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If Jiu-Jitsu People Were Rappers

There are few things I love more than jiu-jitsu and hip-hop.

I’m not going to both making a comparison between the two art forms (although similarities, truth be told, abound between them). I will say that this started with me trying to explain to someone why Jean-Jacques Machado was such a badass, and the best comparison I had handy was “if he was a rapper, he’d be Erick Sermon — great on his own, great in a team, overcame obstacles, never made excuses and had staying power in a game where that’s hard to come by.”

With that start, I came up with 9 other examples. Do I want to hear yours? Obviously. That’s what comments are for.

Last note: If I were to add an 11th, more timely name, I’d compare Erberth  Santos to Tekashi 6ix9ine: both will probably end up in witness protection and everyone will know who they are anyway. Plus, 6ix9ine’s rainbow hair is less embarrassing than the Santa Claus beard Erberth rocked a few years back.

Without further ado: 

Roger Gracie and Rakim

The safe choice for the GOAT. Consistent excellence over many years. Old school that never seems dated. Perfect technique, which you should never sweat. Many imitators, none like the original.

 

KRS One and Renzo Gracie

Renzo live-tweeted his beatdown of a mugger, and left the dude with “raccoon eyes”; after a perceived slight, KRS bumrushed the stage and threw PM Dawn off and then performed “I’m Still Number One” on their stage at their show. Both are all time greats whose cultural impact is as large or larger than their considerable skills. Plus, if anyone other than Kris deserves the nickname “The Blastmaster,” it’s Renzo.

 

Michelle Nicolini and Lauryn Hill

Both versatile (Lauryn Hill put out classic albums solo and as part of a group, Michelle won top grappling honors gi and nogi to go along with a successful fight career). Both timelessly righteous.

 

Leticia Ribeiro and Queen Latifah 

Leticia is probably the most successful woman competitor ever. Plus, Studio 540 is a little like that time Latifah organized an all-star complement of musicians to close out the Arsenio Hall Show. Both royalty.

 

Jean-Jacques Machado and Erick Sermon

Jean-Jacques was born with only the thumb and the little finger on his left hand but became an elite, legendary figure in jiu-jitsu. Erick Sermon was born with a lisp and became a legendary figure in hip-hop. Jean-Jacques, if you’re reading this, being compared to the Green Eyed Bandit is a supreme compliment.

 

Dominyka Obelenyte and Dessa

Among the best of the new school. Both possess artistic talents beyond what we primarily know them for (Dom visual art, Dessa traditional poetry). Both succeed as individuals and as part of crews (Dessa with Doomtree, Dom with Rag Doll Camps and more).

 

Leka Vieira and Monie Love.

Critically important, deeply slept on. Get familiar if you aren’t.

 

Rolles Gracie and Big L

One was a free spirit who trained multiple martial arts and brought techniques back to jiu-jitsu; one was a freestyle king who made his mark young. Both still loom large today despite their untimely deaths.

 

Eminem and Fernando Terere

All-time greats who each struggled with addiction but overcame it and returned to their art. Stylistically, both are known for setting a frenetic pace but also do basically everything technically well. Plus, both do admirable community work.

 

Fabio Gurgel and Jay Z

If you’re of a certain vintage, you remember each of these men as a towering figure of the art, out-competing almost all comers. Now, if you Google Hova’s name, the first suggested searches are “Jay Z team” and “Jay Z net worth.” Similarly, though Fabio Gurgel should be on anyone’s list of all-time greats, he’s now mostly known as the General for his dominant-for-years Alliance team. He’s not a businessman; he’s a business, man.

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Interested in adaptive grappling? Here’s what you need to know.

By Pete McGregor (@deadweightjj)

All right, you’ve decided to start jiujitsu but you’re mobility restricted in some way (or disabled for those not scarred by the PC social construct we live in today).

Congratulations, you’re a certified psycho. WELCOME TO THE CLUB, FRIEND.

Dirty White Belt has been kind enough to ask me to write a piece on what to expect on your first day in the world of no-gi adaptive grappling. I know what you’re thinking. “Hey, I thought you said we’d be talking about jiujitsu?” Well, jiujitsu just happens to be a martial art that focuses much of the technique on grappling as opposed to striking.

