Alex Magala is originally from Orhei, Moldova but now lives in California, USA. He began training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu aged 25 back in 2015. As he puts it, his love of martial arts developed from an early age “Since childhood, I was fascinated by secret martial arts techniques that would give you power to defeat your opponent with minimum effort and maximum efficiency. Maybe I was watching too many movies, but the fact that I didn’t know it, didn’t leave my mind, among with multiple other stunts and dangerous tricks. As time passed, I moved to the USA and got an opportunity to learn the most deadly martial art that I found, 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu. It’s the purest form of contact without any weapons, gear or clothes.“. Now 29 years old, he currently holds the rank of brown belt under 10th Planet founder Eddie Bravo and trains at the 10th Planet HQ.
We asked Magala about his favourite submission in BJJ, this was his response “In our gym we call it The Ego Crush. It’s a spine breaking move, where your legs wrap your opponent in Figure 4, behind his back, upside down, so you facing his legs from behind, then you pull the leg like the knee bar and put a lot of pressure on the back. It creates a lot of tension in the ribs, makes it hard to breathe and lastly, spine breaking pressure that no one can ignore.”.
He is also known for his unique ‘mantis style’ which requires mimicking the stance of a praying mantis. This move has won him several matches in competition. We enquired about its origins and whether he thought it could be used at the highest level of BJJ, he replied “Mantis Style is the unorthodox approach to every aspect of the fight, I think donkey guard has some similarity, starting with stance, it creates a lot of discomfort in your opponent’s approach and many of his attacks become ineffective, like jumping into a triangle. My front leg creates the distance that allows me to control the first engagement, without any surprises. It narrows your opponent’s options and he becomes more predictive. Taking it to the ground there is also an inverted approach, which makes your opponent solve additional upside-down positions before starting to attack. That gives me time to learn his weakness and attack first. About me applying successful techniques at the highest level – I noticed that it goes in trends. Our gym became obsessed with Leg Locks from 2015 and that’s the first thing I started to learn in Jiu Jitsu. Because at that time it was unorthodox and not many people had an answer for this. After 11 months in Jiu Jitsu I submitted a black belt with a Leg Lock. So this explains it all. It’s all about knowing techniques that people do not know how to counter very well. Because my experience tells me – there is a counter to everything.“
Since moving to the US, Magala has found success on and off the mats and is also a regular BJJ competitor in the 77KG weight bracket. He lists his biggest success as achieving his brown belt, featuring on 15 ‘Got talent’ TV shows (such as Britains got talent and others). As well as this, he also owns two 10th Planet gyms in Russia (Krasnador and SPB) and also says he’s recently turned his hand to music production. He says the best achievements are yet to come.
For those wondering about his other talents, Magala is highly skilled at sword swallowing and says he’s had some bad injuries from the art. He lists stunts from sword swallowing as his worst injuries, then motorcycle accidents, then BJJ injuries in terms of causing the most harm to the body.
In brief, sword swallowing is a very dangerous and life-threatening activity, he explains: “In 2013 I started to perform and combine sword swallowing with other disciplines like breakdancing, pole dancing, and fire breathing. After a dynamic set of activities on the pole, I couldn’t calm my breathing, and the sword couldn’t go down when I tried to swallow it. When there are 5000 people watching your act, you don’t really feel tired, or in pain, so I had to push it down. That move cut my throat. I can explain in more detail but it is too sad…pain, recovery, being in constant hunger. You lose weight, lose your muscles and you gotta work twice as hard; to get back in performing shape. I’ve been very close to death, and some of my sword swallower friends were on the edge of life and death. My friend got in a coma for two weeks, after passing out from a sword injury. It is strange but the throat injury hits you like a fever. You get a high temperature, feel hot, then cold, then hot again…To my knowledge there are three types of danger that come when swallowing a sword. Most of them make you not able to eat for up to a week. The rest of them, you are not gonna make it alive from the stage.“
He continues “For instance, when the blade goes through your throat and cuts it. Secondly, when you swallow and the sword pierces your stomach. Thirdly, the blade of the sword, when swallowed is located one centimeter away from the heart, any movement to the sides can pierce through and you get a fatality without seeing the end of your show. And fourth is the bonus. I hold the sword in front of the audience and press the trigger to reveal the spikes from the sword handle. These four spikes will penetrate my face including both of my eyes. Each of these scenarios are going through my mind when I am stepping on the stage with my sword. I never described it in so much detail, but when the sword is swallowed, the tears fill your eyes. And when I reach the top of the pole and get into an upside down position, ready to dive down, the tears are right in the middle of my eyeballs and the vision becomes very blurry. Then I have to execute the fatality drop. On my last show, I did my drop hanging on one leg only!”.
So it seems BJJ is really not so dangerous at all when we compare it with his other job.
Looking back at his life in Moldova, he mentions his past lifestyle which involved breakdancing, saying “Eat, Sleep, Train, Repeat. That was my typical day at that time I trained breakdancing. It’s the type of activity where you don’t need much. No need for equipment or any other gear, maybe except for your shoes. I got to the 3rd place in the championship of Moldova in 2008.”
As mentioned, since then Magala moved to the USA where he currently lives. We asked him about his entry into the US which is an interesting story, to say the least. This was his response: “I think you are in charge of your destiny, wherever you are. [Talking about the] Green Card – That’s the craziest story, because I just clicked on a banner named “USA Immigration” on a pirate torrent website. Then I filled the application in 5 minutes. 6 months later I am getting a call, where I was told I won a Green Card. I thought that it’s a total scam and everyone around me, including my parents told me that it was a scam. But I was so curious and gave it a shot. And BOOM!, now I live in Hollywood, California“
At this point, it’s been established that Magala hasn’t lived a typical life and has many talents. We asked about how he manages to balance his Jiu Jitsu with everything else going on in his life, he claimed “I don’t know how I chose these two disciplines, they are both opposite to each other. The muscles are working in different directions. When performing you have to do body extension/stretch, when doing BJJ your body does retraction/squeeze. But I perform and compete back to back with no problem. I created a set of workouts that complement each other and make me stronger. Diet is also different. One is for the good looking body, other is for dropping weight and staying in good condition for a whole tournament. Both performing and competing wears you out equally. But at the end of all this, I am proud to have a sword and to know Jiu Jitsu. When I am on the stage, sometimes I can’t believe how I figured out a way, to walk around with a cold weapon and know most deadly martial art like no one else in the audience. These two complete each other like Yin & Yang. All this I share in my performance” He also adds “I have other businesses, streams of income, all of them directed to make passive income, so I can focus on my shows and my Jiu Jitsu.”
Lastly, he says “For my Jiu Jitsu goals, besides continuing to evolve in this art, I wanted to open the gates of our system in Russia, so every member of our team could travel and train in any of our 120 schools around the world. I am currently working on website 10thplanetrussia.com and soon the website will be ready.”
You can follow him on Instagram here
