Over the years, the GF Team HQ in Rio de Janeiro has produced jiu-jitsu powerhouses such as Patrick Gaudio, Amanda Monteiro, Igor Silva, Victor Honorio, and Jaime Canuto. All of which are known as extremely tough fighters who are almost always on the podium. 

We stopped in on a Wednesday afternoon to see how the team was preparing for the IBJJF 2018 World Championship, which takes place May 30 to June 3 in Long Beach, CA.

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Class started with a very basic warmup of various stretches and mobilizations. After about five minutes the team broke out directly into hard sparring.

The class started at 2 PM and finished up around 4:45 PM, consisting of continuous six-minute rounds. The instructor simply shouted “tempo!” (time) every six minutes, signifying the end of one round and the start of the next. 

The top athletes like Gaudio, Canuto, and Jake Mackenzie would stay in for four or five rounds before resting for a round or two.  There was no clock on the wall to set pacing or to know how much time was left. Athletes just went out and rolled hard until they heard the call from their coach.

Everybody rolled with everyone. Black belts with blue belts, men with women, juveniles with adults. And everyone rolled HARD.

Athletes left at different points in the evening but class officially wrapped up at 5 PM, and everyone left completely exhausted.