try to do at the academy. We try to get people involved in the program and teach them basic self-defense. We get some guys who eventually go on to become pro fighters but we're really just trying to enhance the quality of peoples' lives through jiu jitsu.

FiveKnuckles: I see a lot of kids training here and more and more kids getting involved in jiu jitsu all the time.

Ricardo Almeida: You know I'm biased but I think martial arts, even other programs are great, not just jiu jitsu from the aspect of discipline and training and all the respect aspect of martial arts make it great for the kids to be involved in early.

FiveKnuckles: On the subject of the respect factor, when it comes to jiu jitsu in mma and you hear guys threatening to break arms, etc, does that really go against the tradition of jiu jitsu or do you see that as prefight mma talk and not such a big deal?

Ricardo Almeida: I think, especially Gracie jiu jitsu, but in jiu jitsu in general there has always been fighting. The culture in Brazil is like, we fight. If somebody says something that you don't like there's not just going to be arguing, someone's going to throw a punch or throw a rock or something. I think fighting is a lot more embedded in the Brazilian culture than in many other cultures and I think in Brazilian jiu jitsu there is that discipline aspect and that camaraderie aspect that we instill by Gracie jiu jitsu under the values of the Gracie family but you know, fighting is a part of it, no doubt about it. You got a guy across the room or across the octagon saying that he's going to knock you out and some people's way of knocking people out is breaking their arm and I don't see it as anything more than that. You just need to be able to separate it if you're training people. Those are not the values that you want to pass on to your students or to your kids but when you're about to walk into a cage and you have a guy who's about to knock your head off, you know, breaking an arm is probably about the same.

FiveKnuckles: There are so many professional fighters that are from New Jersey and the surrounding area. Is there an explanation for that?

Ricardo Almeida: I think it's a combination of many factors. Number one, it's the densely populated state in the country. There places for people to train everywhere. If you drive 15 minutes from here you're going to find another jiu jitsu school, a muay thai school, there are many, many places to train within driving distance for people and a lot of people make training a part of their daily lives from a very young age. We have great wrestling, especially high school wrestling, one of the strongest states in the country for high school wrestling. We had the luck of having a very active athletic commission. You know the unified rules (of mma) were first created here in Jersey so very early on we had organized fighting in Atlantic City which allows fights to happen there almost every couple of weeks. In the next four weeks I'll be in Atlantic City for three weekends, we have a lot of events happening and that pushes the development of the fighters. We also had the luck of Renzo moving here and teaching jiu jitsu to the whole...

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