Hailing from Finland, Tuomas Simola moved this year to Jyväskylä, Finland to train with his coach Martin Aedma and to study Sports Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä. He started training aged 18 but adds that he’s not just a BJJ guy and sees himself as a grappler, noting “I started at the age of 18. I don’t consider myself a BJJ practitioner. I prefer to be an athlete who does submission grappling and wrestling.” This mentality is one of the reasons why he got into grappling to begin with – as he puts it “I have always been a fan of combat sports and really liked to watch MMA whilst growing up. For some reason even before I started, I always rooted for wrestlers in MMA. So originally, I wanted to do MMA and I joined a local MMA club in my then hometown Lohja ten years ago. However, the training was more focused on the grappling aspect of MMA but I really liked it. So I never looked back and decided then that I wanted to be the best grappler I can be and to test my skills against others.”
Since then, he achieved his black belt under coach Martin Aedma in 2019 at the age of 28. He trains at his FX Jiu-Jitsu gym (Function X Jiu Jitsu) but is also loyal and represents his long-time home gym Lahden Gentai in competition. Simola speaks very highly of Aedma as he mentions “That guy is unbelievable, he must be Europe’s John Danaher, because he understands grappling better than anyone I know. And in sparring, he is better by a margin than everyone else I sparred ever, and I have sparred with ADCC world champions.” With this said, you can understand why Simola has done so well in the grappling world coming from such a pedigree. Away from his coach he adds “When I started, I liked the ‘power BJJ’ style of Pablo Popovitch. Martin Aedma of course and I like to watch everything that Gordon Ryan does. For the mental aspect I admire how guys like Khabib and Ben Askren push the pace. I’m also a huge fan of freestyle wrestlers David Taylor and Hassan Yazdani.” As seen by these inclusions, his style really is a mixture of BJJ and wrestling.
Whilst originally avoidant of playing guard, he has now grown to enjoy it and says “Previously I hated to play guard and be at the bottom, but these days I play guard and I am quite good at it. That has a lot do with learning the skills from Martin. I like to seek K-guard (or as we call it beartrap guard) from open guard. My favourite sweep is when the top player thinks I’m playing BJJ stuff, but I suddenly break the rhythm and use wrestling for example, attacking a single leg from the bottom.”
Whilst passing he claims “I’m a big fan of leg weave pass! Usually, good guard players can recover their guard when attacking knee slide and leg drag passes because they can use their hip movement, however, I have noticed when you smash their hips with leg weave they are in trouble.”
Interestingly, although known for the Kimura submission, he also intends on using the arm triangle choke in his next competition and states “I have gained a reputation for having a lot of Kimura finishes. These days my favourite submission is the arm triangle side choke from mount. To hit that move you need to show absolute technical and physical domination of your opponent by first off gaining and controlling the mount and then progress to the choke while your opponent is resisting. I have drilled that choke very much during the corona break and I promise to hit that soon at competition.”
Big on the competition scene, Simola also talks about his competition weight saying “I tried 76,9 kg at the last two ADCC European Championships, but I am simply too big for that category and I cannot perform after that weight cut. I am about 90 kg in training. I think I will do 87,9 kg for the rest of my career.”. It is also in ADCC where he gained his biggest achievement in competition, a silver medal at the European ADCC championships. Whilst on the subject of competition, he lists Jesse Urholin as his toughest opponent and claims “For me, Jesse Urholin is always the man to beat. That guy is so tough and good at what he does. He also can perform at his very best in every match he has and that’s a very rare ability to have. We once had a 20 min sub only match and it was maybe the most gruelling thing that I have ever done.”. Simola is also dedicated to his craft and adds “A couple of years ago, I had severe overtraining syndrome for a 10 months period. For six months straight I felt sick and nauseous. It was terrible.” With this said, you can see the levels of dedication involved when it comes to his training and mentality.
Not just with BJJ and grappling, he also has experience in MMA as he mentions, “I did three amateur fights back in 2013-2014, but I didn’t find a passion for doing MMA. During the years fire started to burn again and I really wanted to do a pro match. So I did come back straight to the pro match last year and won that. Well, I won that but literally everything else didn’t go as planned and then the corona hit. I don’t know what I am going to do with MMA but let’s say if for example in Sweden they need an opponent for a local guy, I am ready!”. Interestingly there was also another Tuomas Simola from Finland who competed in MMA back in 2002, we asked him about this and he quipped, “That’s some coincidence! I have never even met the guy. I have always joked that if I lose in MMA that can go to his record”
Elsewhere, Simola is still big on competing and lists his goals for the future which are as follows, “I really believe that I am ready to win the ADCC European Championships this December. I have developed my skills as a grappler so much during the corona break and I also focused on physical training when I decided to go back to 87.9 kg. I have made a promise to myself to try to break my opponent by pushing the pace in every match from now on. For some reason in certain matches in the past, I have played the safe game but not anymore!“
It is quite clear that Simola is a massive fan of ADCC and its illustrious reputation – here we asked him about his experience with the tournament which was held in his home country in 2017 whilst he was doing Polaris at the time. This was his answer, “I like all styles of grappling without the gi: ADCC, No-Gi, sub only etc. But I think the best guys in Europe are doing ADCC Trials so I focus on ADCC rules. Actually, in my opinion some of the ADCC rules are a bit weird, I think it is really frustrating that you have to basically pin fall your opponent in order to get takedown points.
So, in 2017 ADCC Worlds were in Finland. ADCC did a tournament for reserve competitors in Finland just before the Worlds, so that if some Worlds competitor missed weight or missed flight, the winner of reserve tournament would get the spot. But I had Polaris the same day as the reserve tournament. It was a tough choice to make but decided to do Polaris. Well it played out that reserve man was not needed, so it turns out to be the right choice. However, I won at Polaris but never got invited back despite the promise they made. So, I like to focus on ADCC where the real best guys are, not in some show where they invite all the European guys I have beaten in other competitions.”
Finally, we spoke about where he sees the Finnish grappling scene in the next few years and how he sees it. He responded by saying “We have a very good organization in the Finnish BJJ Federation and Finland was one of the first countries in the World to have ADCC competitions back in the day. So, we have good experience. However, the sport is developing by leaps and bounds worldwide so we must develop as well. I’m a bit worried about that and the future, so I want to coach the next generation of athletes but now I need to focus on achieving my own goals!” With this in mind, Simola plans not only to represent Finnish grappling but also to coach the future grapplers of Finland.
