Hailing from New City, NY – Frank Rosenthal began training aged 18 years old and is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt who received this accolade aged 27. His entry into the martial art was due to a friend, he says “My friend Eric Sherman introduced me to BJJ by armlocking me repeatedly and I wanted to learn it.” He currently trains at Renzo Gracie NYC under John Danaher and Doug Pelinkovic. Rosenthal lists Garry Tonon , Gordon Ryan, Rafa Mendes and Ryan Hall as the grapplers who have had the biggest influence on his game.
We asked Rosenthal about his favourite positions when training, he claimed single leg X and 50/50 where his best guards whilst the sumi gaeshi is his favoured sweep. On top, he uses leg pummelling and his main submission is the rear naked strangle.
He also competes regularly at 145lbs and talks about his biggest accomplishments in competition, adding “I’m Not sure what the best one was. But I was pretty happy with my most recent win at SUG. I felt like I opened up and showed my ability to be dangerous from multiple positions both top and bottom. I’m Looking forward to doing that more in the future. My main focus is on having the best performance possible at the ADCC Trials to punch my ticket to the world championships.”. He also claims Paulo Miyao to be the hardest opponent he has faced when competing.
Next, we asked him about his involvement with Danaher and why his style of teaching is so effective at the highest levels, this was his answer: “I think what separates John is his analytical ability and his ability to convey information to his athletes. Most good coaches only have one of those skills but John really has both. He’s able to identify and articulate the elements of moves and tactics that actually make them work. Most people see moves and try to copy them. John understands the 2 or 3 factors that define the success or failure of a move and passes that knowledge to us. John’s style of teaching is definitely systematic. He isn’t the only or first coach to give athletes a system. But I do think that the techniques he chooses to use in his system are different than others. He’s only interested in what works at the highest level. There’s no bullshit or fluff.”
Rosenthal also believes the evolution of the leg lock game is still growing and that as it evolves, the level of defense will only cause the level of attacks to improve too. He states “I don’t believe there will be a shift away from leg locks. People are definitely defending them better these days but I think that will actually cause the leg lock game to evolve and become even more sophisticated. The fact that people are better at defending them is a good thing. It causes everyone to rise to the challenge of finding new effective ways to implement them. It’ll be exciting to see what the future brings.”
Lastly, we mentioned how the nogi scene has dominated in recent years in terms of superfights and pay – which was something his training partner Craig Jones touched upon recently. These were Rosenthal’s thoughts on the situation: “I think that nogi will continue to grow for sure. I hope the gi doesn’t get left behind because it’s still a part of Jiu jitsu and there are some incredible athletes in that field. But based on the way the trend has been I think we can expect to see nogi much more viewed than gi competition. I think we’ll continue to see nogi athletes out earn the gi athletes. So long as the viewership is higher, the nogi competitors will for sure make more money. There just seems to be more big nogi shows than gi ones. So naturally, it’ll bring more viewership and money.”
For more information, check out Frank here on his Instagram page
