more aware of the different techniques?
BB: I would lean toward mat training. I believe the more time on the mats, the better. It actually all depends on what you want to get out of Jiu-Jitsu. If you're a business guy, then I would say more of the techniques, but if you're into it for the serious Jiu-Jitsu for the long haul, then I would say time on the mat. Sometimes my coach [Rigan Machado] would tell me that he would rather see a guy on the mat with two or three positions with really good endurance from wrestling than a guy that has a lot of positions with no endurance.

FCF: When we spoke earlier, you mentioned that you had a few students and BJJ black belt and wonder kid Fernando Vasconcelos are planning to enter NHB. Tell us about them?
BB: I think Fernando is going to be ready in the next year or two for vale tudo fighting. And I have a student named Ed Wetting who is very interested in it. And another guy named Travis Davis. I've got three pretty good, up and coming fighters who have experience in boxing, Thai boxing, wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu and shootfighting. They're all pretty good. Eddie has a couple titles in Thai boxing and he has been in a lot of the stand-up fights and has a very good Jiu-Jitsu game. So, I believe in the future they will be in there pretty soon.

FCF: Has your training changed since your students have expressed interest in vale tudo?
BB: Well, we try to keep it to sport Jiu-Jitsu as much as we can, but we are aware of the real fighting and stuff like that. So we are incorporating a lot of stand up wrestling in our Jiu-Jitsu and a lot of Thai boxing. So it is starting to change slowly, but we do have classes for no-gi at night. Before we never used to have that and a little bit of gi and slapping around, so it is changing.

FCF: When can we expect to see these guys in action?
BB: I would say within the next year or two. Fernando just got over knee surgery and he was about ready before that. They were thinking about entering the Ultimate Fighting Championship and people were calling him up for some stuff. And then he hurt his knee, so that set him back a bit. But I think Ed Wetting and Travis Davis will be ready in the next year or so.

FCF: This past weekend there was a Machado tournament. Tell us how this went and how did your team do?
BB: I think the tournament went well. I wasn't expecting my students to do as well. I give then an A+ on their fighting, but as far as their citizenship...well, I believe when any group of guys go into a tournament without any respect or any morals, it's nothing less than a gang fight. So that's what I told my students, you can fight, but have respect.

FCF: Tell us about the "little event" that you guys had tonight at your academy?
BB: [laughs] Well, everytime someone gets promoted with a belt, you got to walk the line. We had three white belts who won their divisions. Usually when a student wins a tournament at his belt level, they may be ready for a promotion. If they have four or five fights and win their division, then they're ready for the next belt. We line up all the guys and I stand at one end of the line and they stand on the other end of the line. And if they want the belt that bad, they have to walk the line and everybody gives them a belt beating. [laughs] The higher belts are allowed to tie their belts in a knot. [laughs]

FCF: Anything else you want to add?
BB: Not too much. When are you guys going to come up? I talked to Fernando and he said that he's more than happy for you guys to come down and train with us. And take a picture of the school or just come down to train at our school for free. You have an open invitation. I will be back there, hopefully, in three months or so.

FCF: Thanks for the invitation, I will definitely take you up on that offer.
BB: Yeah, just come up, we have open arms. You guys are great guys. I usually have a good sense of people and it's very hard to find some good guys who have the same kind of feeling about Jiu-Jitsu and are a little more humble, instead of so much testosterone. Jiu-Jitsu is the gentle art. I would much rather see a nice technical match than a knock down, scratch match.

FCF: Thanks for the interview and the great seminar.
BB: Thank you. Keep in touch.

For those of you out in California, Bob Bass' Academy is located at 246 North Aviation, Manhattan Beach, California 90266. He can also be reached at (310) 318-8960.