Yan Paiva is a veteran BJJ competitor at the highest level and he recently decided to challenge himself by entering his first Judo tournament, where he won a gold medal. It’s not often that top BJJ black belts choose to enter competition under other grappling rulesets, although they do often practice other arts in order to improve aspects of their game. Judo specifically is a fantastic way for BJJ competitors to develop better standing grappling in the gi, but guard pulling limits the number of opportunities to test it in competition. Entering a Judo tournament like Paiva has done might be an uncommon choice, but it makes sense in that respect.
Paiva entered the 34th annual Lone Star Classic and he actually took part in two different divisions at the event. As a green belt in Judo, he was eligible to enter the novice division for brown belts and under as well as the elite division for all competitors. He ran through the Senior Novice division at under 86kg, winning three matches by Ippon and one match by decision in order to stand on top of the podium there. He wasn’t quite as successful in the Senior Elite division at under 81kg, as he went 1-1 in the round-robin bracket and ended up with a bronze medal even though he beat the eventual champion.
Although Paiva has well over 200 BJJ matches as a black belt, his multiple Ippon wins show that he chose to focus on working his standing grappling instead. He has been competing at the highest level of BJJ since 2016, racking up wins over some of the best grapplers in the sport along the way. He has even won the IBJJF Brazilian National Championship too, so he would be incredibly difficult for any Judo competitor to keep up with on the ground. It’ll be interesting to see if Paiva chooses to continue testing himself under Judo rules, or whether any other competitors end up following in his footsteps.
Yan Paiva shared the news that he had won gold and bronze medals in his first Judo tournament in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
