Can you please introduce yourself to the Swedish grappling community?
My name is Tero Pyylampi, I’m a 28 years old BJJ brown belt from Tampere, Finland. I train and teach at Tampereen Ju-Jutsukoulu, usually just called ‘TJJK’ and as we are part of Hilti BJJ sometimes ‘Hilti BJJ Tampere’ in international competition.

When and how did you first came in contact with Grappling/Jiu-Jiutsu?
I started my martial arts journey when I was 15 years old at my current academy, wanting to try something different after playing football my whole childhood. I started with this modernized, self defense oriented style of ju-jutsu called Hokutoryu Ju-Jutsu. Hokutoruy has a small basic ground fighting aspect to it, but nothing thorough. On top of that, two Hokutoruy black belts, Marko Helen and Teemu Launis, who had already been training BJJ for several years and pretty much brought BJJ to Tampere, taught us some proper BJJ classes every now and then. So, I got a taste of what grappling was and as the time went on, I found myself enjoying those classes the most and started to think about switching to BJJ. I was still hesitating though, but then I saw a highlight of Royce Gracie fighting in the UFC and that was it. I knew BJJ was what I wanted to do and finally at the end of 2003 I started taking BJJ classes. At first, I trained two, maybe three times a week, but as the time went on, I started to train more and more.

How has your last grappling year been like?
I’ve had a good year in that regard that I feel like I’m still improving in many aspects and I’m diversifying my game. For example, I’ve developed a pretty decent guillotine game lately and I’m hitting it top and bottom, combining it with guard passes and other chokes whereas before my guillotines were pretty much non-existent. Overall, my game is still getting tighter and more aggressive from top and bottom and I’ve gotten better at combining different kind of guards. Injury wise my year hasn’t been that good. I haven’t suffered that many significant injuries in my BJJ career before, but this year I’ve had two of them and I’ve even missed couple of competitions because of that. So I haven’t competed as much this year that I would’ve liked.

What are your biggest competition achievements this far?
Winning ADCC Europeans -77kg division in 2012 is my biggest achievement and I think it’s the most prestigious no-gi title you can win in Europe right now. The division was pretty big: there were 35 guys in it, so I had five fights and I managed to submit four of my opponents. In gi, my biggest achievement is 2013 IBJJF Europeans bronze medal in adult brown belts middle weight division. BJJ Finnish Open has become quite a big and tough tournament in last few years: lots of tough guys from Nordic countries, Estonia and even few Brazilian black belts have been there in the mix. At elite level (combined purple, brown and black belts division), I’ve won my weight class three years in a row (2008, 2009 and 2010) and got silver in last three years (2011, 2012 and 2013), losing to Alan ”Finfou” Nascimento every time in the final. In elite open weight, I’ve won it once (2013), got silver once (2011) and bronze twice (2010 and 2009). I’ve won BJJ Finnish Championship twice at elite level (2009 and 2011) and was got silver in 2010. In elite open weight, I got silver in 2011 and bronze in 2010. Plus I won my weight class at Abu Dhabi Pro Trials 2012 here in Finland. Without the gi, I’ve won my weight class at ADCC Finnish Championship in 2011 and 2012. I was also the open weight champion in 2011. I also won my weight class and elite open weight at 2012 BJJ No-Gi Finnish Championship.

How are your preparations for ADCC 2013 going?
I had a nagging injury that I suffered earlier this summer and it kept me away from the mats and prevented me doing any sparring for a while. But I kept myself in shape by running, cycling and doing cardio training more than usual during summer and now I’m already sparring pretty hard almost every day and feeling quite good. I can do most things now and hopefully I’m 100% when it is competition time. I’m also doing some basic weight lifting and cardio training on the side.

What are your main focus in the preparations?
My main focus is showing up at the tournament healthy and in shape. Most of my training sessions are no-gi like always before a no-gi competition. I’m drilling lot of different situations and positions with at least some resistance and sparring a lot. As the competition approaches, my focus is even more on hard sparring and drilling and less on basic strength and cardio training. I do quite a lot of mobility training year-round for body maintenance and to help me to recover from hard training.

What is your thoughts of the competitor list in your weight class, any names you are missing?
Of course, the one name missing is Marcelo Garcia. But even with his absence, the division is full of talent and interesting names. Many of the best Brazilian grapplers are there and on top of that, some interesting American names, like the UFC champion Ben Henderson. It’s also pretty wide open now and it’ll be interesting to see who’s gonna make it to the final. I’m happy to be in there with names like Vieira, Gracie, Lepri, Lo, de Souza, Torres, Henderson and everybody else. There’s only going to be tough fights and I’m excited about getting a chance to test myself against any of the big names.

Favorite submission?
I don’t really have a favorite submission. I’m trying to be versatile in my attacks and learn everything: different kind of chokes, arm locks, leg locks, everything. Triangle choke was my number one submission from white to purple belt, especially in competition. At the moment I’m probably doing straight arm bars the most, but it’s not like I’m counting. Without the gi I also like to do lots of chokes like brabos, anacondas, RNCs and guillotines. I like leglocks a lot too when doing no-gi or competing under ADCC rules, especially leglocks that are banned under IBJJF rules, hehe.