The Shintaro Higashi Show - Osamah Almarwai - IBJJF World No-Gi Champion

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

In this special episode, Shintaro sits down with the current IBJJF World No-Gi Champion Osamah Almarwai to talk about his illustrious BJJ career, and how he's been able to juggle his engineering career with BJJ. Osamah is scheduled to face Mikey Musumeci for the ONE Flyweight Submission Grappling World Championship at ONE Fight Night 10 on May 5, 2023. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Welcome to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Before we jump into the main episode, I just wanted to give a big shout out to our official sponsor, LeVon. Thank you so much for your support. And now to the main episode. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. But no Peter today. He's just kind of on the production side.

I'm here with Osama Almarwai. Did I say that correctly? Yeah. You are the Nogi current IBJJF world champion. Am I right? Yes, I am. Nice. That's very exciting, man.

Can you tell us a little bit about your BJJ journey? Yeah, so I'm currently, as we said, Nogi world champion. I started training in Saudi Arabia. I started training, the first session actually I took was in about 2007, 8. I took a few sessions. Nice. At the time, when I was in high school, but then I had transportation issues.

The gym was kind of far from my house. And then I had to stop for a little bit. After I finished high school, went to orlando florida in 2010 2011 and my university was offering pre-classes you know oh wow nice so i went back to jiu-jitsu i was doing mostly nogi at the time and then uh after i finished english studying english i went back to do my undergrad in uh industrial engineering in Saudi Arabia. My father used to work there. And so I started just training Jiu-Jitsu.

My brother actually is a brand built in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And he was the one who inspired me and motivated me to continue training Jiu-Jitsu. And I finished my industrial engineering degree and I came to the U.S. first in Miami. I trained the price course for a little bit and then I moved to San Diego, California to do my master's degree in genetic management. That's when I started

training at Atos Jiu-Jitsu. Got it, got it. So when did you... My first camp was the ABCC camp. Oh man, I hear that very tough. Oh, that was the toughest camp's very tough. Oh, that was the toughest camp of my life. That was my

introduction to artists. Oof. Well, yeah, because I'm kind of on an affiliate right now, Essential with JT, and they're doing the World Team Camp

right now. So it's an eight-week thing. They're doing the comp classes, the extra drilling. It is not easy, right? It is not easy. It's nice. And I heard your

ABCC camp at Essential was really crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's wild. And I heard your, uh, the ABCC camp, but essentially was really crazy. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's well, JT was pushing them. Yeah. They came last week.

They came to our coast and they looked sharp. All of them. Yeah. Yeah. Exciting times, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Like that as a, as a club. So what does your training look like right now? So, uh, my training camp was divided

to two, I would say, parts. One part was in Ramadan, which is one month where we fast from

almost sunrise to sunset. Yeah. No water, no food. Every day? Before Ramadan. For a month?

For one month, yes. So, around 12, 14 hours, fasting. Before that, I was training almost four sessions every day. Four sessions. Before Ramadan. Yeah, so I would drill before the competition class in the morning,

and then I would do the competition class. And there was a lot of focus on me by Ajay Gavav, because he was pushing me, you know. So he was shout-th pushing me, you know, so he was shark tanking me, you know, always like getting a fresh person every like three minutes or so. I was shark tanked today while I was fasting.

He did not care. He was like, man, we're going to get you. Good, good. So that was the first part. And then at night I would drill again and left or do the night session, which is so like four sessions between part. And then at night, I would drill again and left or train, do the night session, which is so, so like four sessions between drilling.

Yeah. And then in Ramadan, I only reduced my training. I canceled one drilling session that was before the competition class because I wanted to get extra sleep.

Sleep is very important for me when I'm fasting. And I heard the comp class over there at 7 a.m. Is that correct? So we have two competition classes. The geek competition class, which is at 7 a.m. And then the no geek competition class, which is the one I'm doing now, 10.45.

Okay, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. So I do that. And then right away after I finish, I try to go home and sleep. I don't want to think about water. Oh, you can't even drink water. That's right.

