Renato, About Your Gi ....

[Stephan Pepin]

Renato is a model?

[bobby rivers]

I wanna see him rolling one of the blacks or browns. Just to see him prove his point, or their lack of foundation.

[Melee]

Renato did do some modeling in brasil and Steve hired him from an agency about a year ago, that's how he heard about 10th Planet. If it wasn't for melee Renato would not be training at my academy. You guys really need to chill out about the conspiracy, you're starting to scare me

When I was launching the latest version of the melee site, I needed an athletic male model. A good friend of mine works at a modeling management company, and I asked her if anyone would be willing to shoot for free...as my budget was tight. Renato totally stepped up, and it turned out he was a fellow BJJ practitioner. He was really professional and generous with his time. At the shoot, we were talking shop about JJ and I said come train with us. And he did.

[Paul Hannan]

If Renato is real, then I'm an international playboy with a donkey sized appendage. Great creation though : )

[Jason Mallory]

I'm sure if we could see Renato and Rhassan side by side it would end the debate with a measured amount of cerntainty.

That's a good idea. The last I heard Rhassan was in New York filming a soap so it will have to wait until he goes back to L.A.

[Josh Smith]

Wow, Seven pages? Damn!!!

[Andrei (KAZE)]

I can tell you one thing...Guys that used to training in GI play jj very "tight". I mean they are used to maintaining a very tight grip while going from one transition to another. Maybe it's even better to start your bjj with gi...just to have the feel of it...the feel of "tightness" of the game, the feel of good control over your opponent. Then you can move to no-gi and your game will only get better. I started with no-gi but it was damn hard for me at first, i had to learn to balance on my opponent which was hell of a lot harder than if i'd put my gi on. But despite all this bullcrap i can easily throw rubber guard on my opponents with or without gi. I'v heard Eddie say that gi developes bad habits like pulling by the collar while having your opponent in your guard but that's where your open-mindness comes into play. I would wear a freaking gi just to make it easier for my opponent to choke me, just to be more aware but i wouldn't use the advantages of my gi (except keeping my sweat of my face and stuff). My point is that gi means more control, more awareness. Gi doesn't make your game worse, but you have to be able to do just as well without the darn jacket.
P.S. Rickson trained without gi from time to time and don't tell me he doesn't know jiu-jitsu.

[Andrei (KAZE)]

Oh and...here's Royce saying why he is using a gi in his fight with sakuraba (from 3:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjM2akbN-9Q

[Stephan Pepin]

I wonder if Renato will go on the cruise.

[markusneo]

Can we see Renato versus Eddie on MTS?