Teen sisters Maycee and Emma Barber run the Fort Collins Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Colorado.The sisters are Jiu-Jitsu blue belts and Gracie University students. They are both Karate black belts too.
Pictures on their academy’s Facebook page and website show them giving Jiu Jitsu lessons, as they are wearing BJJ black belts and Gracie Jiu Jitsu Gis. These types of black belts have red bars and are only used in BJJ.
Rener Gracie appeared on the BJJ Hour podcast and expressed his support for the girls. He said that there was no representation of rank.
The only problem is that the pictures feature a black belt with a red bar and white degrees which are specific to BJJ Not to Karate or Kenpo. In the girls karate style (Kajukenbo), there is no belt which looks like a BJJ black belt and their own instructor had no red bar on photos from 2013.
Kajujenbo is the style of their karate instructor Seth Sykes (Gracie affiliated before he went to jail for sexually molesting a minor) are the different types of black belts in that art http://ngsgungfu.tripod.com/blackbelt.html .
The sisters teach BJJ and Karate at their school, and according to several students who train there, they use black belts when teaching karate and blue belts when teaching jiu-jitsu.
They made the following statement 2 days ago on their Facebook page:
We have never worn a black belt to teach Gracie Jiu Jitsu. In a community so seemingly concerned with maintaining the integrity of the art of Jiu Jitsu there are so many people without any integrity or respect at all. Before you pass judgement on someone, why don’t you go see what is really happening for yourself first? Instead, all we have are a bunch of keyboard warriors hiding behind their screens and gossiping about things that aren’t at all true.
Here is a video of one of the girls (sporting her BJJ black belt) teaching a young student a throw followed by an arm bar. Misunderstanding or misleading?
[fbvideo link=https://www.facebook.com/graciefortcollins/videos/vb.776638919068952/861437450589098/?type=2&theater]Is this Hayley or Ronda Rousey!!!
Posted by Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Fort Collins on Saturday, May 16, 2015
Sloth Jiu-Jitsu: you can be slow and unathletic and still kick butt in Jiu-Jitsu.