That's brutal. Yeah, that's the hardest part. You know, if it was only food, it would be okay. But the water is the hardest part. Oh, my God. You know, I was like, oh, it's, you know, that's insane. Because I was just thinking like, oh, it's intermittent fasting. I don't eat after training, before training.

Not a big deal. But not drinking water. I mean, if you're used to cutting weight, right? Like, it's kind of like cutting weight but doing it day in and day out for a month oh man

yeah that was the water was the hardest part actually today I had an interview at the gym and then by the end of the interview you know when you talk

when you don't have water my mouth was getting dry it was hard for me to talk wow yeah my mouth was like heavy yeah so but mentally it makes it tough yeah how's your weight right now mentally for me to talk. Wow. Yeah. My mouth was like heavy. Yeah. So,

mentally it makes it tough. Yeah. How's your weight right now? Mentally, my weight is good. So, I'm a little overweight. I've been gaining weight.

This is actually not my division. I usually compete in the division below like 120 something. Ever since the fight was announced, I've been working with Electron Performance.

It's a gym that helps me with the weight lifting program. I've been working with Electron Performance. It's a gym that helps me with the weight lifting program. We had a very solid program to make me gain weight. So now I gained like, I would say maybe 10 pounds or so. Okay, that's pretty...

So I'm a little overweight now. Yeah, wow. That's awesome though. But I'm going to cut it. Yeah, I feel strong. I feel very strong. Nice. And so when did you come to America?

Right after high school or did you do high school here or in Saudi Arabia? No, I did high school. And I finished high school in Saudi Arabia. And then I came here. Right after I finished high school, I went to Orlando, Florida. Yes, that's right. I studied English for one year.

And then after I finished studying English, I went back home to do my engineering. You're from Yemen, right? Originally you're from Yemen. Yes, I'm from Yemen, but my father used to work in Saudi, so I grew up there. Did you ever do judo there? I know a pretty good judo team right now. Yeah,

I did judo actually. I did judo for some time. With the national team, the Saudi national team uh with the national team uh the saudi national team i was not the national team but clubs and the clubs had like national level guys people in the national team so it was a very tough training they would have like it was a very bad they had wasted uh on the mats we would finish like we would do a lot of groups because they, judo, I think they need to have good forearms, strong forearms.

So we would do a lot of conditioning with the weights. What was jiu-jitsu training like over there? At the time, it wasn't that popular, jiu-jitsu. That's why I started doing a little bit of judo because it was more popular, tougher. So it wasn't that popular. Did you just saw? That's why I started doing a little bit of judo because it was more popular, tougher. So it wasn't that popular,

but now it's getting bigger. Oh, I bet. Right. Abu Dhabi, ADTC over there, right? Exactly. Yeah. So now they have the federation. They have a federation for the sport.

They have a national team. So it's growing and they're bringing like the Soldier Brothers are going there for a camp now. I don't know if you know them. They're like very solid guys. They're always bringing

like people from outside to train their national team. So it's growing. It's wonderful. It's growing. They have competitions. At the time, back then,

it wasn't that much. We would have very small competitions. Sometimes you would compete against your teammates yeah yeah it's one of those guys yeah

now it's a whole different world of grappling now you know we're so connected all of us Jiu Jitsu, Judo Wrestling now we have

Full Grappling we watch it Jiu Jitsu Fanatics are you on that BJJ Fanatics yeah yeah well I'm working on my DVD

but I haven't had the time to to finish it because I'm I've been focused on training but after haven't had the time to finish it because I've been focused on training but after this step that'll be good man world champion

you have this other super fight coming up with Musmeshi and then you have your DVD release it's funny how we call it DVD no one has the actual DVD it's not even the DVD

it's online how old are you now by the way okay so you remember DVDs, right? I remember, yeah. What was your first DVD? What was my first DVD?

Yeah, that you bought. I remember. I can't remember, but we would buy all these movies. I remember the DVDs. Yeah. Yeah. Good times, man. Yeah, you both.

