In this in-depth interview I talk with Bernardo Faria, the 99kg BJJ fighter who recently took gold in not only his own weight class but also in the absolute division of the 2015 BJJ Mundials.

Some of the highlights of my talk with Bernardo Faria included…

His mindset going into big tournaments

How he developed and refined his highly individual BJJ gameplan

What he’s learned training with Marcelo Garcia in NYC

The physical conditioning routine that gets him into top shape for competition

How he’s modifying his game to work no-gi in ADCC

How he won the Worlds despite ‘not being at all talented in jiu-jitsu’

And much more…

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Stephan Kesting Ladies and gentlemen, have I got a treat for you today! I’m talking to Bernardo Faria fresh off a double gold medal in the Mundials: a win in his weight class and a win in the Absolute. He has done this before in the Pan Ams – winning both his weight class and the absolutes – and he has a whole list of medals both in gi and no gi.

So he is one of the very best BJJ guys in the world right now. I’m really looking forward to picking his brain today!

But first of all, Bernardo – I’m sure you can’t hear this enough – but congratulations on your most recent double victory!

Bernardo Faria Thanks so much Stephan, and also thanks for the opportunity to make this interview. It’s a pleasure to be talking for the readers of your website; I have been following you on Youtube and all this stuff, and I really appreciate all the work you are doing for the jiu-jitsu community. So it’s a real pleasure to be here…

Stephan Kesting That’s too kind of you. Now after you won the Worlds you did a seminar or two, then disappeared off to Brazil. How was Brazil?

Bernardo Faria Yes, I had one week’s vacation there after I won – it wasn’t planned. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that again, so I should be grateful, go to Brazil and celebrate with my family. It’s been a lifetime’s work and you never know if you’ll be able to repeat it, so I wanted to celebrate it. I talked to Marcelo and Tatiana and they gave me one week off, so I went there and it was super-nice

Stephan Kesting So did you actually do any jiu-jitsu there or was it just family, beach and friend time?

Bernardo Faria Every time I go to Brazil I train. I always go to my hometown and train with my first teacher and one of my best friends and mentors. But this time I had a knee little injury from the Worlds so I did nothing other than some physiotherapy. It’s healing well, my knee feels a lot better, and an MRI shows nothing, so that’s good news…

Stephan Kesting That’s fantastic…

Bernardo Faria I’m back in training now for ADCC – I was invited there.

Stephan Kesting I’ve got a whole bunch of questions for you, but let’s start with what you’re doing to get ready for ADCC. What’s your day-by-day plan for this coming week?

Bernardo Faria When I was coming back from Brazil on the airplane – 9 hours of doing nothing – I planned my next 2 months out – that’s exactly what I have until ADCC – really well.

They had invited me before, in 2013, but I had hurt my knee and needed surgery so I couldn’t go. This time they invited me for a higher division. My regular division is up to 99 kilograms, but they invited me to the heaviest division: over-99 kilograms.

I’m going to take it as a challenge and do it anyway, and I hope I have the chance to do the Open Class as well, so I’m really excited. As I already said, I’ve already made my plans for the next two months.

Basically on Monday I’m going to do one wrestling session and one physical conditioning session.

Tuesday: two no-gi sessions

Wednesday: one wrestling session and one physical conditioning session

Thursday: two no-gi sessions

Friday: one no-gi and one gi session.

That’s my schedule. I also have some seminars scheduled on the weekends which will be with gi. So on some Saturdays I’m going to be training with the students in the gi. ’m going to be doing two gi sessions, five no-gi sessions, three sessions, and two physical conditioning trainings. That’s going to be my next eight weeks (laughing).

Stephan Kesting Obviously Marcelo Garcia is very heavily involved in your training, but when you take a look at his philosophy – keep on training gi up to a no-gi event, and keep on training no-gi up to a gi event – do you believe in that? Obviously you do if you’re continuing to do gi right up to ADCC…

Bernardo Faria What Marcelo says really makes sense: when you do no-gi you are helping your gi training, and when you do gi you are helping your no-gi, so you should always do both together.

