Prime heavyweight grappler Victor Hugo spoke to Grappling Insider about how he developed his trademark ‘Huge Man Circulate’ type.
Victor Hugo is well known as the most effective heavyweight gi and no-gi submission grappling opponents on the earth – however he grapples nothing like a typical heavyweight.
Standing at 6 toes, 4 inches tall, and weighing over 250 kilos, the Six Blades consultant is a big athlete even by heavyweight requirements. Recognized for his trademark “Huge Man Circulate,” Hugo possesses one of many sport’s most harmful and dynamic guards, no matter weight class. He has used that versatile and movement-based guard sport to rack up accomplishments on the highest ranges of BJJ, together with a number of IBJJ gi world titles, an IBJJ no-gi world title, and up to date spectacular victories over the likes of Nick Rodriguez, “Big” Dan Manasiou, and two-time ADCC champion Kaynan Duarte.
Hugo is presently slated to tackle 2023 IBJJF no-gi world champion Javier Zaruski at Who’s Quantity One 24 on Thursday, June 20. After that, in August, he’ll compete for a $1 million prize on the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational, having declined his invitation to compete on the 2024 ADCC World Championships.
Hugo not too long ago sat down with Grappling Insider to talk about a wide range of subjects, together with opponents he’d wish to face sooner or later, his evolution as a grappler, learn how to develop a powerful competitors mindset, and, in fact, his Huge Man Circulate.
This interview was performed earlier than Victor Hugo had dedicated to compete on the Craig Jones Invitational, and earlier than his opponent at WNO was switched from Luke Griffith to Javier Zaruski.
Before everything, Hugo says that bigger athletes who need to develop a more practical, much less strength-based sport should shift their mindset and method to grappling like a smaller athlete. This implies purposely placing oneself in dangerous positions – positions the place they’d not often discover themselves had been it not for his or her dimension and power.
“They’ve to think about themselves as a small individual and put themselves in positions the place somebody larger than they’re would put them…
“Regardless that any person doesn’t put you there, you continue to gotta work these issues. Discover methods to place your self in these positions that you simply’re often not there, that you simply’re not used to, and work on them, attempt to work on them in a sensible means…
“If I practice as I compete, not one of the brown, blue, and purple belts that I’ve right here would get close to to my again or close to to my aspect management. However what I’ve to do is I’ve to permit myself to provide these positions… That’s in all probability why, on the subject of heavyweights, my ability is a bit of bit totally different than most of them.”
By continuously placing himself in disadvantageous positions, Hugo developed environment friendly, technically sound escapes and air-tight protection. He says that many heavyweight grapplers nearly by no means apply escaping dangerous positions, so once they discover themselves there in competitors, they’re misplaced.
He added:
“I feel for giant dudes, the primary factor is forgetting you’re large and that you should use your superpower, which is being large, to get out of dangerous positions and put your self in these conditions. As a result of though 90 p.c of the folks can’t get you there, there shall be 10 p.c who will, and you must consider what am I gonna do when the ten p.c present up and put me there. Additionally, considering in the long term, what am I gonna present my college students in the future after I change into a black belt and I don’t have the information and the hours spent there?”
Past simply escaping poor positions, Hugo prides himself on a guard sport constructed for the monster prime gamers he competes in opposition to within the heavyweight division.
He says that his environment friendly and almost impassable guard is a results of his coaching with famend strain passers like Xande and Saulo Ribeiro, in addition to Rafael Lovato Jr:
“I feel you must depend on ability, you must depend on your potential to make use of the proper issues while you’re in a defensive place… Xande, Saulo, Lovato, all these guys, for years, their type has been strain. So at any time when you could have any person that’s actually good at strain within the coaching room, somebody has to develop the protection… So I feel having that type with me within the coaching room helped me lots to have a powerful protection system. Even for smaller folks, you continue to can defeat somebody larger in the event you depend on the proper issues to defend your self.”
