The Gracie name is synonymous with grappling and it is very safe to say that anyone who dons the Gracie name is more than just a proficient grappler. In Brazil, through the Gracies, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has flourished and there are endless amounts of tournaments to enter. While most of the Gracie's are well known for their victories in BJJ tournaments, another Gracie had the foresight to participate in something well ahead of it's time. Rodrigo Gracie took another direction in his training and abandoned his gi in order to become proficient in what we now call submission grappling. This was at a time when very few people were doing so. His foresight and dedication paid off by becoming the 1998 Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling Champion. This title introduced the world to Rodrigo Gracie, proving that there are a lot more Gracies that we should know more about. I called Rodrigo on May 11, 2000 to learn more about him, his recent match against Robert Ferguson and what happen to the up coming match with Scott Schultz, head instructor of Tai-Kai Jiu-Jitsu.

FCF: Everybody knows the name Gracie, but may not be too familiar with you. Can you tell us your relationship in the family?
Rodrigo Gracie: I'm the son of Reylson Gracie. It is not Relson from Hawaii, but Reylson with an "L." R-E-Y-L-S-O-N. Carlos Gracie is my grandfather. My father, Reylson has a school in Boca Raton, Florida.

FCF: You are currently training with Renzo in New York, have you moved there?
RG: Yeah, I have been with Renzo for four years. Before that I was with my dad.

FCF: And that was in Nevada?
RG: Yeah, well first he was in California, then he moved to Nevada. Now he's in Florida.

FCF: How long have you been in the United States?
RG: The first time I came was in '91. I was about 18 years old, but I was going back and forth to Brazil. But since I came to New York, I have been here like three years straight without going to Brazil. I really like New York! I got used to the big apple. [laughs]

FCF: What are you currently doing? Teaching or just training for matches?
RG: Yeah, I usually teach in the mornings or when Renzo is away. And I am training also. Right now, I am training very hard. I am doing kickboxing right now and trying to combine it with Jiu-Jitsu. I am kickboxing with Ray Longo, in Long Island and I am training with Renzo in the city. I am training very hard because Renzo wants to put me to fight in Japan soon, so I got to do some kicking and punching.

FCF: When do you plan on fighting?
RG: Definitely this year. I stayed out for more than a year because of a knee problem. I had like two surgeries. I had a torn cartilage and so the doctor said that he wasn't going to remove the cartilage. He was going to repair it, so they repaired it but it didn't really work out. They did it again and then I had a lot of scar tissue on my knee. Right now, I have problems sitting on my heels. It's stiff. After I train, I have to stretch sometimes to loosen up the knee. Right now, it's much better. It's not 100%, but it's much better. That's why I have not competed in Abu Dhabi. I competed in '98 and won, but I didn't compete in '99 and 2000 because of my knee.

FCF: Do you plan on going back and competing?
RG: In Abu Dhabi? Certainly. Right now there's a lot of tough guys. The competition is very good. Everybody there is tough, so I'm definitely in there.

FCF: What weight class would you enter in now?
RG: I think under 77 kilos.

FCF: Isn't that the same class as Renzo?
RG: Yes, that's the same class that Renzo fought last time. Actually, the first one, I fought in the weight class above. I could have fought in the one that Renzo fought in, but I was thinking about going into the one above Renzo, but I thought that I would go into the same class as Renzo. Put me in the other bracket and if something happens where we get into the finals or something, I would let him beat me up. [laughs] He's the man! Renzo's the man!

FCF: You recently competed in a submission grappling competition against Robert Ferguson. How did that come about?
RG: I haven't competed for so long, so when I got in I was trying to take him down and get the feeling. He was using a lot of strength, so I was thinking that I am going to take the fight a little bit more standing and then I am going to try a take down. If it doesn't work than I am going to be on the bottom and he's going to be in my guard. I thought that if I pulled him into my guard that I would probably finish him a lot quicker, but I tried to take him down. It worked out well. After seven minutes, I got him. He's a tough guy, strong. He hung in there, I respect him for that.