I really believe that as well; one really helps the other. No-gi is more slippery so you have to be really, really tight on every position, and with gi you need more tools. The gi holds you more so you need more options. If you can get a bunch of options from the gi, and you can get the adjustments from the no-gi, then you’ll have the best game. That’s why I’m trying to keep the gi in my schedule at least once or twice a week.

Stephan Kesting When I think of your game Bernardo, especially your bottom game, your very famous deep half guard and your Z guard, there is a lot of gripping. You’re always feeding the lapel between the legs to get that single leg and other sweeps, but obviously in no-gi you don’t have those handles. Is it a big problem to not have those handles?

Bernardo Faria Yes, that’s really true. I feel much more comfortable with the gi than no-gi. Before I came to Marcelo’s, in San Paulo, I used to only do one no-gi training session per week. It was every Friday at 12 o’clock. And many times I would have a tournament on the weekend and wouldn’t train on Friday. Many times I would go to my hometown on Friday where I would train with the gi instead.

So I didn’t train much no-gi before I came to Marcelo’s, and when I arrived here I was feeling really uncomfortable in the no-gi sessions. But every day I’m improving – getting small details here and there – so little by little I’m starting to become really comfortable with the no-gi grips and kind of forgetting the lapels.

I’m sure that one day I’ll be feeling 100% comfortable with no gi, the same as I feel with the gi, I just hope that this day is in two months (laughing). But I’m feeling more comfortable than last year, so every year I’m feeling better. I haven’t reached equal comfort levels yet, but I’m sure it’ll be soon, because I’m improving and getting tips from Marcelo every single training session, which helps a lot!

Stephan Kesting That’s an interesting point about Marcelo giving you tips… Marcelo’s game, especially his bottom game, is pretty different from your game. At least to my eyes you’re doing deep half guard and Z guard, and he is doing butterfly guard. Of course he’s Marcelo, he’s incredible, but how is he a good coach for you when your games are so different?

Bernardo Faria When I do Marcelo’s class I always do the positions that he is teaching, and many times I think that that particular position might not work for me. But I really try to focus on the position that he is teaching, because even if I don’t use that position myself someone might try to use it against me, and then I’ll know what’s going on.

Also if you end up on the bottom in no-gi you don’t have lapels and you don’t have grips, so the hooks help a lot in no-gi. So I’m really using a lot of hooks right now: I’m doing a type of guard that’s half butterfly guard and half half-guard. It’s half guard with the outside leg inserted under the leg with a butterfly hook. So I’m really trying to mix what Marcelo has with my own game.

It’s nice because any question I have about any kind of sweep or hook Marcelo shows me the way he does it, then I try to do it the exact same way, and then try to bring it as close as possible to my game. So I really think I’m improving a lot in no-gi and I’m very excited for ADCC; it’s going to be a good test!

Stephan Kesting Well I’m very much looking forward to seeing the new, improved Bernardo. I was talking about this with a friend of mine just a while ago: if we were doing baseball you wouldn’t be saying “Oh, I just saw this brand new way of throwing the ball or swinging the bat”. Or in tennis there just aren’t any brand new strokes. But in BJJ, which you’ve been doing for a long time and have won the highest accolades the sport has to offer, and here you are going on about learning new details all the time. Just goes to show you how big jiu-jitsu is…

Bernardo Faria Yes, and that’s exactly the nicest part about jiu-jitsu. I think that jiu-jitsu is so big that you can learn a lot of things. For sure if I spend a day with you you’re going to show me a lot of things, and I’m probably going to teach you some things too.

