Rorion Gracie has long drawn a line between sport jiu-jitsu and the original self-defense system developed by his family – and he’s not backing down.

In a recent episode of the Connect Cast podcast, Gracie emphasized the importance of keeping that distinction clear as modern jiu-jitsu continues to evolve:

The Jiu-Jitsu that I always practiced… I mean, this Jiu-Jitsu that requires much physical ability of the practitioner to go back and forth – these movements are different.

The Jiu-Jitsu of self-defense is like a telephone: you can have ten digits, and if you move the order, you can call different numbers…
You can do this, but the basic is essential.

Gracie’s main concern is that sport jiu-jitsu often prioritizes athleticism and competition over accessibility:

The course of personal defense was created for the less athletic person that exists.
For the executive who’s out of shape.

He believes many people misunderstand what jiu-jitsu is actually supposed to do:

Sometimes people confuse things. The defense is one thing and the sport jiu-jitsu is another, but no, it’s not the same thing.

In his view, jiu-jitsu wasn’t made for tournaments – it was built for real-life threats, using foundational concepts and methods that could help anyone:

In the course that I’m going to teach soon, I show four movements in the first class, and in the second class I repeat these four movements and add three more. I repeat all the movements in all the classes, exactly like we did in the academy in Rio. When the reflex produces the positive result you want, I know the student is ready.

He also believes sparring between two novices isn’t useful for learning true self-defense:

The student training against another student doesn’t exist in my approach.
Training jiu-jitsu is one thing, but for a student to learn self-defense properly, this is a separate matter.

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