So now you focus on BJJ full-time. That's your whole thing right now? Or do you work also? What does your professional grappling life look like now? Yeah, I'm focused on Jaisal. But I also have a job. I work as a process analyst. My job is very flexible.

Luckily, I have a very understanding manager. I work remotely from home, so I a very understanding manager. I work remotely from home, so I make my own schedule. Oh, good. I work on weekends sometimes, you know,

as long as I finish a test, my, my boss is fine. Oh, good, good. Man. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah,

luckily, I'm, I'm very grateful that I can, you know, pursue. Yes, for sure. Being a professional athlete

and a, yeah, that's amazing, man. Do pursue. Yes, for sure. Being a professional athlete and a... Yeah, that's amazing, man. Do you love both of them? Like your career and BJJ or your Jiu-Jitsu career and your work career? Financial,

whatever career? I love both of them but honestly, I love Jiu-Jitsu. Oh, yeah? Do you ever see yourself like working in Jiu-Jitsu full-time,

like in grappling full-time in some capacity? Yeah, I think pretty soon I'm going to focus full-time on Jiu-Jitsu, especially with the one championship opportunity, the exposure I'm having now and so on. There's a lot of opportunity now for me to just focus on Jiu-Jitsu and make money off of Jiu-Jitsu.

So tell us about this one championship with Mikey Musmeci. You know, we all know he's a great, accomplished grappler. What are you doing to prepare for it? Like, what is your game plan? You don't have to obviously disclose everything, you know, because he might even listen to it, right? Be like, oh, shoot, he's working on this thing.

But yeah, tell us a little bit more, you know, maybe something about your game. I'm sure all our listeners are very knowledgeable grapplers. So now they're going to love to hear your take on this. Yeah. So I've been watching Mikey for a very long time. You know, he's been one of the best for a very long time. Honestly, I never thought I would fight him at one championship, but I won Nogi Worlds.

They approached me, won championship. Once you become a world champion, you're on their radar, basically. Yeah, yeah. Okay, we got a good tag there. Yeah, so actually, Mikey was cornering. A lot of people didn't know this, but Nogi Worlds Ward, the semi-final, he was coordinating my opponent. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so he saw me very close.

Yeah, wow. Yeah. So yeah, we had a brief talk. Like he congratulated me. He was very nice and so on. Then after I won, I was approached by one championship to fight him. Ever since they announced the fight or they approached me, we just started preparing.

You know, I trained with him. He's one of the best people to give you a strategy, to be honest with you. He's really good with strategy. Actually, he's been watching his matches. He's been watching Mike's matches. We've been, you know, finding vulnerabilities in his game. We's been watching Mike's matches. We've been finding vulnerabilities in his game, what we can do and so on.

And so in the beginning of the camp, we were working a lot of strategies. Defense, you know, how to block his game, how to, you know, how can I impose Mike and so on. But then towards the end, there was a lot of rounds, a lot of, you know, so on. But then towards the end, there was a lot of rounds,

a lot of, you know, pushing the conditioning more. So I can beat, you know, technically, as well as physically, you know.

So what kind of, what kind of jiu-jitsu game do you play for our listeners who maybe haven't seen your match? Well, you know, who want to see you fight on May 5th

on Amazon Prime on One Fight Night 10, right? Because you're the co on One Fight Night 10, right? Because you're the co-main event. Is that right? Right. So it's a huge deal. What can those guys expect, you know, from your grappling style?

Like when they come in to watch your match, you're like, all right, we're going to see some big takedown, big pressure, ankle lock. Like what is your game? A lot of people are going to see part of my game that I haven't shown much of in competition. That's exciting. They're going to see my top game. Top game.

Yeah, I've been, you know, I trained with the best top passers that were total brothers. They've been giving me a lot of pointers, you know, about passing. When I trained with one of the pressure passers, André Gauvin. Usually in competition and other organizations, I have to worry so much about, not so much, but I have to worry about points. So I play like more of a strategy, you know, like usually I play a bottom game, reverse De La Riva, De La Riva and so on, you know.