Everyone can teach everyone. If I train with any blue, purple, brown or black belt then for sure he’s going to have something that I don’t know. If you are humble in jiu-jitsu and have an open mind you can really learn a lot, and from everyone. And I think one of the nicest things in life is to learn new things…

Stephan Kesting But some people are scared of learning, they want to stay just in their little world of what they’re comfortable with, and they don’t want to push themselves outside it…

Bernardo Faria I don’t even know what to say about these people. I think they’re losing an opportunity to learn. In all aspects of life learning is super-nice. If we start talking about business, about computers, about other stuff, then there is a lot of stuff I can learn from you, you can learn something from me, and we can grow together.

Jiu-jitsu is the same way; even if you never use what you learn maybe someone is going to use it against you, and then you’ll know what’s going on and how to defend it. So I never close my mind to learning anything.

Stephan Kesting So you have been out there practising berimbolos, just not using them in competition?

Bernardo Faria It’s not my favourite position, but sometimes in training I try it. If I don’t try it, then I won’t know what it is, and then I won’t be ready for it if someone tries it against me. Sometimes when I try a new position I feel for the hardest parts of the technique, and then when I’m defending against that position – when someone tries to do it against me – then I go exactly to that part that felt hard when I was trying it myself. So it’s really important to keep an open mind and learn everything.

For example, I hate 50/50 guard. I hate it, and you’ll never see me go to it deliberately. But in the finals of the Worlds I ended up in the 50/50, so if I hadn’t been training and studying that position – had I closed my mind to learning – I would probably have tapped in the finals. I hate it, but I do it, train it, study it. Sometimes in training I go for it just to see what it’s all about. And then in the finals of the Worlds, João Gabriel put me in the 50/50, and it was cool – I wasn’t that worried and thought, “OK, I know what’s going on here…”

Stephan Kesting When I watch you compete you very, very much have a gameplan. A lot of your matches look very similar, and your opponents probably know exactly what’s coming, but they can’t stop it. How long did it take to find this gameplan that works so well for you?

Bernardo Faria I do sort of the same line, the same direction, since I was a yellow belt. When I was a yellow belt in 2002 I started doing the over-under pass – the same pass I use now. In 2003 as a juvenile blue belt I started doing the single leg half guard. In 2006, when I was a purple belt, I started doing the deep half guard. So it’s a long time doing this game, but I don’t close my eyes to other techniques.

For example I use the omoplata a lot in training. I don’t use it so much in competition, but I’m still always working it. Also now I’m working on butterfly guard and my hooks. I’m always trying to learn, but, of course, in competition I’m not going to test new things out; I’ll do whatever my best techniques are. Of course if I end up in some new position, if I fall into 50/50 or omoplata or butterfly I’m going to do it, but I’m not going to start out trying to go in that direction.

Stephan Kesting When you talk about doing omoplata, I’m not sure that many people know how good your omoplata game is. I was injured but I saw you give a seminar and roll with a bunch of black belts, brown belts and other really tough guys and you omoplata’d every single person in an hour of sparring. And I’ve talked to other people who’ve seen you do the exact same thing at other seminars. So we know that you have this secret weapon that you’ve been working on, but we haven’t really seen very much of it in tournament…

Bernardo Faria I use it sometimes in tournaments… For example in the finals of the Pan Ams open class in 2010 against Braga Neto. He didn’t tap but I got the sweep, the two points, and I won the match. I got some submissions from omoplata against a few big name guys, but not that often.

It’s hard to do omoplata from half guard, and half guard really is my best position so I always try to start the match from there. So I have the omoplata but I just use it if that opportunity shows up for me during the match – I’m not looking for it so much.

I think it’s good to always keep trying to do new things. At one point I was doing a lot of seminars, and I wasn’t competing that much compared my opponents who were competing a lot more. So I thought to myself that I needed to use the seminars as a challenge. So I started doing seminars and tried to omoplata everyone – this is a kind of competition, a challenge. During the seminars, during the rolling portion of it, I often feel like I’m in a tournament. Everyone is watching, and I can only do omoplata, and I have to keep breathing…

Stephan Kesting And all the tough guys are sitting out, waiting for you to get tired rolling for 45 minutes, at which point they decide to jump in…

Bernardo Faria (laughing) Yeah, that’s part of the game too. It happens a lot. But I don’t have the fear of tapping. I would be really sad to tap in a tournament – I had to do this many times and I always got really sad. But in training or in seminars I don’t care – I just keep rolling.

