Michelle Nicolini is a pioneer of our sport. Not just for women, but for everyone. She accomplished more than most competitors today winning the World Championships at every single belt level. My favorite female athlete to watch, she is an inspiration for all types of people in jiu jitsu. Her positivity lights up the room (or just her smile) yet her mental, physical and emotional toughness will rip you to shreds on the mat. I hope you learn a thing or two from her as I did reading this interview:

How did you get started in jiu jitsu?

I started when I was 17 years old in my small town where I used to live, Itu. A friend of mine invited me to a class. I went to the class and never stopped going.

You said you started in capoeira before jiu jitsu. Did this make the transition easy?

I like capoeira but I always liked to compete, to test my skill levels, and we didn’t have competition in capoeira at that time. So when I started with BJJ that was one aspect that I liked better.. and I was so interested and hooked on BJJ that the transition wasn’t difficult. I didn’t find a good reason to keep training capoeira anymore so I moved to just training jiu jitsu.

When/where did you learn your spider guard? Were you always a guard player?

I learned from Robert Drysdale. He was my instructor and he taught me all my BJJ basics. I always prefer to play guard then top, but Robert always made me train both: guard and passing.

There are a lot of girls competing now compared to just a couple years ago. Sometimes there are at least 30 in a division. What were the numbers like when you were coming up in the ranks?

When I was white, blue and purple I always had a lot of matches in competition. But when I got to brown belt I felt a lot of difference, even in that time.. there were not many girls competing at that high level at the time.. I can only remember a couple names..

How do you feel about the current level of technique in the younger generation?

The young generation is coming up better and better. BJJ is so big now, I think if you really want to be good you will be. Today we see girls like me, Luanna Alzuguir, Leticia Ribeiro who do BJJ full time, and I’m sure it’s good inspiration for the girls that are coming up in the ranks. It’s a lot easier now to have this lifestyle. I think they want to train as much they think we do, so they look for techniques, for camp training, tournaments. They do more to improve their games than I used to do when I was young.

You often compete against the same people and sometimes even your own friends and teammates. Did you ever have an issue with this? Does it get easier over time?

Yeah, I had a problem with this before in 2009. I had been training hard for one competition in Sao Paulo. At the tournament I got to the final with Marina Ribeiro who is on my team and our coaches decided for us not to fight. I had to respect their decision, but I was so disappointed. Not because I wanted to fight against my friend but there were other things involved like prize money, place in the final for next year, sponsors. Marina and I had a hard time after this, you know, but a couple weeks later we talked about it and everything was good again. It also happened one more time in 2010 when I was in the open class final at the Brasileiro, in Rio. I was to fight my teammate at the time, Luiza Monteiro. She won but we didn t fight.

After these incidents, I decided to make my own decisions from then on. And I’m pretty sure my coaches will support me.

Which do you believe is the stronger motivator: the desire to win, or the refusal to lose?

For me both work together.. You need to be motivated to win. You need have the desire to win.. If you have this, you are a good athlete of course. And all athletes hate to lose.

You’ve had one successful MMA fight, do you plan on returning to the cage anytime soon?

I would love to have another MMA fight but the problem is that I need time to train more in my stand up. BJJ is my priority. All of my time is spent doing something with BJJ so it’s difficult for me to find time to focus. But maybe now, after the Worlds I can focus a little more on it. There is an American girl who thinks she is the best, who talks a lot, who takes clothes off to try to promote herself. She doesn’t want to promote the sport, she wants to promote herself. I am very excited to see Cris Cyborg punching her face 🙂

Will you ever feel like you’ve accomplished enough in jiu jitsu?

No. I want to do more and more. I want to have world champion students, I want to promote BJJ in countries that have barely any idea about it. I want to keep training and competing until I achieve all of my goals. And this is the amazing part about BJJ: we never know enough. There’s always something new that arises and people start catching on. And then we need to learn to show to our students..

When did you start teaching?

When I was a brown belt. We had a big social project at the gym and my instructor asked me to help. It was around 2006 I think.

Is it important to separate your personal life from your bjj life? Is there a difference between the two?

It is important but very difficult to separate. I spend so much time at the gym, tournaments, and sometimes it’s easier to keep it all together hehehe

Did you ever imagine that you would be inducted into a jiu jitsu hall of fame? How does it feel?

I never ever could have imagined this. When I started training BJJ I loved it since the first class, but I never imagined I could go so far.. traveling all over the world, teaching, competing in the best tournaments, winning the best tournaments. Being in the hall of fame, it was a very nice surprise for me. I watched the highlights for the men in the past years and this year they did one for the girls and I was there 😀 Very very nice! Now I’m sure that I am in BJJ history.

Do you feel like you’ve paved the way for future generations of female jiu jitsu athletes?

I do feel like I have. I’ve been receiving lots of messages from people who say nice things about this. I think not only me but the girls of my generation; we are doing a good job. Before us they did good, but now, BJJ is growing fast, so the future generation has more opportunities than we had before. They just need focus.

You’ve said in a previous interview that loving what you do is the most important aspect of training. How do you keep your enthusiasm and what is your advice to those struggling with this?

For me, motivation is about my thoughts. If you want to keep your enthusiasm, don’t put yourself down. Everybody has bad days, of course, but after a bad experience if you don’t lift yourself up, if you don’t think positive, all your day and all your week will be ruined. And I avoid feeling like that. I’m a very patient teacher, I’m a good athlete and I don’t feel it’s too tiring or boring to go train every day. I want to go and I give myself no excuse. I don’t ask myself if I should go or stay at home. I just go there.. like a happy girl!

Sometimes I meet people who worry a lot about making money with BJJ. Man, if you think like that, forget it!! It will take time before you can think about being rich with BJJ. Instead, think about building a good career. Gain respect in and out of the matches, so then you can start to have a solid career. And you will only reach this if you keep your love, if you keep motivated even with tough days. Keep training with passion!!

I’d like to say thanks to every one who always watches my fights, who follow me around the world. Thanks to my coaches Cavaca and Leo Vieira. And a big hug for all the people who will read this interview at Pulling Guard Zine!!

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