Vinicius “Draculino” Magalhães is a part of the “golden generation” of BJJ – and the first person to open a Gracie Barra academy outside of Rio de Janeiro.

Today, he is known as a world-class coach, responsible for developing world-class athletes such as Romulo Barral and Samuel Braga.
So, when we asked him what BJJ practitioners should focus on to improve better, the answer was both surprising and not that surprising at the same time…

The basics.

Here is what Draculino had to say on the topic:

I am really big on getting down and mastering the fundamentals of BJJ.
A lot of people think that they know the basics, but they really don’t.

If you have a really solid and complete foundation in Jiu Jitsu yourself, I think that you will be able to expose your students to everything.
If you give them the foundations first, then –  depending on their body type and physical abilities, as well as on their individual preferences – from there they can start developing their own specialties and a type of the game that they want to have.

He explained how he gave his students the freedom to choose as well in which branch they would then develop towards:

I try to expose my students to everything, so that they can then branch out towards that which they prefer.

Samuel Braga is a good example.
He is a multiple time world champion, plus he’s the creator of the Berimbolo – since he has always been very flexible, he was able to develop this position from the De la Riva guard and it turned out to be very handy for him.

Then, Romulo Barral and his killer spider guard. Erik Wanderley, one of my first World Champions, he has a killer half guard and really, really good pressure…

I taught them everything they needed to know in order to have a solid foundation, from which they could, as I said, branch out and do their own thing.

Read the full interview on the following page.

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