Continue reading “Interested in adaptive grappling? Here’s what you need to know.”

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IBJJF World Championships: 2018 picks

I love the Mundials. I loved competing, even when I lost, and I like being a fan even more. Six years ago, I wrote a post about the experience that describes why everyone should go to the BJJ Worlds at least once.

Part of the fun is watching the best in the world — and to make it a little more fun, I thought I’d predict some of the black belt division results. You can check out the brackets here if you’d like to follow along.  Continue reading “IBJJF World Championships: 2018 picks”

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We Believe: A School Mission Statement

The more time I spend in jiujitsu, the more I think about how best to create a school culture. I’ve been lucky to learn from a lot of amazing people, and while each gym is different, the best ones have a set of core values — often implicit. I wanted to make those values explicit, so I came up with this. 

What do you think? What’s missing?

 

We Believe

We believe that jiujitsu is for everyone. Not everyone has the same goals or the same ceiling, but everyone can improve their life by training.

We believe in constant improvement. Everyone in your life knows something that you don’t. Every person on the mat can help you get better at something.

We believe in being good training partners. Your training partner is the most important person in the gym. Train so both people get something out of the class.

We believe in training hard and training smart. If we never spar hard, we don’t get all the benefits jiujitsu offers as an “alive” martial art. If we treat every sparring round like the finals at the world championships, we sacrifice technical understanding and risk injury. Train hard. Train smart.

We believe in jiujitsu for self defense, jiujitsu for sport, and jiujitsu for life. This art will help you reach your goals — and if you pay attention to the fundamentals, you can succeed in all the areas of jiujitsu.

We believe that jiujitsu is for everyone. This is important, so we’re saying it again. Everyone is welcome here.

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Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at Purple Belt and up

Your job at white and blue belt is to learn, reinforce and try to master the fundamentals. Every gym defines what those fundamentals are slightly differently, but however your gym’s fundamentals curriculum is structured, your time at white and blue belt has to end with you knowing it inside and out.

In August, I wrote about how to make an improvement plan while you’re a white or blue belt. A lot of the off-the-mat tactics for improvement — visualization, yoga, meditation — remain the same, and are never going to be bad for you. Those practices are all things I still do as often as I can. As you advance in the belt ranks, though, you can expand your knowledge and skillset — both because you’re going to be able to assimilate more information, and because more techniques become legal in competition.

This doesn’t mean you abandon the basics. Quite the opposite. Refining my understanding of the fundamentals is something I expect to do for the rest of my life. Yet as your knowledge expands, the more you realize how much there is to know.

That’s why structuring your training becomes more important at high blue belt, purple belt and thereabouts. It’s the most efficient way to know what you know, and conversely what you don’t know. Evaluating your knowledge base helps determine your drilling and learning priorities. Of course you should keep coming to class, including the fundamentals class. Extra drilling and focused training during rolling are great ways to get faster, better results in addition to class.

Here are three strategies I’ve used in order to try to improve as much as I can every day, every week and every year.  Continue reading “Making a Training Plan For Jiujitsu at Purple Belt and up”

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How to Roll During BJJ Sparring: Five Principles

Mat time is the best time. You should — and almost always will — feel better about everything after a solid night of training. In order to get the most out of mat time, it helps to think about your approach.

One of the rarest but smartest questions I get from newer people is, phrased one way or another, “How do I roll?” Sometimes people are looking for a technique to start a sparring session with, just to get the game going. Sometimes people don’t want to be jerk people complain about having to roll with. Often, people want to know how to maximize the value they get from rolling sessions.

All of these are great reasons, and they hint at an important meta-principle about jiujitsu: don’t be afraid to ask questions! People want to help you progress. Besides, we’ve all seen problems created when someone erroneously assumes they know the rolling culture of their gym without having to ask.

Here are five principles that should help, especially for newer people.