Stephan Kesting How does the wrestling tie into all of this. Are you doing a collegiate style or a Greco-Roman style? What are you doing to make it fit in with your game and your plans?

Bernardo Faria I started wrestling last year, just after I lost in the finals to Rodolfo. I really felt that I could have taken him down if I had had a little bit of wrestling. I was ending up in the single leg position every time and I wasn’t finishing it. So right after the World’s I tried to find the very best place to train wrestling here in New York. I found one really good place called Edge in Hoboken, just across the bridge from New York City. It’s a very high level place, a lot of the UFC guys like Frankie Edgar, Rafael Sapo Natal, Demian Maia train there right now. They were super-welcoming of me, and I go there every Wednesday.

I don’t know that much about wrestling, so I don’t know what the differences between Greco and regular wrestling are; I just know that it’s American wrestling.

Stephan Kesting Are you focussing mostly on the single leg, or are you doing the whole wrestling curriculum?

Bernardo Faria I’m doing the whole wrestling curriculum – whatever they teach me – but of course I tell them that my half guard always ends up in the single leg and I have to finish the single leg. I’m trying to do everything with a focus on the single leg. It really helps me a lot!

Stephan Kesting I’m assuming that they’re not doing much groundwork – not focusing on wrestling turnovers or wrestling pin and instead just focusing on the standup…

Bernardo Faria Most of the live training we do there involves pinning the guy on bottom for 3 seconds, or they give you 15 seconds on the ground to do whatever you want. There are a bunch of UFC and MMA guys there, so we don’t focus on pinning, we focus on either a 3 second pin or 15 seconds on the ground. It’s very good for jiu-jitsu I think, and it really helped me a lot.

Wrestling has so much pressure, so often I feel that even when I’m passing the guard the wrestling is giving me much more pressure. It helps me understand my body better…

Stephan Kesting When you say “Pressure” what do you mean? Is it psychological pressure or is it physical pressure where you’re pushing into your opponent?

Bernardo Faria I mean physical pressure, pushing into your opponent. For example, in wrestling class we often do the takedown and then have to hold the guy for 3 seconds. And man, to hold a wrestler on the ground is super-tough if the guy is high level. You have to spend a ton of energy to hold someone on the ground when they’re trying to stand up, stand up, stand up. So many times when I’m passing the guard I feel a little bit like I’m pinning someone down and using the jiu-jitsu techniques to pass the guard.

I don’t know if it’s just psychological, but since I started wrestling I felt like I can generate more pressure on top. I’m not sure if it’s really like that, but I do feel it.

Stephan Kesting It’s really interesting that there’s that carry-over! Now you said you were doing physical conditioning a couple of times a week, so what are you doing? Are you doing cardio, strength, or circuit training?

Bernardo Faria I was very lucky. I moved to New York two and a half years ago to teach and train at Marcelo’s, and a little more than one and a half years ago Lucas Lepri introduced me his conditioning coach Kevin Paretti. I’m pretty sure he’s the best conditioning coach in the world for fighters. He’s a physiotherapist as well as a physical conditioning coach, so he really understands a lot about bodies. Every time I get injured he fixes me really fast, and he pushes me really hard in training.

His training is organised by phases. There is a strength conditioning phase, another phase that’s a mix of strength conditioning and jiu-jitsu moves, and then the last phase – about one month before the tournament – is all about jiu-jitsu moves with exercises…

Stephan Kesting Can you give me some examples? I’m finding it hard to picture that…

Bernardo Faria It’s hard to describe, but for example there is one exercise where he puts a harness on my chest connected with a cable to a machine, and then I have to do my over-under passing against punching bag that is lying on the mat. The cable is pulling me back and I have to put a lot of pressure towards the punching bag for 30 seconds or a minute.

