Garry Tonon has seen jiu-jitsu from all angles — as a high-level competitor, a coach, and someone who’s watched the sport evolve dramatically over the past several years.

On a recent episode of Jake Shields’ Fight Back podcast, Tonon opened up about what he sees as a major cultural shift within the jiu-jitsu community:

It’s interesting the way that different generations of people that are doing jiu-jitsu kind of treat martial arts these days.

When I got involved from the beginning till now, I didn’t look at it as like: “Oh this is like a fun little thing that I’m going to do and it’s just like this sport.”

I got involved in jiu-jitsu thinking that it was going to help prepare me to potentially have a fight against somebody at some point.

That early mindset, Tonon says, was rooted in martial realism — training not just for sport, but for potential real-world violence.

But as jiu-jitsu has exploded in popularity and become more accessible to the general public, Tonon has noticed a shift in priorities and expectations:

The mentality that people go into jiu-jitsu with now because it’s so much more popular and we’re marketing it to the average person.

It’s created a generation of athletes who I think the idea of getting punched in the face or getting roughed up a little bit is, like, they’re very uncomfortable with it.

Tonon contrasts today’s culture with the rougher, more raw environment he remembers coming up in — where training scuffles or intense rounds were just part of the deal:

Sometimes even in regular jiu-jitsu, I’d just be pissed at somebody or somebody be pissed at me or we’d get in an argument or something would happen and we’d start slapping each other or something…
This is, like, real normal stuff.

But now the culture of jiu-jitsu is very not okay with something like that happening.
It’s strange.

But it’s not just the attitude toward training intensity that’s changed.

Tonon also highlighted how many students now approach their gym memberships purely as consumers — a trend he believes undermines the foundation of trust that grappling requires:

People want to treat jiu-jitsu gyms the way that they would just treat like the average business.

“I paid my x amount of money a month, $200 a month or whatever the case may be. I get this in return, I get my jiu-jitsu training or whatever. And it’s a transactional relationship. If I want to train somewhere else, if I want to do this, if I want to do that, if I want to wear whatever color gi, I want to do like I’m allowed to do whatever I want to do cuz I’m paying my $200.”

And it’s like, dude, this isn’t Burger King.

For Tonon, the true nature of jiu-jitsu still lies in relationships:

When you add violence into what you do, you can’t just have a transactional relationship because the guy that you’re training with could break your arm, hurt you.

You have to trust training partners. You have to be able to trust each other.
You have to have some level of loyalty.

So if everything’s transactional, it’s a disaster.

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