Born in 1983, Rafael ‘Formiga’ Barbosa is a black belt who is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . He began training BJJ at age 11 after being inspired by watching UFC 2. UFC 2 was particularly special for Formiga as it featured Royce Gracie defeating three opponent’s via submission, proving the superiority of BJJ. Since then Formiga achieved his black belt at age 19 back in 2002. With this in mind, Formiga has been training BJJ for a long time and has had his black belt for nearly 20 years, he currently trains at Double Five Jiu Jitsu in Texas. This follows his move to the USA in 2005.
His nickname ‘Formiga’ originates from the Portuguese translation of ‘little ant’, a name which was given to him when he first started training. This was due to him being just 11 years old at the time, training in a class full of grown men who would have been considerably bigger than him.
From white belt to black belt, he was taught by Andre Almeida and Alexey Cruz, but has also been teaching himself since his teenage years. This means he has decades of teaching under his belt and considers Andre Almeida as the biggest influence on his BJJ game. Perhaps one of the reasons as to why Formiga has been able to train consistently for so long is due to his lack of injuries, as he puts it “I’m a lucky guy, I have never had a bad injury until now”.
When playing guard, Formiga likes to play Butterfly and X-Guard. From here, he likes to elevate opponent’s via the Butterfly position leading into armbar submissions. Whilst on top, he likes to use X grip passing to pass the guard and his favourite submission is the armbar from side control. Because of his success with Butterfly guard at the highest level; Formiga is often viewed as one of the most influential users of the position. To learn more about his legendary Butterfly guard, check out his instructional here.
Since a young age, Formiga has loved to compete and still competes today in the Masters 2 category. Typically competing at middleweight, he was also ranked number 1 in the Masters 1 category, proving his dominance in the sport. This can be seen by three first-place finishes in the Masters Worlds in the years 2014, 2015 and 2018, something which hasn’t been achieved by many. He also credits Xandre Ribeiro as his hardest opponent to date when competing.
In terms of future plans, Formiga is ready to focus on his academy, teaching and the growth of his students. However, Formiga is not done just yet and still plans to be Masters champion again in the Masters 2 category.
