Dima Murovanni has exploded on to the scene as a high-level BJJ coach in recent months and he’s now been brought in to help lead training camp for the top B-Team Jiu-Jitsu competitors. The members who make up The Simple Man Podcast revealed this on a previous episode and they spent a little more time breaking down why they feel Murovanni’s presence has been so beneficial. Ethan Crelinsten was the first person from the team to bring up the situation on the most recent episode, and he was clearly very happy to have Murovanni working with them:
“Having Dima (Murovanni) run this sh*t, I don’t know if you guys spoke about it last time on the podcast, but it’s been great… Making us work harder, that’s I think the bottom line.”
Damien Anderson had a similar opinion and he sees another clear and obvious benefit to having Dima Murovanni running their training camp at B-Team Jiu-Jitsu as well:
“Honestly really good to have Dima in, I think it’s keeping everyone more accountable… Also, not to mention that it’s good to have someone that their sole focus is to watch the room. Because it’s like they can see things that you’re not actually seeing… Like, we’re all doing our own rounds and after class we might discuss what’s going on in the rounds but he can see other mistakes.”
Anderson continued and also inadvertently addressed some of the people who might doubt how valuable Murovanni’s input can be. For some people, they might struggle to trust someone who hasn’t had a career as an elite competitor themselves. Although this is a relatively common in the BJJ world, it isn’t one that surfaces to any degree in other sports. In fact, most of the best coaches in the world at other sports have never had an impressive career as a competitor themselves and John Danaher is often regarded as one of the best BJJ coaches around despite never having won anything himself. Anderson explained his thoughts on that topic:
”I believe now that there could be a person that teaches good sh*t, like I think Dima’s understanding of the sport is good. He’s teaching real stuff, he’s watching tape and then explaining to us or teaching us the moves he saw in X match or whatever. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he has the best technique, like he can’t do it the best and do it live, but he can still us ‘this is what this guy’s doing’ and as athletes we can start implementing that into our game. I think that’s really powerful to have, it’s valuable in the gym for sure. 100%.”
Although the ultimate test of the input that Dima Murovanni has had on the training camp at B-Team Jiu-Jitsu is yet to come, they have already had a taste of it on a smaller scale. Several key members of the team are going to be competing at either ADCC 2024 or the Craig Jones Invitational, and both of those events will be among the most important moments of their careers. Recently, multiple team-members competed at Who’s Number One 24 and have already got to experience the benefit of having Murovanni working behind the scenes. Jacob Rodriguez explained how it worked for him during his preparation for the match that he had with Tainan Dalpra:
“That’s what helped me with this match entirely. Literally the day, the night before my match I went into train at 7pm… He just was like ‘we’re going to go over some stuff.’ He said ‘all I want you to focus on is entering whatever passes you plan on doing like so: hands, head, feet. That’s all, just focus on that.’ I did live for like maybe 15 minutes, like normally I train any other day for however long our sessions are, I’ll do 40 minutes plus live. Just did a 15 minute round just solely focusing on that, entering guard-passing like so, and it helped immensely in the match.”
Although Rodriguez did not go on to win that match, he had a fantastic performance against one of the best grapplers on the planet. Murovanni’s influence was clearly a success elsewhere though, as every other member of B-Team who competed at Who’s Number One 24 came out with a win. The team went 6-1 on the night and if they can achieve a similar performance at the upcoming major tournaments then it could see them going against the team name and earning several gold medals.
The footage of all four top B-Team Jiu-Jitsu competitors discussing Dima Murovanni and the input he’s having on their training camp was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of The Simple Man Podcast:
