Luca Anacoreta is an Italian black belt from Rome. He started training at age 17 years old, claiming the reason he started training was that he and his brother were both fans of Pride and UFC. Now a second degree black belt, he is one of the longest serving Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioners from Italy and claims he does BJJ because it makes him feel good. He currently has his own gym which he trains at, named Anacoreta Jiu Jitsu.
Whilst playing guard, Anacoreta favours sit up guard and single leg-X positions, using the Terere sweep to come up to the top. It is Terere who he claims had the biggest influence on his style. On top, he likes to use the longstep pass to get through the guard. His favourite submission is also the triangle choke.
As a competitor, he usually weighs 88KG in the medium heavy category. He lists winning the European’s twice in the gi and three times in nogi as his biggest accomplishments. When competing, Anacoreta also says that Charles Negromonte was probably his hardest opponent.
Outside of BJJ, Anacoreta is a vegan and has been so for the past 6 years, he claims this is down to both health and ethical reasons. Interestingly, this practice is growing in popularity amongst many top BJJ players. He also adds “My weight was 80KG before the vegan life and now I’m 90/92KG away from competing, I’m not cutting a lot of weight to compete, it’s not healthy.”
He also talks about the growth of BJJ in Italy, but also adds that there is a long way to go before it becomes more mainstream, saying “In the last few years BJJ and MMA are becoming more and more popular, but we have a long way to go. In Italy 90% of people love football and the other 10% do other sports”
In terms of future plans, he wants to return to competing as soon as possible after taking time off. He can be found here: https://www.anacoretajiujitsu.it
