Life as a Black Belt
Mahamed has left his dreams of becoming an
MMA fighter behind. Now, he is driven by jiu jitsu
and has three major goals set for his professional
life: to win Worlds as a black belt, to win ADCC
and to eventually give back to the art by becoming
a full-time jiu jitsu instructor. The first two goals are
immediate; the latter is for further down the road.
He noted of his change of heart, “I am 23 years
old. I want to win Worlds and ADCC, I don’t even
think about MMA. Everything I do, I want to be the
best. What I see right now in MMA is they don’t
want Brazilians anymore. They don’t want them. If
I feel like it’s changing, maybe I’ll do it one day.“Jacare, Demian Maia, Brazilians in general are
very respectful, they don’t like to talk s**t about
each other, they like to make money and support
their family. Here the sport mentality is about talk-
ing trash. Most Brazilians don’t even speak English
and if they do, they don’t want to talk trash, be-
cause we know how hard it is and we don’t want
to talk s**t about the other guy working like me. In
MMA, to be successful you have to talk s**t and to
me, that’s kind of awful.”Mahamed recognises that a path to fame and rich-
es is probably quicker through MMA, but jiu jitsu
has his heart and is able to afford him a comforta-
ble lifestyle that brings him satisfaction.“Yeah, for sure [I can live off jiu jitsu]. I mean,
I don’t need to be rich to be happy. Right now,
jiu jitsu is going to another level, you see a lot of
tournaments where they’re paying real money. You
can’t compare it to UFC where you can make hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars in one night, but it’s
enough to eat, to travel, to be happy and be with
your family. I guess it depends on what you want.
For me, if I have a gi, and a tatami and food on my
table, man, I’m happy! So for me, of course there
is enough money in jiu jitsu.Right now, Mahamed is doing just fine with his
sponsorship deal, teaching seminars, and winning
prize money from competitions. His goal is to rack
up as many medals as possible and enjoy the ride
while replicating past successes. “Worlds at brown
belt was my best win for sure. When you win open
weight it’s different; you can win at your division,
which is great and super good, but winning open
weight against the big tough guys, man that’s
beautiful. I’m doing a grand prix in three weeks,
Worlds and ADCC. I’m thinking about No-Gi
Worlds too,” said Mahamed.Mahamed is doing the same things that brought
him success at the lower level belts to prepare forhis campaign as a black belt competitor. He be-
lieves that although the availability of heavy train-
ing partners that compete at a high-level has gone
down at his school a bit, all he needs is his current
teammates and self-belief to achieve his goals.He noted, “We used to have a lot of big guys: me,
Jim Harbison, DJ Jackson, Evert Santos and oth-
ers, but now DJ went to MMA, Evert and some
of the other guys left, and Tim doesn’t train that
much. Right now, I’m the only big guy. We have
some lighter belts, but we’re building them to be
good enough to train, and they also work. Regu-
larly, mornings and nights, is only me.”When asked if a lack of elite training partners can
hurt his progress, he is quick to shoot that notion
down. “I don’t think so. I think that all you need is
to believe in yourself, your game and your work
[ethic]. I’ve been training a lot doing my thing. Of
course, if we had a lot of hungry, big guys on the
mats, it would be great, but I don’t think that’s the
main thing for you to win. I think the first thing you
need is to believe in yourself and if you have that
I don’t think you need a lot. You can have regu-
lar training partners and you’re still going to win,”
said Mahamed.Mahamed believes in paying things forward. He
is grateful for the doors that jiu jitsu has opened
for him, and will never forget the help he received
along the way towards reaching his goal of be-
coming a black belt. When his competitive career
winds down he plans on becoming an instructor,
so that he can help develop and guide would-
be martial artists that, like him, find jiu jitsu for
the first time and have a desire to succeed at it.
He sees this giving back not only as a goal, but
a matter of personal obligation, because he be-
lieves that he wouldn’t be in the position he is
today without jiu jitsu.Mahamed explained, “Opening my own school
one day, that’s my dream. I think you have to have
a legacy. Every man, not just a jiu jitsu guy, needs to
have one. They need to be useful. If you get all the
medals and all the accomplishments in jiu jitsu, and
you don’t do anything with that, it’s like useless. For
me right now, of course I want to win Worlds, I want
to win ADCC, but I want to still be able to change
peoples’ lives like someone did with me.“Jiu Jitsu is a great way to change lives and learn
how to live. If you have a job, or a kid, or any-
thing, you need something like jiu jitsu to teach
you how to live. That’s what I want to do with my
whole life, use jiu jitsu to help people. I want the
opportunity to give people opportunities.”“JACARE, DEMIAN
MAIA, BRAZILIANS
IN GENERAL ARE
VERY RESPECTFUL,
THEY DON’T LIKE TO
TALK S**T ABOUT
EACH OTHER,
THEY LIKE TO
MAKE MONEY AND
SUPPORT THEIR
FAMILY”