Tim Spriggs, is a BJJ black belt competitor from the USA. He is a black belt under Julius Park from Crazy 88 academy. Spriggs was brown belt World, Pan, World Expo GP champion at brown belt in 2014. At black belt, he won the Five Super League.
Spriggs took to his blog to call out the ‘Butt Scooting’ mentality that is all too common in Jiu-Jitsu nowadays. Spriggs believes that the Olympic dream for Jiu-Jitsu is unattainable because of 2 main reasons:
- The sport is governed and dominated by Brazilians
- Matches are boring: scissoring for 10 minutes.
Spriggs, like many athletes and BJJ practitioners, calls for a revision and change of rules to make matches more exciting. He stated Five Grappling, Copa Podio, and Abu Dhabi World Pro as having the right format (6 minute short matches which call for action).
Spriggs stated:
The biggest governing body is ran by Brazilians. The biggest governing body still refers to the sport as “Brazilian” Jiujitsu. The vast majority of the referees are Brazilian. This causes a huge conflict of interest.
No one wants to watch two grown ass men scissor each other for 10 minutes. There needs to be a way to end butt scooting to make the sport more marketable…Takedowns and throws are exciting to the public, but in modern Jiujitsu they come few and far between because of the butt scooting bias.
6 minute time limits as seen in Five Grappling, Copa Podio, and Abu Dhabi World Pro are spectator friendly, because they are short and force the competitors to work.
If Jiujitsu continues to stick to the same old routine, it will remain the redheaded step child of combat sports.
