Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has revolutionized NHB and has made adding grappling in your repertoire a requirement. A lot of sport BJJers have made the transition to NHB, some successfully, some not so successfully. One name that has been heard on the BJJ circuit for some time now is Baret Yoshida. Baret is a young guy, whose submission oriented style of grappling has taken him all over the world, from Hawaii [where he lives] to Brazil, Japan, and even to Abu Dhabi. Everywhere he went, Baret caused a few heads to turn, mostly because they were trying to get out of his patented triangle. Baret started off at the Relson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy, but now is training at Grappling Unlimited Hawaii. I am very proud to say that Baret started his BJJ career with myself and the other instructors at the Relson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Aiea Academy, quickly absorbing everything that was thrown at him and is improving at an incredible rate! Baret was getting bored with sport BJJ, so he is trying his hand at NHB. He flew up to Japan and Enson Inoue took Baret around to test him against Japan's best. Needless to say, he felt confident enough to enter SuperBrawl XIV: FutureBrawl 2000, applying the mata leao [rear naked choke], and tapping out his opponent in under 2 minutes. I caught up with Baret in Honolulu, Hawaii on November 11, 1999.

FCF: First off, tell us about your fight in Guam at SuperBrawl XIV?
Baret Yoshida: The guy came in, he was a boxer. He threw a couple jabs and I shot in under his jab, took him down and got the cross side. He had me around my neck, like a guillotine, but I was already side mounted, so I slipped my knee across his belly and mounted him. I punched him in the ribs until he let go of that grip because he was still holding on. Then I started throwing punches at his face until he turned over and I choked him from the back.

FCF: What did you expect from your opponent?
BY: I thought he was going to be a wrestler. [laughs] I didn't know he was a boxer.

FCF: Are you scheduled to fight in the next SuperBrawl? If so, who is your opponent?
BY: Yes. I don't know his name yet. I'm either going to fight a 142lbs fighter from K'z Factory or the #1 ranked fighter from the 130lbs division [Mamoru]. It's up in the air right now, but I know that I'm going to fight. [Note: Since that time, Super Brawl promoter, T. J. Thompson has announced that Baret will fight Mamoru]

FCF: Tell us about your background?
BY: When I was small, like maybe seven or eight, I did a little Judo, maybe for a year. I did other sports until around high school. I trained Judo in high school for about a year. Then I saw the UFC and found out that there was a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu school at UH [the University of Hawaii at Manoa]. There was a huge waiting list, it took me three months to get in. The reason I got in was because Relson's academy made a new class in Aiea. It was a "brother" school to UH, because there wasn't enough mat space at UH. I entered a couple of tournaments while at Aiea, while training with you and your brother [Mike].

FCF: And eventually you got up to a point where we told you that you should go up to the main academy to train…
BY: Yeah. I wish there was a lot more blue belts, advanced guys, at Aiea and more mat space. I stayed there [at UH] until Relson moved locations to Kokohead [1211 Kokohead Avenue]. Then I had a falling out with Relson and met up with Egan and have been training NHB ever since.

FCF: How long have you been training in BJJ?
BY: For about four years now.

FCF: And how long have you been training vale tudo?
BY: Maybe like six months.

FCF: How did you end up competing at Abu Dhabi?
BY: I sent in my resume and they said I could go. Actually Egan [Inoue] talked to them and got me in.

FCF: Tell us about your fights and what you thought of Abu Dhabi?
BY: The first fight, I fought against Megaton [Wellington Dias, BJJ Black Belt]. A while back, actually when I was a blue belt, he ripped me off on one of my matches [at the Pan American BJJ tournament], and I knew that I would meet up with him one day. [laughs] Anyway, we started off the match and I jumped to guard. When he tried to pass my guard, I almost triangled him a couple times. After that he didn't want anything to do with me on the ground so he stood up. Then I flying arm locked him and made him tap. He said that was the first time he tapped in competition since he was five years old.

FCF: And your second match?
BY: In my second match I fought this Russian guy named Alexandr Plavski. In the beginning of the match, I jumped to guard. I had him in a triangle, I wanted get the fastest submission prize, so I rushed it and he slipped out. I tried a couple arm locks here and there, almost caught him. Next thing you know, he didn't want to go to the ground, he was running away from the ground. I didn't want my fight to be like one of those boring fights like I saw throughout the tournament, so I shot in and tried to force the takedown. He threw me down a couple times and scored four points. At the end of the match, I took him down, passed his guard, got to his back, put my hooks in and proceeded to apply my choke, my rear naked choke. He crawled out of bounce. He told the referee that I didn't have my hooks in [while back mounted, "hooks" are when your feet are hooked on your opponent's inner thighs, in order to secure the lower portion of your body to your opponent] and the choke wasn't in. But it was in before he rolled out of bounce. I argued with the ref and burned all my time because the clock was still running. They didn't stop the clock. By the time they dragged me in the time ran out.

