Editor’s Note: We run occasional guest posts from members of the jiu-jitsu community, and would love to run more. If you would like to submit one, please e-mail us. This post is the first in a series of four posts where Revolution BJJ black belt Daniel Frank evaluates the best sport jiujitsu competitors of each decade, starting the 1990s — and culminating in a post that crowns the greatest of all time. We will post a new entry every two or three days leading up to the final. This one covers the 2010s. Read the 1990s entry here and the 2000s entry here.
By Daniel Frank
The greatest of all time is a difficult moniker to bestow upon anyone or anything. Whether we are talking about astronauts, ant hills, or automobiles it is a designation that is earned, but not without severe competition and also not without intense debate.
In Brazilian jiujitsu the greatest of all time is a title that is very hard to define due to all of the factors that determine the result. There is a long list of factors, including: gi competition, no-gi competition, tournaments, super fights, mixed martial arts, belt levels, gender, era, longevity, and talent of the competition.
This article is meant to determine the greatest male, black belt, gi competitors in the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and of all time. Major International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) competition results were analyzed along with results from smaller IBJJF competitions. Larger, competing organizations results were also factored into the final determinations.
Using this method of data collection later articles can (and will) be written determining the best female black belt competitors, the best no-gi competitors (both male and female), and even the best at each belt level. The possibilities are endless.
Quiexinho is a rising star who beat Paulo Miyao last year, and he has a strong competition game. With everyone expecting another final between Cobrinha and Rafael Mendes, I said, Quiexinho could create problems if Cobrinha is just looking ahead to the final.
One of the best ever.
This assessment was wrong, and I should have known. Cobrinha isn’t just one of the best ever, he’s one of the most consistent elite jiujitsu players ever. Quiexinho has a bright future, but Cobrinha is still right there with Rafa Mendes as the featherweight top dog.
While I don’t think Cobrinha is underrated among people in the know, I think it’s worth reflecting on exactly how much this legend has accomplished in his tremendous career. We’re getting to watch one of the greatest of all time in the midst of an epic rivalry. Let’s step back and appreciate it.
Let’s start with the world championships. Only three men have won four or more featherweight Mundial gold medals: Cobrinha, the aforementioned Rafael Mendes, and another all-time great, Royler Gracie. Cobrinha has three nogi world championships as well.
He’s also an Abu Dhabi Champion, having beaten (you guessed it) Rafael Mendes in the 2013 final:
Those accolades alone would make him an all-time great. But consider how things might be different had Rafael Mendes never existed.
Consider that Cobrinha beats everybody other than Rafa — including accomplished competitors like Quiexinho — and beats them, in most cases, without a great deal of trouble. In a world without Rafael Mendes, there are six potential world championships on the table for Cobrinha.
In this alternate world, even if Tanquinho still wins in 2013 and another title slips away from Cobrinha somehow, we’re talking about eight world championships instead of four, and a reign of utter dominance from 2006 until now. (That number could be nine or even 10, but let’s be conservative). Keep in mind, too, that Cobrinha isn’t done by any means, and if there were no Rafa Mendes, he’d have breezed to another world championship last month.
In that world, this period of sustained dominance could have him in the conversation for greatest of all time, right up there with Roger Gracie and Marcelo Garcia . The alternative title for this post was, in fact, “A World Without Rafael Mendes,” but I thought that took the focus away from Cobrinha’s achievements.
Cobrinha also has an awesome dog, and is by all accounts a great guy.
We can take a pause here to consider what this says about the otherworldly skills of Rafael Mendes, but just for a moment. This post is about Cobrinha. Think about all that Cobrinha has achieved — and then think about how good a guy has to be to dothis to him.
You can’t talk about one of these men without talking about the other, though — the rivalry is that significant. Mendes acknowledged this in a Facebook post after his win, saying “because of Cobrinha I became probably ten times better than I would ever be if he was not there.”
Cobrinha will turn 36 in December. He’s still performing at an elite level, but time has a way of passing.
If he retired today, we’d still remember him as one of the greats. But Cobrinha is not retiring today, so let’s be sure to appreciate what we’re watching while we have the chance.
Tomorrow, I’ll be glued to the IBJJF stream watching the black belt finals. Today is going to be a great day of jiujitsu as well, but it’s more haphazard: you sort of have to seek out the matches you want to watch. Using the IBJJF big board, I tracked down a bunch of matches I’d like to check out.
Some of these folks are my friends, some teammates of friends, some are just awesome athletes and I want to watch them, and most fall into all three categories. Anyway, here’s the matches I don’t want to miss, and if you’re watching the stream I hope this helps you find some good stuff.
Jen Whitcomb, 1:00 PDT/4:00 EDT, Mat 12
Tony Casarez, 12:10 PDT/3:10 EDT, Mat 1
Joseph Lee, 12:42 PDT/3:42 EDT, Mat 1
Maia Matalon v. Maria Malyjasiak, 1:30 PDT/4:30 EDT, Mat 11 <— This one is going to be really good.
Murilo Santana, 3:33 PDT/6:33 EDT, Mat 1
Luiza Monteiro, 5:10 PDT/8:10 EDT, Mat 7
Rafael Machado Mansur (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 9:20 a.m. PDT/12:20 p.m. EDT Mat 3
Yago de Souza, 11:50 a.m. PDT, 2:50 EDT Mat 9
Kaynan Casemiro Duarte (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 2:58 p.m. PDT/5:58 PDT, Mat 9
Wellington Luís Sebastião (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 10 a.m. PDT/1 p.m. EDT, Mat 7
Paulo Henrique Bordignon Miyao (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 3:54 p.m. PDT/6:54 p.m. EDT, Mat 12
Eduardo Alves de Inojosa (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 4:05 p.m. PDT/7:05 p.m. EDT Mat 10
Igor Gregório Schneider (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 12:40 p.m. PDT/3:40 p.m. EDT, Mat 11
Matheus Silva Santos (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 2:41 p.m. PDT/5:41 EDT Mat 11
José Tiago da Silva Barros (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 5:06 p.m. PDT/8:06 p.m. EDT Mat 12
Leandro Lo Pereira do Nascimento (PSLPB Cicero Costha), 5:18 p.m. PDT/8:18 p.m. EDT, Mat 8
Three important things:
1. It’s possible I missed people: the IBJJF interface is weird. Apologies if so!
3. You can also check out the brackets for matches you may want to watch: for example, if Murilo Santana and Victor Estima both win, they’ll meet tomorrow morning, and wow is that going to be good. