Skip to content
The BJJ Story
Search
Back to people
Two training partners meeting on the mat.Drawn in cream, forest green, and muted terracotta. People and objects are symbolic illustrations.
Portrait unavailable. General BJJ illustration; not a likeness of this person.Illustration: The BJJ Story

Rodrigo Feijao

“Feijão”

Source: bjjheroes.com

Rodrigo Feijão housed competitors in Maringá; former pupil Cristyan Martins credits him with lessons he carried into teaching.

Biography

Rodrigo Feijão's coaching work has ranged from a competitors' house in Maringá to preparation camps in Brazil and the United States. A Nova União black belt under André Pederneiras, he taught Cristyan Martins, who later credited him with lessons he passed on as a teacher himself. From Teresópolis to Nova União Born Rodrigo Antônio Garcia da Silva in Teresópolis in 1977, he began jiu-jitsu at nine through an arrangement with his school that waived academy fees. His first instructor, Aílson Brites, known as Jucão, gave him the nickname Feijão—Portuguese for bean—after a cartoon character. Jucão guided him through blue belt. When his teacher moved away, Emerson Souza continued his training and awarded him purple. Travel to Rio for school brought another change during his teenage years: he went on to train under André Pederneiras, who awarded his brown and black belts. Feijão took bronze in adult lightweight at the 2000 World Championship as a brown belt. The following year, competing at black belt for Nova União, he won the Brazilian Championship and took bronze at the Worlds. A seminar took him to Maringá in 2000, and he decided to establish an academy there. Nova União's licensed-academy directory lists him as the instructor of Clube Feijão Team in the city. Teaching did not end his own competitive career: in 2014 and 2015 he won men's Master 2 black-belt middleweight at the World Master Championship, an age-group competition distinct from the adult Worlds. Martins and Sodré Cristyan Martins remembered an early trip with Feijão as the moment that gave his training a direction. In 2000, while still a white belt, he spent 15 days in Rio with his teacher to watch the Worlds. Speaking to Graciemag in 2020, Martins said the atmosphere made him want to become a black belt. Nine years after that visit, Feijão promoted him on a competition podium at Rio's Tijuca Tênis Clube. Martins had just won a brown-belt title at the Rio Open. Martins's account also described how he began teaching. Before reaching black belt, he helped with warm-ups and demonstrations; those responsibilities encouraged his interest in instruction. In 2012 he left his legal career to teach jiu-jitsu. He credited Feijão with emphasizing commitment, consistent training and clear goals over dependence on talent, and said he took that approach into classes with his own students. For Alex Sodré, joining Feijão meant moving into a full-time training environment. After Fábio Andrade could not accommodate him, the Nova União network connected him with Feijão's scholarship program in Maringá. Sodré completed a three-month trial before moving into a house with 14 other competitors. Training under Feijão, Sodré won the 2017 brown-belt light-featherweight world title after five matches. His black-belt promotion followed on May 7, 2018, at what he had been told would be a team photo session. Feijão revealed the promotion instead. Teaching beyond Maringá Feijão also worked with academies elsewhere in the Nova União network. In Brusque, Valter Gomes's Tatakai group joined the team through a partnership with him. He led a camp there with André Bastos from March 16 to 19, 2017, bringing athletes from Maringá to assist and exchange experience. The camp opened with a discussion of training tactics and the organization of jiu-jitsu before moving onto the mats. Around 100 people attended, including athletes from Blumenau, Itajaí and Joinville. Two months later, Gustavo Dantas brought Feijão to Phoenix to help lead a Worlds preparation camp. Athletes from Brazil and Norway took part, and positional drills—repeated work from particular situations—formed a substantial part of the training. His later team work included leading Nova União in its October 2025 BJJ Clubes semifinal in Rio, where it beat Gracie Barra 4–2. Nova União went on to win the competition, defeating GF Team 6–1 in the final.

Sources for this profile

Lineage

View in lineage tree

Trained under

Students1