Continue reading “How to Roll During BJJ Sparring: Five Principles”

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6 Thoughts On The Retirement of Rafael Mendes (One For Each World Championship)

1. I completely understand his reasoning. Training and competing at the highest level takes so much time, energy, commitment, and resources that a young father with a successful academy and his health probably should be thinking about moving on to other challenges.

2. As a fan of jiujitsu and of Rafael Mendes, I’m sad he didn’t get to 10, so we could have endless debates about Rafa and Roger Gracie. These debates will still happen — and in the coming days, after the dust settles, we’ll analyze where Rafa ranks among the greatest of all time — but I would have liked the symmetry.

 

3. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the chance to watch Rafael compete over the years. More so than his dominance, the pure grace with which he dominated was a pleasure to watch. During almost every Rafael Mendes match, from his epic battles with Cobrinha to his fluid, efficient victories over competitive black belts that he made look like drilling partners, you had the sense you were watching something special.This no doubt has something to do with when I started watching jiujitsu seriously, which coincided with Rafa’s ascendance. Watching greatness is always interesting. Watching Roger dominate was awe-inspiring, too. But to me, watching a Rafael Mendes match was like seeing the creativity of a once-in-a-generation painter, or a gifted poet.

In many matches, it almost looked like he was waiting for the opponent to catch up.

 

4. I’m even more grateful for having the chance to train with him at the seminars he taught at Triangle Jiu-Jitsu. A recreational basketball player almost never gets the chance to shoot around with LeBron or Jordan. But after making a bunch of phone calls and rallying a bunch of excited people, we got to spend several days learning from the contemporary best in the world. What’s better than that?

5. We can say with confidence that Rafael Mendes is one of the best ever. His competition resume is truly phenomenal — six IBBJF world championships, the most ever from a featherweight, two ADCC championships. He’s never been submitted in competition and is the only man to submit the legendary Cobrinha other than the much-larger Rodolfo Vieira. Where exactly he ranks in the pantheon I want to pause and consider before assessing.

6. I’m truly sad that I’ll never get to see Rafael Mendes compete again. This is a reaction I share, I’m sure, with many others. This reaction is more pronounced because the IBJJF worlds is next week, and I was looking forward to seeing another virtuoso performance.It hasn’t really sunk in yet that I won’t get to.

It’s a great time to be alive, and there are more opportunities to watch great jiujitsu now than ever before. This is a tremendous gift. But without trying to overstate the case, today is also the end of an era.

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How to Watch the IBJJF Mundials, and Who To Watch Locally

The IBJFF world championship, the Mundials, is generally regarded as the most prestigious tournament for gi Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It’s competitors of the highest order and a who’s who of the sport’s royalty.

On the podcast this week, we talk about why this is an event that every jiujitsu practitioner should attend at least once. Seeing that many elite competitors and legends of the art in the same place is a one-of-a-kind experience — so in person is always going to be the best way to watch. But not everyone is in that position, and even if you’ve made the trip, chances are that you’re not making the trip every year.

So what is the best way to watch the Mundials — or at least keep track of the results — if you can’t make the trip? I have a method that I talk about on the show and that I want to share here. (It’s actually two methods, but one involves a Flograppling subscription, and one is absolutely free albeit less satisfying). Continue reading “How to Watch the IBJJF Mundials, and Who To Watch Locally”

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How To Get Better At Learning Jiujitsu (With Notes & Drilling)

As my future father-in-law says: you pay for everything with either money or time, and sometimes both. Ideally, you should maximize your return on all investments.

If you go to class three times a week, you’re probably spending at least 7 hours of your life (and your monthly gym dues) trying to learn jiujitsu. Maybe you’ve had the experience of learning a move, being interested in it, playing around with it … and then two months later, you have no clue what happened, and six months later when your instructor shows you the move again you slap your forehead because you forgot you’d even seen it.

Or take going to a jiujitsu seminar, for another example. If you spend $65 and two or three hours of your life to learn from Dave Camarillo, for example, you probably learned a lot. You’ve invested time and money. What if someone told you just a little more effort could cement that knowledge in your mind, expanding your repertoire over the long term?

Well, that someone is me. Continue reading “How To Get Better At Learning Jiujitsu (With Notes & Drilling)”