Originally Posted by
David Rosado
Agreed.
What do you guys think separates them from the pack? Reps? Drills? Confidence? S&C? Aggression? Defense? Genetics? Natural athleticism?
Personally, I think it's a little bit of everything. But the main things I believe are the athleticism they bring to the game, and the drilling.
Interesting question. My post is long so warning.
They would say it's a lot of drilling I think. Drilling, hard training all the time with really tough and technical training partners. They drill every possible variation of everything thousands of times. They drill fast and hard, with a lot of intensity. I think natural talent/athleticism plays a part, like if you look at their hands they're hilariously huge. Especially Rafa's. If you saw those videos in training where he darce choked Keenan and anaconda choked Galvao it's like he could grab his bicep from a mile away. If he grabs your belt for a berimbolo you ain't getting the grip off.
They had and have access to arguably the highest level training partners in the world. Steel sharpens steel. Before they opened AOJ after moving to America, they were probably training 6-7 days a week, ultiple times a day, for almost 10 years. Lots of S&C. They grew up training that way so their kinesthic awareness is probably hard to comprehend.
They do talk a lot about confidence and mental training. Complete and total belief that they'll dominate. I watch Marcelo, Braulio, Rafa, and Gui roll on their websites. Marcelo and Braulio will play around a bit and go light sometimes (They're also older and not in the prime of their careers). Rafa and Gui are always going super hard. They have a complete refusal to ever concede a sweep, or a pass, or anything. For the 2013 ADCC, the Atos camp was Rafa, Andre Galvao, Keenan Cornelius, JT Torres, and then Gui and Dean Lister helped out. Keenan said that Rafa never got tapped out even one time (the camp was a few months) leading up to the event. That's fucking nuts.
Their creativity is huge. If BJJ is about position before submission, they took dominant control over position or submission. Stuff like the berimbolo or the kimura grip for flying passes, front headlock for rolling anacondas/darces/guillotines. Those grips give them so much control even though the moves might look crazy. They always have control, even if they're upside down or sideways, whatever. So they're both very smart and look to create new techniques and refine old ones.
I remember there was an old video after ADCC 2009 (the first time I saw Rafa Mendes live and I'd never heard of him). The video was called like "Why Rafael Mendes Wins" or something like that. It mostly had to do with certain techniques he used at ADCC like his spiral guard inversions and calf slicers to the back, his scrambles, his unique anaconda choke setups, his 50/50 setups, stuff like that.
Someone that trained with them replied and was basically like look, Rafa could play butterfly guard and go for nothing but wrist locks and probably be just as good because of how hard he trains. They were basically born and bred since kids to be champions.
Like Jack Labarge said, they had each other to always train with. That's probably why Gui's top game is so sharp and Rafa's bottom game is so sharp. Both are amazing at both, but with brothers this usually happens.
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