There is another exercise where there is a cable attached to my foot and I have to do a technical standup with the cable pulling my foot the wrong way. So I have to put a lot of energy to do the technical standup, and I have to do it 15 times each side. It’s all about specific moves.

A video posted by bernardofariabjj (@bernardofariabjj) on Apr 21, 2015 at 4:29pm PDT

A video posted by bernardofariabjj (@bernardofariabjj) on Apr 9, 2015 at 1:56pm PDT

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A video posted by bernardofariabjj (@bernardofariabjj) on Sep 23, 2014 at 4:20pm PDT

A video posted by bernardofariabjj (@bernardofariabjj) on Jun 29, 2015 at 1:50pm PDT

My first teacher always used to say that one of my best characteristics in BJJ is that I don’t get tired when I’m competing. Now I’m feeling that even more – many times I’m competing, the first five minutes is tough, and then I feel that my opponent is getting tired and I’m completely full of energy – it makes it easier (laughing).

Stephan Kesting Why do you think that is? Do you have any idea where that comes from? Did you do a lot of running or swimming as a kid?

Bernardo Faria Since I started jiu-jitsu I always roll with the toughtest guys on the mat, one after another. I tap a lot – there is no way to beat everyone everyday, and many days I get smashed. But I always try to train with all of them in a row. For example at Marcelo’s school I go with Mattheus, John Satava, Mensch, then I go with Marcelo, then I go with Marcus, then I go with Mattheus again – always one after the other. It’s all about training: if you make your training harder than the competition, then the competition might not be easy – it’s never easy, it’s always super-hard…

Stephan Kesting But the training is harder…

Bernardo Faria Yeah, you’re going to have a lot of sacrifices you know, but you’re going to feel a little better in the competition (laughing). I’m not saying that you’re going to feel super-good, but you will feel a little better.

Stephan Kesting So when you compare your attributes – your strength, speed, flexibility, and endurance – to the people you’re fighting in competition most often, where do you think you are? Do you think that you are generally as strong, stronger or not as strong? Are you as fast, faster, or not as fast. You just said that you have good endurance…

Bernardo Faria I’m not talented at all in jiu-jitsu. I’m not the kind of guy who can see one thing once and then start doing it. I’ve always had a hard time learning, and I’ve never felt that I’ve been strong. In my whole life I’ve never used any kind of steroids or things like that; in jiu-jitsu there are a bunch of people who use those, and I never this so I always felt that people in the tournament and in the training are stronger than me. But I feel that I have very good conditioning and a gameplan that I’ve done for 12 years. So, for example, when I put someone into the half guard then in my mind I’m thinking that I’ve done this special thing for 12 years, and I’ve spent more time here than my opponent, so I’m probably going to get the sweep. Sometimes I don’t get it, but that’s how my mind works: I have a bigger chance to get the sweep than he does to pass my guard because I’ve been here for a much longer time than he has…

Stephan Kesting And you’ve done that sweep from half guard to everybody: Buchecha, Leandro Lo, everybody. What does it feel like when you finally get that grip in a match?

Bernardo Faria I guess it’s all about training, because it’s really hard to finish that sweep against my training partners. If I train with them over and over, every single day, multiple times a day, then they know every single detail of that move and exactly what I’m going for. When the competition comes up my opponent knows what I’m going to go for from watching videos etc., but he doesn’t have that feeling that my training partners have. So that makes it much easier; like I said, the training is harder than competition because all training partners already know that move. Somedays I manage to pull it off against them, and some days not. But then when it’s a competition and I get the position they don’t have the feeling for what I’m doing so it often works.

Stephan Kesting It must feel the same way when you get your over-under guard pass position too…

Bernardo Faria Yes, it’s kind of the same thing. But don’t get me wrong: many times it doesn’t work! Many times it doesn’t work in the training, and often it doesn’t work in competition either. But I’m always trying it… (laughing).

