Running the Gauntlet is a tradition that more and more academies abandon every day. Most modern academies abandon it because it’s a legal liability and to put it bluntly, it’s bad for business in a world where you can get to a 2 stripe brown belt level over the internet.
Many jiu-jiteiros call this torturous procedure a “rite of passage” and believe that it creates a unified team front.
Here is how Ralph Gracie, one of the most aggressive jiu-jitsu fighters in history, leads the gauntlet in his academy. It’s intense to say the least!
Ralph Gracie currently has four academies in the San Francisco Bay Area (San Francisco, Mountain View, Berkeley, and Dublin) and two in Orange County (Anaheim and Chino Hills); the largest of these being the San Francisco Academy. Kurt Osiander, who has been studying under Ralph Gracie for 17 years, is currently head instructor at the San Francisco Academy. Notable instructor, and 4th degree black belt, Luis Eduardo Fraga, has been head instructor at the Berkeley Academy since 2007.
Gracie taught former UFC welterweight and lightweight champion, BJ Penn, when he first came to California from Hawaii.