Because my division, you know, this is, I think on bottom it's pretty common for my division. Lighter weight divisions. Oh yeah, yeah, lightweights. On May 5th, I've been working on my top game and my leg locks. I think I'm going to surprise a lot of people with my pressure. Wow, that's exciting. Yeah. They're going to see something I don't think they've ever seen before.

Are the Rotolo brothers trading with Atos? Yeah, yeah. They're part of our company. Actually, Ty Rotolo is going to be on the same event. Yes, that's right. Because I spoke to Vernier, you know, also on a previous episode. I don't know if you got a chance to listen to this on YouTube and everything. Pretty cool.

You should check it out. Yeah, I'll watch it. He's a funny guy. He's a funny guy. He's actually trading in Texas right now. Yeah. You know? I know.

He's taking it very seriously. I like this. I like when people take the challenge seriously. I am dreading that. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Very exciting man

Yeah Wow So how do you do it man Like just a full time job Full time training Fasting Man it's gotta be Pretty tough right

How do you like Take time off Or do you give yourself A mental break on Saturdays Or How do you balance all that Yeah so First of all

It's all about time management. I learned this in my undergrad when I did engineering and I was training almost full-time. So it's not easy. I knew I had to have a very strict schedule.

Of course, sometimes you need to stick to the schedule that much, but you have to have a schedule. It's all about time management. And for me, it was like working on weekends at the time, you know, like my homework's on the weekend, homework on the weekend. So for me now, at Atos, what we have is we have competition class on Monday, Tuesday. We don't have a competition class. We have the regular classes.

So it's like a break in the middle of the week. It's like an active break, you know, so you don't burn out. Which is very good. I think it's very good. Yeah. And then we finish the week strong on Thursday and Friday. Yeah. And Saturday you do your lifting or drilling.

So it's like, the cap is up and down, you know? Yeah. The Volvo makes sure that we don't burn out. It's very important. lifting, or drilling. So it's like, the cap is up and down, you know? Yeah, the valve makes sure that we don't burn out. It's very important. Yeah, the National Training Center for Judo that I used to go,

you know, with Travis Stevens and Jimmy Pedro, they used to always do hard Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and it would taper off.

Thursday was one practice or something, Friday was less. They would kind of taper off, but I know it's essential, you know, with JT Torres has a similar schedule

with you guys. Tuesday, Thursday are the very high volume days. Monday, Fridays are like sort of the training but not so crazy comp days. And Wednesday is kind of the day that they give a break a little bit. Yeah. I think about

Judo or wrestling, I think there have been a lot of studies or researches about the high-level grapplers, which is something we don't have in Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, for sure. I've seen a lot of researches about how the high-level grapplers train and what

the schedule is like. In Jiu-Jitsu, a lot of people are just like, push, push, push, push, you know? A lot of them, break, mention, it's hard to mention. Yeah, it's brutal. When you're pushing just without break, a lot of them break meant that it's hard mint yeah it's brutal there's a lot of stuff when you're pushing just without break you a lot of people yeah for sure they gotta balance it out how far do you want to take the the bjj the the grappling like what goes through your head maybe

three years five years from now like where do you want to be yeah Yeah. So, honestly, now I feel it's a lot of pressure on me because I'm representing not only my family, but I'm representing the whole region, the whole Middle East. I've been getting a lot of messages, people supporting me from the whole Middle East, from different countries. Yeah, I bet.

Yeah, so for the next three to five years, I really want to represent the Commonwealth to the best of my ability. I trained so hard. One of my goals was winning the world championship in the Gi. Awesome. This is one goal I won.

You're doing Gi training now or no? After this one, I'm doing Gi training, but now twice, three times a week. Of course, of course, yeah. Obviously, I want to win one championship. This is the biggest. Yeah, what a huge deal.