Stephan Kesting I know you said your training is often tougher than competition, but what’s the toughest match you’ve ever had and the toughest guy you’ve ever fought in competition?

Bernardo Faria It’s hard to say what the toughest match is, because I’ve had a bunch of those (laughing). But the toughest guy, for sure, is Rodolfo. He’s the only guy in the world, I think, that I’ve never beat. I mean everyone that I’ve fought more than two times I’ve beaten at least once. Rodolfo I’ve never beat yet. He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever faced and I hope to beat him someday – I mean, I’m training a lot!

Stephan Kesting Is he going to Abu Dhabi (ADCC)?

Bernardo Faria He is going but he is invited to another division. He is going into my division – the 99 kg division – and I’m going into the over-99 kg. But maybe we’ll meet in the open class.

Of course I want to fight him, but I never focus my training or my life to beat him. He was not in the Worlds, and then I won, but if he were there then I would have gone in with the same goal, to win my division and to win the open class. I always think about winning the tournament, not about beating Rodolfo. I want to win the tournament.

Stephan Kesting You see that sometimes, with people going into a tournament to beat one person, and if they beat that one person they’re done.

Bernardo Faria Yes. Look – imagine that I go to ADCC and all I’m thinking about is beating Rodolfo. Maybe I lose before I meet him in the tournament, or maybe he loses before he meets me. So you never know: I always go in thinking that I want to win the tournament.

Even when they put up the brackets I just think, “I want to win my first match.” You don’t know if you’re going to be able to do the second match: maybe you’re going to get injured. I just want to win my first match, that’s it! Then afterwards I ask, “OK, who is the second,” and now I want to win the second match. If you start thinking so much about the guy on the other side of the bracket, well maybe you’re going to lose before you meet him, maybe he’s going to lose, maybe you’re going to get injured, maybe he’s going to get injured – you never know.

Stephan Kesting Have you thought about doing MMA? It seems like a lot of BJJ guys get some succession jiu-jitsu and then want to go on to mixed martial arts, although that could be changing…

Bernardo Faria Yes. When I thought about going into MMA it was 2011; I was 24 years old at that time, but I felt that I could do a lot more in jiu-jitsu, so I kept on doing jiu-jitsu. And now I’m 28 years old and I don’t think it’s worth going into MMA. I’m not a very good wrestler, and I don’t have any boxing or Muay Thai.

So I would need to spend three years to get good at striking and wresting, and then I would need to spend two or three more years to get a small record of 5 or 10 matches to even get into the UFC. Then I would be 34 years old and it wouldn’t be worth it.

I prefer to keep doing what I’m doing and keep going in in jiu-jitsu. I have a lot left to do in the sport: I’m only 28 years old and can keep going for at least two, three or four years. It’s better to try to be first, second, third or fourth in jiu-jitsu than to be the one-thousandth in MMA.

Stephan Kesting And of course, the more we’re learning about brain damage from MMA and fighting then the less enthusiastic I become about recommending MMA to people. I mean you’re taking the most complex object that we know about in the entire universe – the human brain – and repeatedly hitting it as hard as you can. Somehow that just doesn’t seem like a good idea…

Bernardo Faria My advice about MMA is that you should only do it if you really love fighting MMA. If you love doing it then you’re not going to worry about brain damage. So if you love it then do it. But if you want to do it for the money, the glamour, or because you want to be famous – I don’t know – I think you should be doing jiu-jitsu (laughing)

Stephan Kesting When it comes to risk, every climber knows a whole bunch of dead climbers. There’s no other sport where half your friends are dead.

Bernardo Faria Yes, it’s dangerous, but this guy is the best guy…

Stephan Kesting There’s something else I’ve I wanted to ask you about: I’ve seen you teach, both in seminars and in your DVDs, and you teach really well. You use different teaching methods, different analogies, you talk to some people, you move people through the technique with your hands if they’re not getting it. So where did you learn to teach as well as you do, because a lot of competitors are just so focussed on their own training. I’m not going to say that they don’t care about other people, but they’ve never thought much about how to help other people learn; they’re just concerned about their own progress.

