João Roque is the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teacher at the Clube Unidade de Vizinhança N°1 (Neighbourhood Club) in Brasília, Brazil. He just won one more fight in Shooto, last January 24th, and he is here to talk about his martial arts career. João Roque has built an expressive record in No Rules Barred fights. He is now at the fourth place in the ranking of up to 145 lbs. He has six victories, three draws, and only one loss (a controversial judges decision against Pulver).

Result	Opponent	Method	Event	Date
Win	Abdelaziz Cherigui	Submission	EF 4 - Extreme Fighting 3	10/18/1996
Draw	Uchi Tatsumi	Draw *	JVT 1997 - Japan Vale Tudo 1997	11/29/1997
Draw	Noboru Asahi	Draw *	JVT 1998 - Japan Vale Tudo 1998	10/25/1998
Draw	Hisao Ikeda	Draw *	JVT 1999 - Japan Vale Tudo 1999	12/11/1999
Loss	Jens Pulver	Decision	UFC 26 - Ultimate Field of Dreams	06/09/2000
Win	Takehiro Murahama	Armbar	DEEP 2001 - 2nd Impact	08/18/2001
Win	Stephen Palling	Armbar	WFA 1 - World Fighting Alliance	11/03/2001
Win	Takehiro Murahama	Armbar	DEEP 2001 - 4th Impact	03/30/2002
Win	Ryan Bow	Decision	DEEP 2001 - 6th Impact	09/07/2002
Win	Naoya Uematsu	Decision	Shooto	01/24/2003

* At JVT, when the fight goes the distance, it is declared a draw.

How did your family arrive in Brazil?

I came to Brazil with my parents when I was a child, in 1975, due to the hard political situation in Angola, where I was born. We came directly to Rio de Janeiro and settled.

I started training jiu-jitsu at 15 years old, when a friend invited me. I used to go to the Clube de Regatas Guanabara to train several sports like swimming, volleyball, running, and there I took my first lessons of the gentle art with instructors Márcio Pinheiro e Gérson Velasco.

It was a luxation in one finger. I was a blue belt at that time, and I was already learning to face such difficulties to achieve my goals.

I started training with Márcio, but soon we reached a level, due to the fact that the students were changing all the time, that there were not any partner that could be a challenge to my training. Then Márcio introduced me to his own instructor, Oswaldo Alves. By this time I was already a purple belt, and received my brown belt from Oswaldo. Then he had to go to Manaus for personal reasons, so I started training with André Pederneiras, black belt under Carlson Gracie, with whom I train until today.

The more important ones were the Pan American Championship of 1996 ( Black Belt First Place - up to 148lbs), World Championship of 1997 (Black Belt First Place - up to 134,50lbs), Brazilian Teams Championship 1997 (Black/Brown Belt First Place - up to 187lbs). But the Brazilian Championship of 1993 was the more important to me, because it was the first championship I won as a black belt. Also at Copa Nastra, purple belt, I fought all the fights suffering a high fever: I had hepatitis, but I didn´t know that by the time of the tournament. Then I realized that concentration and desire to surpass myself could lead me to wherever I wanted to.

By the time I started jiu-jitsu the Gracie family influence was huge, and it used to let the athletes to defend the superiority of jiu-jitsu technique over the other martial arts, and that was a question of honour. When I was sixteen to seventeen years old I started watching some vale-tudo fights at Oswaldo´s dojo, and that made an impression on me. They used open hand slaps instead of punches. There was among the team-mates lawyers, engineers, classy people, that used vale-tudo training as a way to express their competitivity. There I learned the endurance necessary to deal with pain and keep fighting despite it, even if the loss was imminent.

My main motivation at that time was the personal challenge, and so I competed in my first NHB fight at Oklahoma, the Battlecade Extreme Fighting 3. Nowadays I take care about the contract's conditions before signing a fight. With my experience of life I am discerning other values, like discipline, introspection and philosophy in martial arts.

That is a good environment, where I can find the best fighters in the world, and the exchange between the different styles of martial arts is stimulant and brings enrichment. It is also very interesting to stay in another country with a culture very different from ours.

It was my debut at Extreme Fighting 3, because it was the first one.

I'm always improving my technique, and I take care of resting and eating better. My focus is primarily in the amount of training and aerobics, but little by little I increase the intensity and the anaerobic parts of the training. I train not only jiu-jitsu, but also train boxing and muai thai, with Carlinhos e Altaceste.

In the contrary, Brasília has excellent athletes. We have very good judokas, karatekas and jiu-jitskas, being national and international champions.

I hope the opportunities keep coming. I have this goal to be the number one in my weight category.

Today I do not see a limit in my horizon. It will depend on how long I will keep my motivation to train for competitions.

I don't have a sponsorship today. It is very hard to find a good sponsorship, specialy to keep a good level of nutritionism and physical conditioning. The supplements are expensive. If I had a good sponsorship, I could diminish the number of classes I teach and train more.

I am with Team Nova União since its origin. It was created by André Pederneiras and Wendell Alexander. The original idea was to compete at the same level with other great teams. Team Nova União, both in Brasília and Brazil, is achieving impressive results.

Yes, I do, they are still a target. But as the vale-tudo events are being constant, my focus on training is more likely to them.

I am going back to college and complete my degree. I want to raise my kids, and also improve myself as a human being, so I can contribute to the improvement of people around me.

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