Nicholas Meregali is preparing to step back into competition, and ahead of his return he offered a candid look at how his body – and his understanding of BJJ – evolved over the past few years.

Speaking on the Connect Cast podcast, the Brazilian grappler reflected on his early career and why he struggled against more physical opponents despite strong technical ability:

I was always a very skinny and frail guy.
And I lost matches because of a lack of physicality.

I was always against anabolic ster*ids, etc., blah blah blah.

Meregali explained that he eventually began analyzing his career through four essential components: mental strength, tactics, technique, and physical preparation.
While he believed he always had the first and third categories covered, two critical elements were missing:

I didn’t have those two, those other two aspects, the tactical and the physical.

According to Meregali, the turning point came after relocating to the United States and training under John Danaher.
Exposure to a systematic approach to grappling changed how he thought about matches entirely:

Then, when I moved here and I started to understand a little bit how John sees the Jiu-Jitsu, (and) that was naturally put into my game.
It wasn’t something I chose, it just happened because of the way he analyzes Jiu-Jitsu, the way he studies Jiu-Jitsu, the way he teaches us Jiu-Jitsu with his system.

I kind of came to understand this issue of grip control and tactical issues…

How I need to position myself to dominate this person. How I need to defend myself.

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