Bernardo Faria Most of the things we do we learn from others. I think I learned how to teach, and I had very good teachers. My first teacher – Ricardo Marques, a Brazilian Top Team affiliate in my home town – who taught me from white to black, and taught me the basics of jiu-jitsu really well. He is a really nice guy, the type of guy who really cares about every single student, and you would never see anybody on the planet talking badly about him. So I had him as a teacher, and then moved to San Paulo with his support.

That was very nice actually: Ricardo was from Brazilian Top Team, and when I finished college he told me, “If you want to do jiu-jitsu as a living then get away from here, and if I was you I would go to San Paulo to train with Fabio Gurgel.” He was from a different school – he was Brazilian Top Team and he told me to go to Alliance. Brazilian Top Team at the time was very focussed on MMA, and he knew that I wanted to do jiu-jitsu. Not every teacher would do that, and I really respect him a lot for that.

Then I moved to San Paulo and became a student of Fabio Gurgel’s. Fabio teaching is unbelievable – he’s a really good teacher. When he teaches a position he knows to teach exactly that point where everyone makes a mistake at. He goes exactly to the hardest point to learn and teaches that thing.

Then I moved to New York and was blessed to have another amazing teacher – Marcelo Garcia. When I’m teaching it’s kind of a habit accumulated from my three teachers and what they did.

Stephan Kesting You’re paying it forward: the kindness that they showed you you’re then showing to your own students.

What are your plans with regards to jiu-jitsu in the next 3 or 4 years? You’ve got Abu Dhabi coming up, are you going to do more teaching? More seminars?

Bernardo Faria My plan is to keep doing what I am doing. Keep competing in the most important tournaments – I have a lot of motivation to keep doing that. My plan is to enjoy jiu-jitsu as much as I can. I want to compete a lot: the Pan Ams, the Worlds, ADCC, maybe some superfights, things like that. I also want to do as many seminars as I can because I think it’s a great opportunity to share jiu-jitsu and meet new people.

I also have a partner – Michael Zenga – for some online projects and I’m really focussed on that too. Everyone can do more than they think, so I’m really focussed on this project. And then we are making a bunch of DVDs with me and with other fighters as well, and we have a website with jiu-jitsu deals as well. I’m really focussed on this and I think it’s all stuff that I can do on my computer when I’m resting and not training. When I’m resting now, instead of looking on Instagram or watching TV, I can be doing something with which I can grow the jiu-jitsu community and help myself as well.

So I’m really happy with everything that is happening in my life, and I’m even happier about the people I’m involved with, like Marcelo, Michael, all the students here, all the friendships that I have. Now there’s Stephan too, so I’m very with the situation.

Stephan Kesting So if people want to get ahold of you for seminars, appearances, or signed photographs (laughing) what’s the best way to get ahold of you.

Bernardo Faria You can get my email from my website bernardofaria.com, but the easiest way is through Facebook. Nothing is better than my Facebook, so if you’re interested in privates, seminars or DVDs then send me a message on Facebook and then either myself or a friend who is helping me with this stuff will reply to you.

Stephan Kesting Well thank you so much for talking with us today. I learned a lot and it was really interesting to pick your brain and see your approach to training and jiu-jitsu. It’s really refreshing to see someone who enjoys it so much!

Bernardo Faria Thanks Stephan, I really appreciate it. As I told you in the beginning I’ve been following what you do on Youtube and online, and I think jiu-jitsu needs more people like you who put so much effort into putting videos, interviews and other stuff online. I hink this makes jiu-jitsu grow, so I’m really happy to be helping you with that as well

Stephan Kesting Good luck at Abu Dhabi, and we’ll be watching very carefully.

Bernardo Faria Thanks Stephan, it was a pleasure.

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