DRAC'S FORUM

Im honestly still undecided on this one, leaning heavy toward its a bad idea........but....... i can't get past the part about people not being geographically able to train at a gym.

Hmmm....... im stumped.

I am against it, I hope it doesn't commercialize Jiu-Jitsu or water down the belt system.

I talked to my instructor (Adam Miller, BB under Pedro Sauer) about the whole GC system and he said "I thinks it's a great thing the Gracie had released and it's great for this knowledge to be out there for anyone to learn so easily." I asked him about how he thinks it compares to a real school and and the "mail-in cotton waistbands", he said "It's nothing like a real school, but it's made for self-defense and that's all it's good for, fighting a bigger stronger individual with little to no training, which IS Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. The Gracie's had the idea to make the blue belt very easy to obtain, but that doesn't mean their purple and brown belt aren't gonna be easy to get. They just made the doorway to blue A LOT larger than everyone else."

I don't agree at all.

You don't need to earn belts to learn jiu jitsu, but to earn a belt you need to be awarded one by a professor.

An online video of some guy going through a series of moves is not indicative of anything. It means they're good at regurgitating a set of moves. When people get recommended to test or be awarded a belt, there's a reason for it, and it's not because they presented their professor with a BJJ kata on tape.

I'm against people being awarded belts online. If you wish to train remotely, by all means, please do so. Spreading BJJ is never a bad thing, but understand that if you wish to progress, you'll some day have to make the trip to an academy and be awarded a belt. Anything but just cheapens the belt and ultimately insults everybody who pours sweat on the mats everyday.

Last edited by keynote (2010-04-06 00:21:46)

The belt only covers two inches of your ass!!! the rest is up to you!

I agree with what Shawn and Liam stated.... Spreading the word of BJJ is something positive that is coming out of people training online.  Giving people a notion of how to apply certain techniques correctly or giving them something to reference back to is a plus.  There are some negatives in the way the Gracie Combative's does things.

I also saw the videos that Shawn is talking about, not only were those dudes no where near a blue belt level, by describing how they felt when Rener came to teach put a negative spin on the entire thing.  At one point in the video one of the guys states:

"We did a run through with Rener of an on the fly blue belt qualification drill to see how we were doing, from that we learned a lot of details we were missing alot of small stuff we got to get down before we can test.  At least 3 months away from testing for the blue belt." 

What he is saying here is with a qualified instructor we learned to apply the techniques correctly and learned the little details of each technique that we as beginners didn't pick up from the videos.  Now there is nothing wrong with being a beginner but its tough for them to learn without proper instruction.

Like Liam said these students are basically regurgitating techniques that they see on the video without having a solid BJJ foundation to build upon and it gives them a false sense.  In my opinion if any white belt that has trained at our academy, with the same amount of time spent on the mat as these guys, showed up at their garage and did some live training.  The outcome would be eye opening for garage crew.  I don't fault them for wanting to learn BJJ, but learn it under the watchful eye of a qualified instructor and use the videos to supplement what you already know.

^ Well said.

I live in a small country town in Australia I travel 1 hour round trip twice a week to train with Sean Kirkwood a black belt under John B Will. Before that I trained in a gym in my hometown run by a guy who had won the NSW Pankration solid grappler and stand up, great gym still train there once a week. But the difference in training is obvious. Its the little things that higher belts can help you with.

So online belts bad you need to train in a gym with all kinds of body shapes all kinds of skill levels, and be handed a belt buy your instructor when you have earned it by putting the time in on the mats.

When it comes to the Gracie Combatives course (which tends to be what people mean when they talk about online ranking), I've got numerous reservations (my full review here). The main one is the online blue belt test detailed on the last DVD, along with some of the philosophy put forward in the course. For example, Rener Gracie states that there is no need to cross-train striking, a highly debateable question when it comes to self-defence.

The biggest problem with the course is that it takes resistance out of the equation (though apparently the Master Cycle is going to include sparring). Resistance is absolutely key to BJJ: without resistance, it becomes a bunch of compliant drills with no relevance to actual efficacy. To know whether or not something works, you have to try it out under pressure. Otherwise, to paraphrase that old quote by Bruce Lee, you're trying to learn how to swim without getting in the water.

Now, when you add in rank, it's even worse. You're getting a blue belt for basically performing a kata, rather than demonstrating you can actually get the techniques to function against somebody trying to stop you.

On top of all that, why do they even need to give out rank? After all, Gracie Combatives is supposed to be a self defence course. There is no need to give out a belt in self defence, especially as they've removed the requirement to get a belt before moving to the next stage of the course. If they insist on ranking people, then they should have gone for something clearly distinct from 'other' BJJ schools, so as to avoid any confusion, like a certificate saying you're Level 1 in Gracie Combatives or something.

Though to be fair, I guess they could argue they've always used that ranking structure, as Rorion was the first one to really expand BJJ outside of Brazil (Carley's protestations notwithstanding). Also, it is worth noting that the actual lessons are very well taught on Gracie Combatives: if they hadn't included online ranking, there wouldn't be any complaints.

I've always wondered where that quote came from.  I heard it in Shane Mosley's corner when he fought Margarito & none of the commentators knew what it meant until Emanuel Stewart finally chimed in & gave the explanation.  Thanks for that.

My own issue with Gracie Combatives & I am a huge supporter of it is the fact that it is supposed to be your blue belt but they removed the stripes.  They say that if you attend their class, they have 4 stripes for their blue belt just like all their other belts but for this type of learning, the stripes are removed for the blue belt.  I think they should have put the stripes in the instructional also.  You still should have to test in person but they should have made it as close to training at the school as possible & I thought they missed out on that one.  Just my thoughts though.

^ Ha! Thanks for posting that here. Yeah, I have too much time on my hands at work sometimes...

My instructor passed his philosophy to me.

For some people, the sport is a form of business, and all business has one purpose which is to be profitable. Learning over the internet could be a very dynamic way to learn BUT... earning belts over the internet doesn't bring positivity to the sport, and doesn't complete the sport as it should be. Getting a belt over the internet totally deviates from the real philosophy of Jiu-Jitsu. An essential part of training involves socialization, the group aspect, to be able to see your evolution and have a level of comparison with the other guys that are training with you.

And to go along with what Drac said, in the old days in Brazil you didn't "get" your belt, you didn't even "earn" your belt... you "conquered" it.