Royce Gracie isn’t particularly “in love” with the present state of competition in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Why? Because he doesn’t believe it portrays a true picture.
According to Gracie, the essence of martial arts lies in their practical application for self-defense.
He argues that adding weight divisions and similar goes against what a situation would be in real life:
By putting them to adding point system and rules and and weight divisions…
That means if somebody pinch a girlfriend on behind, on her behind, you’re gonna go say: “Hey, honey. Hold on. I’ll take care of this. Excuse me. How much do you weigh? What’s your belt? Really? Sorry, honey. I can’t fight this guy because he’s not on my division.”
It doesn’t work that way.
Royce has criticized BJJ academies for contributing to the problem:
I think that competitive jiu-jitsu, today, is already very distant from jiu-jitsu perhaps more rooted by Hélio Gracie, Royce, from those first generations to Royce and Rickson.
Because it ended up being very competitive and having rules, which ended up characterizing it as a sport that is going to get points, and often that essence of self-defense, which is behind the construction of the modality, is lost.
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