It's midday at Checkmat's headquarters in Signal Hills, California, and Leo Vieira is in a good mood. The leader of one of the most well-performing BJJ teams in the world had an inspiring Ginastica Natural workout, already cleaned the mats and was just wandering around, cracking jokes and chatting with other teammates.
We asked him to take a seat for an interview, and he started making fun of himself, remembering the day he was deported from the United States! Well, it's been a few years since it happened, and we can safely say it's in the past now. Vieira is well established in a large warehouse in a city very close to where the BJJ Worlds is held annually. He coaches the best BJJ athlete in recent years, Marcus Buchecha, and is opening a new gym focused only on kids.
More than that, Leo keeps up with the latest techniques, and his well-known technical expertise has much translated to x-guards, leg drags and leg locks applied in tournaments these days, as you can see in this video, in which he teaches a way to sweep from an x-guard variation and connects with a different way to squeeze his opponent's foot. Check it out!
#leovieira #brazilianjiujitsu #bjj #checkmat #leglock #xguard