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Leandro Lo Vows To Conquer Absolute At IBJJF Worlds

Leandro Lo Vows To Conquer Absolute At IBJJF Worlds

 

 

Leandro Lo has had an interesting year. At IBJJF Worlds Leandro Lo reaffirmed his dominance in the Medium Heavy division but this time he was representing the new founded NS Brotherhood. Lo winning was no surprise given his amazing performances at Copa Podio, Pan ams and World pro. Lo went through Keenan Corenlius in the semifinals only to be met with Romulo Barral in the finale. Lo won 5 to 0.

This great performance was just further reaffirmed when Lo conquered Copa Podio once more.  “I’ll only think about quitting fighting in the IBJJF Worlds when I win the absolute; it’s the title I want most today,” Leandro Lo repeats like a mantra.

Here’s what he told other BJJ standouts about his motivation, life and how he leads his own gym NS Brotherhood.

When Buchecha asked him about his motivation to keep fighting he replied:

First I’d like to say I was very happy to see all these BJJ greats sending me their questions, so thank you. Well, bro, I think my motivation must be similar to Buchecha’s, who has always fought even more than I, and who fought and won everything in BJJ. The biggest reason is that I really love fighting BJJ; I really like rolling at the gym — it’s what I like doing most: going to the gym, putting on the gi and training with anyone, even of a lower rank. What I like is to test myself.

To me, championships are like training — it’s where I can see how that technique will work against one guy or another. Since I used to to weigh 76kg, I’ve always had this opportunity to train and fight everybody, from the light guys to the heavier ones in the open, and I dig that a lot. In BJJ each day is a day: if yesterday I beat an opponent, tomorrow he might find a way to surprise me. He will also evolve in time and try to create some difficulties. Thus I’m always looking forward to competing, be it against the new guys or my old rivals, to see whether my game still works against them.

My desire to compete also comes from the desire to test myself against the new generation of BJJ. I like finding out whether I’m still well prepared to beat the new guys, finding out how I’ll deal with these new guys’ game and stamina in competitions. Because of that, I think I’ll only quit fighting when I’m pretty old, when I can no longer do it, or when I start getting my ass handed to me too often. In the meantime, I’m addicted to fighting. I only talk about BJJ; my friends even tease me: “Can we talk about something else?” But I only talk about BJJ practically all day. [Laughs.]

 

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Bernardo Faria took the opportunity to ask about his workout routine:

“Did you change something about your physical preparation? What is your current training routine? And how many fights do you do per session?”

I used not to put a lot of faith into physical preparation; I thought it was enough to just roll and focus on training BJJ to fare well in championships. But I began realizing that that’s not quite right. Many times in the middle of championships, especially in the open division, my strength would leave me, and I’d be left with only my technique. But, against very strong, technical guys I wasn’t able to do anything more. I saw it was necessary to work on power and physical preparedness.

My opponents are technical and strong; I can’t afford to be just technical — it ends up being a lopsided fight. Nowadays I do physical preparation and weightlifting with a personal trainer, three times a week. About rolling at the gym, I usually do eight to ten fights a day in the gi. It’s about an hour and a half of sparring. I also do specific training of guard and guard-passing Tuesdays and Thursdays, to sharpen the position and shave off the errors. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, it’s sparring only. It’s been about three years since I last did any drills.

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