Arielson Ozama is a BJJ athlete and instructor from the port city Joao Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil. Now living in Malaysia and training under his good friend Bruno “Bruninho” Barbosa, Ozama is very thankful for the new life this country has given him. He is currently representing the team Monarchy MMA.
Ozama got in to BJJ relatively late at the age of 22, but wasted no time on the mats and was awarded his black belt within 9 years aged 31. The belt was awarded by the prestigious 4th degree black belt Vagner “Boca” Guimaraes. When asked about how he began training jiu-jitsu Ozama replied “I wanted to know how to defend myself, I searched for a boxing gym in my city for months and couldn’t find any!”. Perhaps this was fate, as he then found his true passion in life and began training BJJ.
Asked about his style of jiu-jitsu, Ozama prefers to be underneath his opponents when trying to sweep, often preferring to use X-Guard. He has a fundamentally solid approach to the top game as most Brazilians do, favouring pressure and folding passes. From here he often likes to take the opponents back and take just about any kind of collar choke that he can get.
Arielson has competed a lot at featherweight but describes his natural weight as a light-featherweight which is just under 64kg. Being a competitor from Brazil can be tough, people sometimes forget that although a lot of excellent black belts come from here, many of them cannot compete due to financial issues. Winning almost all of the titles in North-Eastern Brazil, Ozama has not really competed much internationally due to this.
Like many competitors, his worst injury to date has been a partial tear of his ACL, he had to stop training for 4 months but did not require surgery and made a complete recovery. Ozama describes his hardest opponents as the Checkmat brothers Mathias & Mateus Luna, he does not know which one he has fought since they are identical twins, but can assure you they are both as tough as each other.
Ozama truly lives the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle and describes himself as a Jiu-Jitsu fanatic, he is married to black belt Vanderlucia Barbosa who also lives and teaches in Malaysia. “It guides the way I live my life, everything I do is for improving and teaching”. He also says philosophically “I want to become the best version of myself, I will shoot for the stars and strive for perfection, although I will never get there, I guess I will be pretty happy with the results.”
Due to the financial difficulties facing Brazilian atheletes Ozama described it as a “no brainer” when asked about moving to Malaysia. He decribes the climate as very similar to Brazil and has a true affection for the people “they are so nice here, very friendly and willing to help. I feel very welcomed in Malaysia and have a nice life here, BJJ is growing fast, we have very good coloured belts and black belts are starting to appear. Bruninho has been here for many years and is doing a great job, in the next 5-7 years we will see Malaysian black belts get their recognition from the media”.
When discussing the future Arielson wants to fight in the World Masters Abu Dhabi tournament in November 2020, he would like to represent his students and make them proud.