I want to win a championship. Man, if I win it, it's going to be a huge deal for me. But I have all the support from back home. a huge day for me, you know. But I have all the support from back home. And now one championship is actually pushing

to have four events in the Middle East, you know. So, this is very, very hopeful for me and very good for me because hopefully

one day I can fight, you know. Oh, yeah. That would be really cool. Yeah. That would be, yeah. That would be very cool.

But yeah, my goals are winning one championship, the Pan Ams in the G, the World Championship in the G, and hopefully the Asian Games

also. I want to win it this year. It's going to be nice. That's very exciting, man. Yeah. So you have an answer for the Mikey lock and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. We'll be watching him. I can watch everything. He works. We'll be watching him. We'll been watching him. I can watch everything. He works. We've been watching him.

We've been watching him. And I'm sure he does the same. What would they? That's what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed to kind of do a little research on your opponent and things like this? Of course. But usually I fight in tournaments. And when I fight in tournaments, I have so many opponents, so I just have to work on my game.

But this camp has been different because I'm fighting one opponent. That's true. Yeah. So my whole focus is on him. And I feel that I have improved so much, you know, because when you prepare for the best, you're just pushing yourself so much, you know, from the technical aspect and the physical aspect and so on. I'm pretty much used to that stuff.

Nice. So are you like a typical, like lighter weight, inverting, rubbery kind of a player with a lot of flexibility or generally? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very flexible.

Yeah. It's, oh, yeah. This is very common in our division. You know, people are flexible. You're passing it, then they take the leg out. Yeah, man. Sometimes it's the worst. Like, you're in, like, side control or something,

and then the foot scrapes next to your face, and then it comes in between. All of a sudden, now they re-guard. It's like, how the hell do you do that? You know? Yeah. So annoying. So, no, yeah.

Yeah, I'm also a league locker. I don't know if people know about this, but I'm a league locker. So, I will have answers for my key attacks. And I will have also counter. And it's going to be very interesting. Very excited to see it. The exchange we're going to have. The exchange we're going to have is going to be very interesting.

Because we're both, you know, high-level grapplers, you know. And I'm sure we're going to make our match exciting. I saw Mikey talking about how he's fired up, and I love it, you know, because that means it's going to bring a lot to the table. I can't wait to see it. You know, May 5th, it's going to be on Amazon Prime, I think, at

8.30, right? Nice. Yeah. Okay, so what does, I've been asking all the guys that, you know, I've been working with the one championship guys and things like this. So this is, I'm sure maybe you've heard me ask this question before,

but what does martial arts mean to you? Martial arts mean to me because honestly, it helps me so much, not just on the math, but of of the math maybe even more of the math in my daily life you know because we get we get pushed so much especially competition classes and so on and um until i finish the competition class nothing in my life that's hard work. Yeah. Everything is easy. It gives me a lot of discipline. It helped me finish my education. It just helped me finish my education because it gives me a lot of discipline,

a lot of drive to study so I can. So it means so much to me, you know. Yeah, I would say the most. That's great. Discipline, self-confidence, of course. And of course, it's a great sport where you're healthy. Sometimes it's not so healthy because you're. Yeah, I'm nursing.

It's still hurting right now. It's the worst. It depends how much you do it, how much you push your body. But I think I've been pushing my body so much now. Maybe after the World Championship, I'll take a real break. Maybe a week or so and then come back. But the thing is, whenever I take a break, it's just to go back to training. You're like, why is my hand not hurting right now?

You know what I mean? It's such a weird feeling. Yeah. Why is my body not... Why is my body not making one my buddy not why am I sleeping good yeah that's so funny man it's kind of universal I guess if you're grappling right yeah

do you have any advice for younger guys who you know maybe trying to do what you're doing who look up to you maybe even some of your middle eastern you know co-highs or the people who are like watching you like oh this guy looked like me sounds like me you know I'm rooting who are like watching you like, oh, this guy looked like me, sounds like me. You know, I'm rooting for him. You have any advice

for those guys? It doesn't have to be a Middle Eastern guy. It could be anybody who's listening who wants to be a grappler. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now speaking of Middle Eastern guys, I've had that used to train with me back home and they're like, they're messaging me. They're like, we're so excited for you because

