Dias, a lifelong student of Gracie Barra founder Carlos Gracie Jr., possesses an awe-inspiring technique that allows him to run circles around even the toughest opponents while barely breaking a sweat.
Training BJJ makes you a better person, and being a better person improves your game.
According to Professor Ze, students must evolve on all levels simultaneously to succeed.
“You have to build your castle on three foundations,” says Dias, “The mental, the physical, and the spiritual. And you have to keep evolving on all those levels at the same time to stay in balance.” Together with Pires, Ze Dias hopes to build a BJJ network that is as much outreach as it is sports empire.
“But now I’m starting to see what he means about Jiu-Jitsu as a way of life.” “When I was in Vegas,” Pires goes on, “We lost a lot of students to a school that just didn’t train as hard as we did. The fact is, a huge percentage of our students don’t compete. They want to have fun, they want to stay in shape, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What we’re trying to do is make BJJ accessible to those students as well as providing targeted training for the people who do want to compete.” But if Dias has influenced Ricardo Pires to develop a teaching style that is slightly less-shall we say, sadistic?-Professor Ze likes winning as much as Pires and his classes prove it.
Although protective of new students, Dias shows no mercy in the advanced sessions.
One student recounted his experience with Professor Ze’s Friday competition class as follows: “It got to a point where I was so tired,” said the student, “That I began to seriously wonder if I was dying. Then I thought, ‘At least if I die I won’t have to finish the class.'” But Dias is philosophical.
You’re never going to master BJJ, BJJ is going to master you.
Students feel like, “I don’t have it,” but no, you do have it, you just don’t control it.
There will always be something you’re not going to know, and you have to deeal with that sensation and know that you and BJJ are going to become one.
BJJ is good because it is always evolving, and we are always supposed to be evolving too, as people.
I think BJJ guides students because it is always expanding and pushes students to expand too, to evolve and become in all ways better and bigger.
Sometimes students focus too much on the physical side.
They say the master doesn’t choose the student, the student chooses the master.
Beginners can mix with the advanced students, but they have to achieve a certain level to participate in the advanced classes.
The advanced students have to understand that they can’t be rough with the beginners, but we provide different classes for when the thing has to get real.
That’s why going back to Brazil is important, I always want to be recycling all the time, showing students here the newest BJJ possible.
So our students in Cleveland have access to the newest techniques.
What, besides the moves, are the things you want your students to take away from BJJ? I wouldn’t do this just for moves.
A good BJJ black belt has the ability to see in advance.
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