Clark Gracie is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor and member of the Gracie family. He is the grandson of Carlos Gracie, the founder and creator of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, and first eldest son of Carley Gracie, the father of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu in the United States. He is a 2013 Pan American champion in the middleweight division, submitting his opponent in the finals with his signature omoplata, or clarkoplata, finish. He was awarded the Submission of the year award from the World Jiu Jitsu Expo for his Pan Am 2013 final match.

He recently had the chance to talk about the surprise effect, his experiences developing bjj around the world and the jiu jitsu spirit with the Mat Tricks Podcast. Gracie was asked to comment on an interesting analogy and how important it is to be sneaky while rolling:

“Yeah being sneaky is, this is something that comes a little bit from parts of Brazilian culture  you know which is nothing to do with jiu-jitsu but comes from a word malandragem[in portuguese] and it’s like being strategical being sneaky being a little bit like crafty and I think because it came from Brazil it has that characteristic you know and I remember somebody telling me when I was like a purple belt like Clark’s really good but he needs to work a little bit more the malandragem – “

Malandragem typically translates to trickery. Gracie continued:

“And then I remember that I’m thinking like okay I’m gonna think about that and you know I first something is like, how am I supposed to work that? It’s something that only really comes fromt he time, you know, being sneaky being crafty being like you know setting things up in that way but I know with time it comes you start to feel like oh this position connects to this…”