you used to train with us, you know, at the same gym. And now you're like, you messaging me they're like we're so excited for you because you just came with us you know at the same gym and now you're like you know fighting a one championship you know this is huge

and I think I hopefully I motivated a lot of them to train you know they're training so hard now I will get my actual planning to come to Arctos

so my piece of advice I would say consistency consistency is key. I think this is the main thing. I think this is what helped me achieve the world championship. It was consistency. It was so hard to train when I was at Arthurs. The training room was so hard. You could be, you know, sometimes. I remember I was talking to one of my teammates,

I was like, that was actually before winning. No, he won. For the fact, you make me question my decision. Yeah. I thought I had no decision. It was just being me, you know.

But then that's what you need, actually. You know, you should be great, hard partners. Because when I went to the competition, nothing was harder than that. So I would say, you know, consistency is key. Don't give up. Don't push

yourself, but have a realistic schedule. Don't push yourself too hard or too easy. You know where your limits are. So, yeah, you don't want to burn out. You want this to be a journey. It's not just for one year, three years. You want it to be a journey for 20, 30 years.

So make a realistic schedule. Keep competing. Don't worry about results. Keep competing. You're busted. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. You should enjoy training.

If it's not enjoyable, what's the point? Man, I can't get over the fact that you said like Ramadan you can't drink water you know because like you can't drink water

so if you train in the morning you're not drinking any water then you go back to training in the evening you're like

you're still dehydrated for the morning all you want to do is replenish your electrolytes you must be wiped man it's nasty, man.

And the thing is that I train in the morning. And then, so when I break my fast, I'm 17 or so. It changes, you know, like by one minute or so. So I will train in the morning. Then before night class, I will do a training session. Then I will do the night class. Then in the middle of the class, I will do the fast.. Then I would do the night class. Then in the middle of the class, I would do the class. Because our class

is like 7.45. So I would do a few rounds. So I imagine I'm already dehydrated from the morning. I would do a few rounds. Then I would when I hydrate, my body goes outside.

There's something weird going on in my body my body's like what is going on I've been doing that for a month so you're probably gonna when does Ramadan

fasting end for you well tonight was the last night tonight was the last night tomorrow is yeah tomorrow is the day for us

it's called the eight hundred day so you did it for a month yeah well I was gonna ask you like how are you gonna be competing you know like this but I guess it's be competing, you know, like this?

But I guess it's done now. And you're probably feeling great about that, right? What did you eat today after, like? So we just, like, broke our fast about an hour ago. So I just had something very light. I tried not to go heavy. Because I tried to warm up my stomach. I drank a lot of water.

Some dates. I don't know if you know. It's called Sambosa. Yeah. Sambosa. Yes. Oh, nice. It's like a piece.

I had soup. Just warming up my stomach with something very light. Later, I would eat heavier meat. I don't like to eat too heavy because I don't think it's healthy for you. When you don't eat for 14 hours, Yeah. You go hard on the food. Yeah. What are you going to eat tonight? Do you know?

Oh, yeah. We're going to. Nice. Chicken. Oh, that sounds good, man. Next time you're in San Diego. Yeah. I might have to drop by, you know.

You know the world championships are happening up there, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The next one is going to be in Anaheim. Yeah. The World Championships

are going to be there. Kind of visit out there too, right? Wow, that's great, man. Thank you for sharing all the stuff that you shared today, man. Best of luck to you.

You know, I'm a fan. I'm going to be watching you from, you know, on Prime. So best of luck with your grapple match with, uh, Miss Vetchi.

And is there anything you want to tell our listeners before you go? Uh, make sure you're tuned in. I was on prime. I promise you guys, our match is going to be one of the best, if not the best night. I know.

So you guys should do that. Thanks to all my coaches. Thank you guys make sure you do that thanks to all my coaches thank you guys yeah very welcome man it was a pleasure

thank you so much Osama thank you I had a lot of fun