Ralf Warneking is a German competitor and teacher who comes from a small town in Lower Saxony called Deep Wood. Due to his hometown having a small population of around 5,000 people there was originally no martial arts to learn from, so he began training after buying a Bruce Lee book on Jeet Kune Do and began practicing on corn bags. In his own words, he is a self-described “country boy” who grew up on a horse farm and came from a hard-working family.
He began training Jiu Jitsu in 1997 after reading the Black Belt Magazine in Germany. He began learning at the Beverley Hills Jiu Jitsu club under Marcus Vinicius for an initial 6 weeks. At the time it had the likes of Bas Rutten, Oleg Taktarov, Marco Ruas teaching. It was at this point that Warneking decided to train there for at least a year to improve his grappling as his background was previously in Thai boxing which he was very competent at, yet needed to learn grappling.
It turns out that this supposed year of training in the USA lasted over 14 years. During this period, he received his black belt under the legendary Eddie Bravo at the 10th Planet HQ. Specifically, Warneking got his black belt in 2013 after 9.5 years of training under Eddie Bravo. At the time he was 49 years old and coincidentally it was also the 10th anniversary of the 10th Planet organization.
He lists Eddie Bravo as being one of the most influential on his game and that the legends at Beverley Hills such as Oleg Taktarov and Bas Rutten also added massively to his leg lock game. Due to the lack of knowledge at the time about leg attacks, this meant as a white belt that Warneking could sometimes catch purple and brown belts with leg locks due to his knowledge. To this day, he still trains under the 10th Planet system and runs his own gym, 10th Planet Berlin back in his homeland.
We asked Warneking about his favorite moves and techniques when training, he said “I personally don’t have a favorite guard position. I love to work legs and upper bodies. I like chaining submissions, that’s the goal to float from one position to another. I love scrambles and Butterfly sweeps. Most of the time I get sweeps out of scrambles. When on top, I love pressure passes, power passing and Hail Mary’s. I love all choke variations and everything, the whole 9 yards, so I don’t have a particular favorite. I like chaining submissions so whatever happens when the opponent opens up. I’m still drilling and working to improve everything.”
Despite his age, Warneking is also highly competitive and has a number of accomplishments racked up over the years. We also asked about his biggest achievements when competing and this was his response, “When I was in LA, I was usually just below 90KG, now I’m around 82KG so now I compete at just under 79KG these days.” Talking of competition, he lists winning double gold as a brown belt at the World Championships as his biggest achievement, adding “I previously didn’t compete for two years, so Eddie Bravo wanted me to compete so I’d deserved my black belt. He let me wait for another two years as I was his gatekeeper haha. It always looked good if a mid-forties guy whooped a 22 year olds ass!”
When asked about his toughest ever opponent he lists Josh Barnett as having the best pressure and describes his top game as “second to none” and “the worst pressure game I’ve ever experienced, when you’re against him you can’t try and wrestle him from the bottom, you have to be on top”, adding that Barnett was over 100KG when rolling.
Like many competitors, he’s also had his share of injuries in his time, including popped knees, including damaged ACL’s and meniscus tears. In 2008 he was even told by a doctor that he could never train again. However, this was fixed by functional strength training and within 6 months did another competition. Warneking is also a firm believer that with time and the correct anatomonical training, your body can eventually heal. Funnily enough, even though he is older now than in 2008, he also claims, “I’m 99% better and my training using my legs is almost 100% again.”
Q&A
When you started BJJ training at 10th Planet, was it intentional to do no gi or more of a coincidence? We’ve interviewed Fred Vosgrone before who also loves no gi, so it German thing or just chance?
“When I started training with Marcus Vinicius I had to train in the gi. I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like when people tried to pull my underwear and s**t like this. I always thought it slows down the whole Jiu Jitsu process in the gi. I was interesting in MMA and street defense. My opinion is no gi is the most important, I know a lot of people think the opposite but for me I don’t think so. I think you need to be more technical, more athletic, faster and have better conditioing. I was no coincidence, I started training with Eddie as a gift for my 40th birthday because back in the day besids Lutre Liva his system was the only available no gi gym. I thought I’d get my black belt in 2 years under him but it took 9.5 years haha.”
You are certified in PT and sports medicine, how important do you think this is to training BJJ long-term? You seem to be in great shape so do you think other people who train don’t look after their bodies as much as they should?