FCF: Do you think if they stopped the clock that you would finished him?
BY: Yeah, I would have made him tap.

FCF: Why did you want to compete in Abu Dhabi?
BY: I wanted to enter Abu Dhabi because all of the grappling techniques are legal. It's like the "real grappling." In Jiu-Jitsu, certain footlocks and grabs, like fingers and stuff are illegal, at Abu Dhabi, pretty much everything is legal. In Abu Dhabi, there are no belt divisions, you get to fight the best guys and they invite the best guys from all over the world.

FCF: Did you have a good time there?
BY: Yeah. [laughs] They took good care of the fighters.

FCF: Have you been invited back to Abu Dhabi for the next tournament in 2000?
BY: I think I am, I'm not totally sure. I'm not really training for that, just for NHB.

FCF: Have you totally stopped competing in sport BJJ tournaments?
BY: No, I still compete in BJJ competitions with the gi. I just don't train with the gi, but I will enter the tournaments for the practice.

FCF: Your still a purple belt in BJJ right?
BY: Yeah, still a purple belt.

FCF: You recently flew up to Japan and Enson [Inoue] took you around to train with some pro-fighters. Tell us how that went and who did you get to train with?
BY: Actually, I flew up to watch Pride. I trained with the guys that were my weight. I don't really know their names because they spoke Japanese. But they were all right. They were tough, but I imagined it different. The picture in my head was different than what I saw. But it was the same as Brazil and saw how the Jiu-Jitsu guys trained.

FCF: What did you expect?
BY: I thought there would be guys training all day and dieting hardcore. I thought that the fighter's lives were just training and fighting. But when I got there, I noticed that a lot of them had jobs and they didn't devote as much time as I thought to training. In Brazil, it was the same thing. I realized that it's just like here [in Hawaii and the US]. There are some guys who train hard, and some that don't. They just have a different style.

FCF: How did you do in Japan?
BY: I held my own.

FCF: Were you impressed by their technique or did you think that you were on the same level as they were?
BY: They didn't play like the guys in Hawaii play. It was different. But, I thought it was about the same as here.

FCF: Why did you decide to enter NHB, why not stick to grappling?
BY: Originally, when people first take Jiu-Jitsu, fighting is their original goal. Pretty much everybody wants to take Jiu-Jitsu to learn how to fight, but later on they get caught up in the sport[ive aspect]. Next thing you know they're doing something totally different. I just went back to my original goal.

FCF: How have you changed your training, since deciding to do NHB?
BY: I don't like to train with the gi anymore. [laughs] Without the gi, it's more fluid. There's less stalling. The moves are simpler. I have also been wrestling and boxing. I have a few trainers.

FCF: What kind of training do you do?
BY: We pretty much put the vale tudo gloves on and fight. [laughs] That's pretty much what we do. We do a little running and lifting on the side, but that's pretty much what we do. [laughs]

FCF: How long and how many days a week do you train?
BY: I train eight hours a day, seven days a week.

FCF: Are you working now?
BY: Pretty much all I do is train for my fight. The only income that I get is from the cash prize from winning tournaments or any money that sponsors give to me.

FCF: Why don't you teach for money?
BY: Well, it takes away from training. I don't feel that I'm above another guy, I feel like I'm the same level, so I don't feel like I have the right to tell a guy what moves to use or what moves are wrong. It's up to each individual, so I just keep clear of it.

FCF: Of all the different teachers that you've had, what did you like and dislike about their teaching styles?
BY: When I was in Aiea, the twins made me fundamentally sound. They taught me strong basics. What was wrong with Aiea was that there was not enough advanced guys, so I eventually moved to UH [the University of Hawaii] where Relson was teaching, of course. Actually Aiea I thought was better. The only thing UH had over Aiea was that they had more advanced guys. Relson would show the same thing over and over again. He's not open-minded. It has to be done the traditional way. He's kind of a hypocrite in a way, when you think about it. If you watch the first Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in Action tapes, they say the Karate guys won't change, they don't learn groundfighting, and that's how it will always be. It's kind of the same way with his [Relson's] grappling. I think you have to stay fundamentally sound and current. He's not really current. If something works, you should use it. Relson says that you shouldn't use something because for generations it's been done this way. They say "this is the preferred way, and this new stuff isn't going to work." If it works, it works.

Enson and Egan are teaching me a lot about conditioning and vale tudo. There's different positions and he's pretty open-minded. We incorporate boxing and wrestling. I'm pretty satisfied training there now. Charuto [Renato Verissimo] and John Lewis's school [with whom Egan is associated with]…they get their techniques fresh from Brazil. They have more high-tech manuevers, but it's more geared to BJJ competitions. Some of the stuff I incorporate into my vale tudo, but the majority of it is for sport competition. Of the manuevers that I see, I incorporate the highest percentage techniques that are used, in my game. I don't think you can master all the techniques, just pick the ones that suit you.

