Rafael Mendes is fresh of his 6th World title. His laser-sharp focus and precision have payed off yet again. Many tournament absences in last year didn’t really affect Rafa. This time he went through Moizinho in the semis via submission triangle/armlock and followed that up with a tight advantage victory over Marcio Andre who previously managed to eliminate Rubens Cobrinha. He sat down and talked to Kenny Florian about his preparation and road to 6th Worlds victory:
On Worlds preparation:
“My preparation was good, I don’t feel like I worry too much these days about strength and conditioning.” Rafa went on to clarify ” I don’t do a lot of strength and conditioning. I feel like I was able to build my body for the division. I feel strong, I have everything I need. ”
“What I try to do is perfect my techniques. Work on my timing… The guys in my division, they don’t have the same body coordination that I do so I think I have the technical level and strength that I need to go there and win, so I feel pretty confident.”
On why he moved away from Strength and Speed:
“I learned how to use jiu-jitsu to get faster and stronger. I don’t have to there and lift weights. Now I have enough experience to use Jiu-Jitsu to get faster and stronger. I think that’s the smartest thing to do because I’m gonna compete in a jiu-jitsu tournament… That’s the way I like to prepare myself.”
On typical training day for Worlds:
I was waking up early, 6 am then doing a nice drilling session, drilling is super important. You have to have timing. The techniques need to be sharp. If you’re sloppy during the fight you’re gonna end up in a bad position. So just visualize everything that I was going to use in the competition.
Rafael added:
“I was asking people to move how my opponents were gonna move so just trying to simulate the competition. Then a really hard competition class right after. So I was drilling for an hour and then doing a competition class that’s pretty much just sparring, we don’t do a lot of techniques in the competition class. It’s just hard sparring.”
Following a nap- at nighttime Rafael goes to class to work on techniques making sure he acknowledge what’s working and what isn’t.
“You have to take time to stop, and just see what’s wrong.” – Rafael added rationalizing why it’s not the best option to just be going hard in all prep trainings.
You can watch the whole interview to find out what else Rafael Mendes had to say about the hard work necessary to ensure success at a such a high level:
