Much can be said about the rules and the liberal ways many IBJJF referees apply them nowadays. Still there’s perhaps a bigger problem in the spirit of the rules themselves. This is something perhaps the biggest jiu-jitsu great of all time discussed with SBG creator Matt Thornton.
When prompted about if he believes that by focusing on self defense in your academy you can still produce successful competitors Rickson replied:
“That depends, because the tournaments today, the rules there allow for so much stalling, so much grips, so much details which you have to… For example my son Kron he said: “Dad, I don’t want to compete in official tournaments any more. I cannot stand the rules. The guys don’t want to fight me they want to stall, they want to hold and I have to spend my time trying to free myself instead fighting. So I’d like to fight no rules, I like to fight submissions only, but I don’t like to fight sport jiu-jitsu competitions because it’s just like.. “
The guy is super well trained, juiced up and then just wants to stall and hold position. The rules today go against what I believe. In my view it’s a must to change the rules. Stopping the stalling. If we stop the stalling in competitions, the competitions change. Because people have to be more dynamic and looking for either escape or control. It’s a different approach. I really want to enforce competition (but) The Rules are real crooked right now “