FCF: What about our Judo teacher, Migita Sensei at the Shobukan dojo?
BY: Migita Sensei made the Olympic team for Judo, but he didn't go to the Olympics because he was graduating at the same time and he had to choose between his education and Judo. And he knew which was more important in the long run. He makes us mentally strong. The strategy he teaches us, helps you win the tournament. He's very positive and encourages you not to hang around negative people. Some instructors will tell you that you will never reach a certain level, but he makes you believe in yourself because he believes in you.

FCF: What is your training strategy and philosophies? You mentioned a little bit of it before.
BY: Well, I like to use the highest percentage moves, or what I feel are the highest percentage moves. I determine that by watching tournaments and vale tudos and I count which moves are used the most. Those are the move that I chose to put into my arsenal, like the arm lock, the triangle, chokes from the back…you have to look at body type too. You have to take that into consideration. I mostly look at guys that are around my size and what they use against other guys. I'm not a big guy. A lot of moves like the key lock and other positions, big guys tend to get that easy. But I have a real hard time getting moves like that, so I don't even add that into my arsenal. Maybe once in a great while it pops up. I also work on the positions and ways to get into the positions to use those moves.

I have this mental picture that when I go into a room, I want to make as much people tap as possible. I have this mental collection in my head. It doesn't matter who it is, whoever I see in the room, I want to make them tap at least once.

FCF: What about concerning competition?
BY: Well, the other guy is thinking the same thing as me. He's got two arms and two legs, the same as me. It don't really matter. I'm not scared to lose, I lost before.

FCF: You also read books on Bobby Fisher, the chess player. Tell us about that.
BY: Bobby Fisher was a competitor, even though his game was different than Jiu-Jitsu. I can relate him to Jiu-Jitsu, it's different, but it's the same. There's rivalries, like in Jiu-Jitsu. His whole life revolved around chess, 24 hours a day he would be thinking chess, anything linked to chess. I think that's similar to the way I practice grappling and Jiu-Jitsu. To me it's fun, it's not like work. To some people, it's like work. They just want to get in there and practice, just to say that they practiced. So they won't be labeled "lazy", or that they didn't deserve to win. They can say, "hey, I went to practice everyday, it wasn't my fault that I lost. I did everything that I could." But they're not really having fun. I read this saying, "losers, they try too hard, winners forget they're in the race, they just love to run." In the [Bobby Fisher] movie, one guy was a natural champion. He was born to play chess and be a champion at chess. The other guy was cultivated by his instructor. I think B. J. [Penn, a Nova Uniao BJJ brown belt] is a natural fighter.

FCF: What makes B. J. a natural and you not one? You both have trained for approximately the same amount of time, are at comparable levels and ages?
BY: He doesn't have to practice. He will see a move one time and he will be able to perform the move like he did it one hundred times. I think that my natural ability makes up like thirty percent [of my ability].

FCF: Tell us about why you were reading that book on fighting dogs?
BY: The dog fighting books talk about what happens when two dogs fight. And it's kind of similar to NHB or UFC types of fights, but pretty much in a dog fight, one type of dog will win, and that's the American Pit Bull Terrier. It will win because it has more gameness than the other dogs. The Pit Bull Terrier could be dying, but it will still be wagging it's tail. It likes to fight. I admire that. They have a high pain tolerance. They'll never give up, they're bred to fight in those pitts. They'll beat bigger dogs. They will wear the dogs down. Maybe the first 20 minutes the bigger dog will be flying the Pit Bull around, but then the bigger dog will be getting bit and will be losing gameness. It won't want to fight anymore. The Pit Bull is still happy. It was happy all along, even when it was taking a beating. He's always wagging his tail and he will keep coming and eventually beat the bigger dog.

FCF: What are your goals in NHB?
BY: I want to win the Shooto title. It would be nice to make some money on the way.

FCF: What about after that?
BY: I don't have any other plans, I just want to win the title.

FCF: Do you have any plans after Superbrawl XV, which I believe is on December 7th?
BY: I want to fight again, in a Shooto event.

FCF: Over here in Hawaii or in Japan?
BY: Anywhere, as long as it's Shooto. [Shooto only takes officially sanctioned Shooto matches into considerations, when making their rankings.] I want to get in a lot of fights, just like Travis Fulton. I want to fight as much as I can, before I get too old and am not able to fight anymore.

FCF: Anything else you would like to add?
BY: No.

FCF: It's always good to see you, thanks for the interview and good luck at SuperBrawl.
BY: Thanks.