FCF: You were scheduled to compete against Scott Schultz, head instructor at Tai-Kai Jiu-Jitsu at Mat Madness, but now they are stating that he will fight Steve Maxwell. What happened to that match?
RG: Actually, he [promoter Kipp Kollar] wanted to put a four-man tournament. He wanted to put Scott Schultz in the other bracket to fight one guy and I fight one guy from Canada. He wanted us to meet up in the end, so that I would fight Scott Schultz in the end. And then he called me and said "sorry about that. I will have you fight one guy. I'm going to do a big tournament in November or December. It's going to have everybody."

FCF: So, are you still in this up and coming show?
RG: Yes, I am going to fight Shannon Rich. He's from Texas. I saw on the Internet his background. He's a tough guy. He has like 60 fights and he does MMA and no-holds barred.

FCF: Is this going to be a submission grappling match or NHB?
RG: No, just submission.

FCF: An old friend who lived in Brazil for a little while told me that you were kind of a rebel and always trained without the gi. Obviously the results were shown in 1998 at Abu Dhabi, what made you want to train without the gi when so many of your relatives and fellow Brazilians were training solely with the gi?
RG: Well, I always liked training without the gi. I love training without the gi. While guys in Brazil used to train with the gi a lot, I liked to train without the gi. I used to get guys on the street and say "hey, would you guys like to train? Let's train." So, I would take them to the academy and train with them without the gi and stuff like that. It was fun. [laughs] I think that I got that from my father because he used to tell me try to avoid grabbing the sleeves so much, because a guy on the street is not going to have sleeves to grab. Try to practice like the guy is not wearing a gi. And I remember, I think it was in '94, a wrestler, who was like 190 lbs and was 3rd in the world, came to the academy. It was good because I was training mostly without the gi. When I came here to Renzo's, and he was training a lot without the gi, I said ooh, that's cool. When I was in [Las] Vegas, I came for a week and stayed with Renzo to train at his academy. They did a lot of training without the gi, so I said that I am going to come back and I am going to stay and train for a year. But I came here and I ended up staying with Renzo.

FCF: What did your relatives say about you training without the gi?
RG: My father always tells me don't fight heavy guys. He always wants me to fight guys my weight. Right now, I want to fight guys my weight, but then I want to jump into the next level. I really want to test myself, you know? But, my family, like Renzo, they really want me fight, to be out there and have a good name because when a Gracie wins, it's good for the whole family, you know? When a Gracie loses…it's like what Renzo says, it's like a boy named Sue. You got to be tough or you're gonna die. But, especially Renzo, he really wants me to do NHB. And I am starting with the boxing and the kickboxing, so hopefully this year I am going to fight.

FCF: How is grappling with the gi different than without the gi?
RG: I think that when you grapple with the gi, you move more in circles. Without the gi you move more like a square. If you want to get a very good guard or develop your guard, you got to train with the gi. What people don't understand about grappling without the gi is that when the guy is trying to pass your guard, even if the guy gets to your side, you don't need to move your hips as much to put the guy back in the guard. But with the gi, if the guy is holding you, it requires a lot more hip and feet movement. So, I think that you have to train in both. You can't just train without the gi, you have to train in both. I think for beginners, they should train in the gi first. They can develop the guard and hip movement. When a guy holds your belt and he's passing your guard you have to move your hip. Without the gi, he has nothing to grab, so it's easier for the guy on the bottom to escape his hips and put you back in the guard.

FCF: Have you competed often in BJJ competitions?
RG: Yeah, I did the team tournaments, but that was a long time ago. I think I was a purple belt. I think that was in '93 or '94, something like that. I lost by decision. It was my first tournament. For people that may not know the team tournaments, brown belts fight black belts. And if you were a middleweight, you would fight a middle heavyweight. So I fought a guy who was 10 kilos heavier than me. I fought a good fight and lost by a decision. It was okay. It was a good experience. The more you fight, you get better, especially the guys in the academy that went to the Pan Ams and fought and trained for it. When they come back, they feel better. The experience is worth a lot. So they get better and get more confident in themselves. That's the cool thing.

FCF: I always like to ask this to a Gracie. What was it like growing up a Gracie?
RG: Oh man, sometimes it was good. There's always a good side and there's always a bad side. I would have kids picking on me, saying "oh, you're a Gracie, you know how to fight." They wanted to see, they want me to show them. They always wanted me to fight another kid. They would tell me that that kid said something about you. I always had fights. My brother had big problems with that in school. He got expelled for fighting because the name Gracie. They had that thing in Brazil that no Gracie had ever lost. The Gracies was unbeatable. It is a lot of pressure.

