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João Gabriel Rocha Talks How BJJ Helped Him In Fight Against Cancer

João Gabriel Rocha Talks How BJJ Helped Him In Fight Against Cancer

 

 

Pan American championships marked the grand return of Joao Gabriel Rocha to the competitive scene. Rocha even managed to secure a sub in the Ultra Heavy weight finals against Gustavo Dias Elias – a slide in choke from the back! He made it to the gold of his weight category having eliminated giants like Alexander Trans and others.

 

Sadly he was turned away at the very ending of the journey to the absolute gold by that monstrous toe hold Leandro Lo applied.

But Lo’s toehold is far from the worst Joao Gabriel Rocha experienced – back in 2014 he had to leave the kimono behind and tackle a much more devious opponent – cancer.

In a recent interview to graciemag he revealed how bjj helped save his life:

It was complicated. When I operated to remove the tumor, I did not even know what I had. And then it was that scare he discovered. Being unable to train, without competing and still read GRACIEMAG and see that I was not there in the magazine, especially in the edition of the World Jiu-Jitsu, were difficult times. But nothing was worse than seeing my parents devastated, hardly even, leaving everything aside to be on my side. I could see them both suffering and then went on to disguise the pain and discomfort so they would not get even worse. I think this is a common aspect in Jiu-Jitsu, to keep your face impassive and disguise to the opponents that you are passing the biggest suffocation. Then the worst shot was the two months of chemotherapy.

There were three liters of chemo injected into my veins daily, And I felt my whole body burn inside. I looked at each cycle, every session, as a fight to the gold medal, and the suffering as if it were those last ten seconds of struggle, in which I had to put up with everything, give another sinister gas to win. I was sure that I would conquer the disease. Never did the idea of ​​death shake me, in my head only the next plans in Jiu-Jitsu passed, how and when I would resume the training, in which championship would return to compete. I kept my head very good with the help of Jiu-Jitsu. Never did the idea of ​​death shake me, in my head only the next plans in Jiu-Jitsu passed, how and when I would resume the training, in which championship would return to compete. I kept my head very good with the help of Jiu-Jitsu. Never did the idea of ​​death shake me, in my head only the next plans in Jiu-Jitsu passed, how and when I would resume the training, in which championship would return to compete. I kept my head very good with the help of Jiu-Jitsu.

 

And he’s learned plenty due to these harsh circumstances:

I never knew before what a life was without Jiu-Jitsu, after all I started to train at 2 years. I do not remember anything about my first fights, since I was 4 years old. And so I now had this learning, of spending a year without being able to train. I learned to see the suffering of the competitors during that marathon, to realize how there are teachers who have never won a World Cup but who help hundreds of children, that there are fans who suffer, who swear, that is, there is a world of people that vibrate around the Jiu Jitsu. Before, I was only paying attention to my opponents. Another aspect that helped me is that, thanks to this stop, I was able to train positions without having a championship on the horizon. So I tested new positions, modern guards, games that complicate opponents. I do not intend to use any of these techniques, I want to continue with my game of knocking down, putting together and finishing, without thinking about points, but I managed to better understand the mechanics of some new positions, and now I have more possibilities to disarm opponents. After all, knowing how to defend is to disarm rivals.

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