Guest post by T. Lee a bjj black belt under Julio Cesar of GFTeam (Fadda lineage- Non Gracie Jiu-Jitsu lineage), and www.m3fight.com. He is also a 4th degree judo/jujitsu black belt member of the IBJJF, USJJO, USJA, UAEJJF, JJIF, and NABJJF.
Well it is me again your friendly neighborhood Silverback T. Lee. Once again I am writing sort of a defense to yet another member of the Gracie clan. Let it be known I am not affiliated with the Gracie family or let alone does my belt trace to their lineage. I am proud to be of the Fadda lineage and I want everyone to know that jiu-jitsu is for all and has many contributors beside the Gracie family. Currently in jiu-jitsu there are a lot of conversations about self-defense versus sport, online belts, stalling in competitions, lineage, and we can go on for days with trash talk. This article is to address some facts that I have discovered myself and I urge others to do the same.
Recently I visited a certified Gracie academy in Granada Hills, California. I was met with a few surprises, the first was I ran into another black belt buddy of mine who was buddies with the academy owner. They trained stick fighting together and both happened to train jiu-jitsu as well. The second surprise was that there were a good amount of students in the advance and beginner classes. One strange thing was seeing other blue belts being trained by a blue belt. Then after the class I realized that lots of schools with black belt instructors use their top blue belts to provide instruction as well. My visit was a pleasant one, my friend and I did our own thing while the instructor taught his class. The class was very good and I was a bit impressed with his teaching ability, although I should have not been surprised since he was a karate black belt. The curriculum was the basic Gracie combatives and I could tell he knew the techniques for a self-defense situation well. That visit was an eye opener for me and I believe in giving credit were it is due. Granada Hills Gracie School is perfect for folks that have no interest in competing but want a more realistic martial art other than some of the karate and TKD schools in the area. Here are some of the cons of these certified Gracie training Academies.
- No black belt instructor means no promotions from your instructor.
- They only teach the combatives or master cycle techniques of the Torrance Gracie Academy.
- You may be paying the same monthly rate as a school that has a black belt instructor.
Online training and belt promotion, now this is the real hot topic and I myself have some mixed feelings with the whole thing but I will shed light on both sides here. Once upon a time major universities did not like distance learning programs or online degree programs. Everyone can agree that attitudes have changed about online and distance learning degrees in recent years. One of the main reasons opinions have changed is because more people started enrolling in them and completing them. The adult learning format is what most of these programs are, they were created for working people. People that had careers and needed schooling so they could advance in their careers, but the universities had no programs for these potential students. Thus this created the need, Rener Gracie has capitalized on this same need within jiu-jitsu by making training available to folk sometimes hundreds of miles away from a school with a black belt. Once others really open there minds and see that any motivated person can learn through hard work and determination others will create similar programs. There were many times in my journey to black belt that I did not have access to a school due to being in the military. I would round up anyone willing to train and learn and we would get our roll on.
Now it is ideal to have a good instructor but for everyone that is not always the case so having a good alternative is not that bad of an idea if you really think about it. As long as black belts are not given out via anyone’s online University I think the art is still safe and intact. Let’s not forget most Americans first jiu-jitsu lesson were from the 90’s Gracie instructional VHS tapes purchased by mail order from black belt magazine. Rener has just updated what his father and cousins did back in the day.
Do your own visits to some of these schools and be your own judge of what you personally witness, also look at it for what it is as well. Hopefully no one from the Gracie University tries to compete but if they do and prevail that will be another article.
