Rio Open BJJ | Womens Champion learns a harsh lesson
I had to post about the recent match between members of the powerhouse Gracie Humaita womens bjj team.
Last week you had two champions square off with Mcenzie Dern(currently focusing on mma) stepping up to compete at the rio open vs Current GI Champion Bia Mesquita.
It goes without saying transitioning from 1 sport to another is tricky, but in high level sport BJJ that is extremely true.
Without a doubt there are some transferable skills and you always have the base of your Jiu-Jitsu skills /knowledge even if you are doing more no-gi or mma but in a tournament where being that sharp on controls and gi based positioning is so crucial it’s nearly impossible!!!
Actually let me go out on a limb say it’s IMPOSSIBLE 🙂
If you are an mma fighter putitng in all the time cross training without a gi its impossible to go and dominate at elite level of sport bjj competition, ive never seen it happen and it aint gonna happen any time soon.
Take a look at the match below
positoning, rules, timing and flow of the match is so different in IBJJF based competion that to go from mma to that is a tall task.
Ive found a huge part of being sucessfull at MMA is ditching the ego and testing yourself in a variety of skill sets that may not be your home base or forte , knowing that ultimately your plan is to put everything together.. BUT the GI is particularly harsh because there is so little cross over skill set wise. No gi / wrestling is a bit different, but with Grips being the first thing to go in terms of positioning, its a tough situation to be in knowing what you want to do but being a step behind in the kimono..
All that aside congrats to McKenzie for taking the step to the mats at such a high level while doing mma, it makes for some entertaining match ups no gi but this is the reason even mma’s best grapplers don’t really delve to deeply into Elite BJJ competition.
p.s here is Alan Belcher getting ready for copa podio ( he got killed in that tourney but couldn’t find any footage online)
still respect for putting yourself outside of the box to get better if more people do the same all martial arts will only get better. That’s why we encourage cross training at our Mississauga martial arts academy
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cp