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What is wrong with BJJ & Jiu-Jitsu Today?
With growth come change but some people still dont get it.. i woke up this morning to a interesting post on my facebook feed along the lines of
So they said
“Toby John Grear with Javier Vazquez and 29 others.
#JiuJitsu tradition continues to go backwards. These photos are the clearest representation of the sad state of #JiuJitsu Belts and Ranks. The originators of the sport #HelioGracie & #CarlosGracie demonstrate a flying front kick while the imitators are actually going backwards (check out belt). I see so many students getting purple, brown, and even Black Belts when they have demonstrated no striking or wrestling knowledge. My students know that striking is an integral component of the real#jiujitsulifestyle and that to earn a purple belt with the #TrueWarriorArmy they must demonstrate an awareness and understanding the basics of #SelfDefense which includes striking, submissions and wrestling. WHITE BELT: An awareness of the Art Jiu Jitsu BLUE BELT: Submission Defense/Survival PURPLE BELT: Awareness & Understanding of Striking & Submissions BROWN BELT: Mastery of all #Submissions#Wrestling#Striking BLACK BELT: ABILITY TO TEACH ALL SUBMISSIONS & STRIKING
#JiuJitsuTournaments are #PRACTICE for the real thing!!! #MMA#MuayThai “
What I Say
1- the mans is crazy anyone who can speak ill of Xande Ribeiro in light of his Jiu-Jitsu is disconnected from reality the guy done it all and is still doing it with one of the best most well rounded expressions of the art ANYWHERE.. having done Gi/ No gi and MMA i cant speak on his knife and baseball bat defense is like but outside of that he is one of the best proven hands down.
2-There are many branches on the tree of Jiu-Jitsu and without a doubt the sportive side of things is best organized, accessible and publicly known. As a result the other elements have taken a backseat but as of recently there’s been a resurgence of interest in the self defense / striking based part of the art.
Yes people BJJ as taught by the Gracie family incorporates striking and self defense strategies beyond the ground grappling techniques most people think about.
So what we have now is a subset of practitioners getting more and more vocal about the fact a few elements of the art are being focused on and the rest ignored.
Dont get me wrong, I actually agree In terms of a fight based tactics ive seen BJJ taught in most places go from top of the food chain no non sense combat system to game that has very little cross over to anything out side of that game.
THAT THE CATCH
Sport BJJ players are enjoying thier practice of the art fo sportive applications and not thinking about a fight. BJJ is a big tree with many branches on it so there is no reason everyone cant just put the work into the element they enjoy
- Sport
- No GI
- Self defense
- MMA
- Study of the Art
Why does everyone have to fit into someone elses definition of the art to be doing it right? Or legit?
In support of what many classical jiu-jitsu proponents are saying my only problem with things comes in when you are a guy walking in off the street and they want to tell you that you are learning from Gracie Jiu-jitsu trained champions, inferring that you will be learning something about a fight when they really just want you to add point to the team standings of the next grappling tournament.
So in closing essentially i guess I am saying to each their own, do what you like but just be honest about what you are actually providing as an art to those looking to train.
Take a Look at a few Jiu-Jitsu applications and you’ll see its is quite obvious there are many branches on this tree
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