Rising Premier League soccer star – and BJJ blue belt – Joao Gomes has had to pause his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training.
The 23-year-old midfielder for the Wolverhampton Wanderers has stepped away from martial arts due to safety concerns…
Even though he does credit BJJ training for a part of his success on the field.
Here is what he had to share in a recent conversation with The Sun:
Learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has improved my football.
It’s helped a lot with my mobility and flexibility.
Before I tried Jiu-Jitsu, I don’t think I had a lot of that. I used to have a lot of pain.
Since his arrival in England, however, Gomes has struggled to find a suitable training environment:
I haven’t joined a club here because I haven’t found anywhere yet that has a group of people I can trust.
In order for me to practice it here, I need to be able to trust them.
They need to be much better than me, for me to be sure that they know what they are doing.
In other words, he is worried about injuries:
I can’t have them hurting me — because of my football career.
I need to feel safe, to know I’m going to come off the mats in one piece.
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