FCF: How many brothers do you have?
RG: I have two brothers, Cesar and my Reryckson. Reryckson is a blue belt, I think. It's funny, a long time ago Reryckson said to me, "you got to show me some moves. I'm out of shape." He said that people would see Royce and they said "hey man, you're a Gracie," so they would ask him to show them some moves. You could see that he was frustrated and he really wanted to be good.

FCF: Not the Cesar in California right?
RG: No, no. He is the son of Sonja, my aunt.

FCF: What is it like training with Renzo and his guys?
RG: Oh man, it's good. I'm telling you. I got a lot better. My father stopped fighting, he's only teaching. But when I got to Renzo's…Renzo's fighting. He is active and he developed new techniques because he was fighting. He really helped me. I got a really good base and a lot of good stuff from my father and Renzo really helped me out. I'm telling you, the guys at Renzo's are good. And Renzo teaches a lot. Renzo doesn't hide anything. You go to his class and he shows four moves and then you ask him one thing and he shows you it. He doesn't care. He's a very outgoing guy. He's a very nice guy. He will show you anything and everything.

FCF: Can you tell us what kind of training that you do on a daily or weekly basis?
RG: Usually like two months before a fight, I do the weights, explosive things like dead lifts and squats. Power lifting moves, pull-ups real heavy. Then a month before, I change to plyometrics and calisthenics. If you do weights four weeks before your fight, you get slow. First you have to develop your strength, then you have to develop your endurance. Right now I'm doing a lot of push ups and sit ups and the boxing. I do it for like an hour and keep my heart in a certain range, so I don't get tired in the fight.

FCF: How often do you do your grappling training?
RG: Everyday. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I do plyometrics and calisthenics. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, I train real hard. That's the days that I choose to train really hard. So the days that I do calisthenics, I go and train for 40 minutes or one hour, just to get the sweat out.

FCF: What are your aspirations? Do you want to open your own school and teach in the US or do you just want to compete here and then go back to Brazil…
RG: I am planning on staying here. I like it here. I like the people here. Right now there is a fever here. I don't want to talk bad about Brazil, but I like it better here. I want to stay here, maybe I will open something in the future, in Long Island. But I'm definitely going to stay teaching at Renzo's. I teach almost every day at Renzo's, but I want to do something in Long Island, maybe one day a week, twice a week. But I plan on staying with Renzo.

FCF: What are your aspirations as far as NHB?
RG: I am going to do a lot of boxing and kickboxing. Once I get comfortable with that…because I never did it. I know how to close the gap, shoot in, but what is happening now a days is everybody is cross training, everybody knows Jiu-Jitsu. If I'm going to fight a guy, he's going to know Jiu-Jitsu. The kickboxing will make it easier for me. It's not like I'm going to trade kicks and punches with him, it's going to make it easier for me to shoot in and take him down. That's why I am training kickboxing, I want to be a champion. I want to do my thing. Renzo said the other day, "when I retire, you are going to be the Gracie who is fighting."

FCF: What is the age difference between you and Renzo? How old are you and Renzo?
RG: He's 32, I think and I am 26. It's funny our birthdays are on the same day, March 11th.

FCF: Do you have any other matches coming up?
RG: I am probably going to do something in August or September in Pride. In December, I want to do the tournament with Kipp Kollar, who's organizing a tournament under 200lbs or over 200lbs or something. I don't know. 2001, I am going to go to Abu Dhabi. Actually, I'm really looking forward to going to Abu Dhabi because everybody is talking about it.

FCF: What is your natural weight?
RG: Like 175lbs, when I'm training light, I'm not lifting, I'm not eating good, I usually go to 178lbs. But, when I am training, 175lbs.

FCF: And at what weight do you want to compete at?
RG: I like 180lbs. When I'm 180lbs, I'm not in shape. It's when I'm eating like shit, you know. When I work out using the calisthenics and plyometrics, I lose like three or four pounds after the workout. And I'm eating a lot because I am losing weight. Like the other day, I weight at 174lbs and I tried to eat a lot because I am training a lot and I have a fast metabolism. I get lean very easily. But I like 180lbs, I feel strong at 180lbs.

FCF: Thanks.
RG: Take care man.