“For me, it’s very important to train anatomonically correctly so it’s important to have muscle control to keep the collateral damage as low as possible. Yeah, I’m in good shape but it’s hard work and still have injuries. I have bursitis on my right elbow, it’s full of liquid but I still pull through and roll daily besides Corona. It’s important to eat healthily, to do circuit training and to take away 85% of pressure from your ligaments. Your muscles are your best friends to prevent injuries, so I do lots of kettlebells, calisthenics, maces and Indian clubs, all kinds of functional strength training. I do it 3 times per week for 45 minutes, it’s so important. You have to get enough sleep, eat well and no alcohol and no drugs, so it’s a healthy lifestyle.
I think most people don’t allow for their body to recover properly. If you have a hard workout session and then have fried food like burgers, it’s not good. You need really high, quality organic food to recover faster. Sleep is really important, 7-8 hours is key after a big workout. No soda, no white death like white sugar, white flour or white animal fat either.”
You lived and trained with Eddie Bravo in 10P HQ, what was it like with him? He seems like a character and a very positive person but also a good teacher?
“Eddie was and is a character. I miss the HQ, it was a great group of people. I was originally a stranger, as a white Germany guy, Eddie’s heritage is Mexican. They looked at me a bit funky as the system is built for small, flexible people. I walked in built like a 200 meter runner. First I was an enemy of the system, then he realised I was into rubber guard and everything. He’s definitely a really cool person to be around with amazing stories haha. Yes, the conspiracies are part of the deal too, but he was a great teacher and it was fun.
What I like most about him is after all his operations is he’s still rolling. It’s so important not to be just a teacher saying ‘I did this and that’ in history. It’s good to lead by example which is what I want to do, I still want to kick my students butts and against people that drop in who want to check their Jiu Jitsu compared to ours.”
What is the BJJ scene like in Germany? It seems to be growing lately and is one of the leading European countries when it comes to talent
“Yeah, it’s growing but it’s still frustrating. We’re still like freaks and outsiders. It’s not close like in California which was so awesome. It’s almost impossible to live off just Jiu Jitsu. Maybe there’s 10-15 people who can life off it. It will grow and continue so hopefully we can continue to spread the love of Jiu Jitsu and the healthy lifestyle.”
You’re the first 10P European black belt. Did you know that at the time and was it a goal or just chance?
“It was obviously my goal but it could have been other people before me, so I love that I’m the first one but it’s still just a number. What can I say? I’m just happy that I’m one of the pioneers and OG’s.”
Branching out on the previous fitness and conditioning questions, have you had to adjust your style as you’ve got older, i.e. are there certain positions that are harder than when you were younger?
“The good part is I started BJJ late. I’d done martial arts since I was 9 years old with stuff like Thai boxing, Kickboxing, Eskrima so I had injuries before and my body was always under heavy use. I did more heavy lifting when younger whereas now it’s more functional stuff. I still do rubber guard and I’m probably the oldest guy who does at a high level. As I aged, I tried to become more technical to compensate for power. I still have strength but I try with more technique now and don’t try and force positions, I just let stuff flow so there’s less pressure on my joints and ligaments. As I said earlier, it’s so important to work with good muscle control – you will last longer in my opinion. Stuff like stretching and warmups help but everything else is roughly the same.”
This may be obvious but where did your nickname ‘The Germanator’ come from? I.e. who gave it you etc?
“My nickname, The Germanator! My first name was actually The Punisher because I’d smash people with passing and I’d do everything with power. The second name was The German diesel as I’d never run out of gas and had power. The third was The Germanator as when I went to competition my facial expression was always the same. People were like ‘Damn, you’re like a robot, like a Germanator’. I also competed with injuries like the Terminator, fighting with one arm. I would often roll injured so that’s why they called it me. I’m still using it because it sounds cool.”
Lastly, do you have any plans or goals for the future?
“Yes, I definitely want to build up our competition team. Due to Covid we’ve been stopped since November, hopefully I can keep my gym going. I still want to compete, even with the young guns at age 57. As long as I feel I can put heat on people, I still want to compete. The big goal is to build a bigger gym and to influence my students to train correctly and so they can enjoy the BJJ lifestyle for a longer time. I also want to say my gym is open to all people and organizations. I want to wish the best to all people in the grappling and martial arts world.”
We would like to say thank you to Ralf for the interview and you can find more about his story on his official website. Similarly, you can find his 10th Planet Berlin gym here.
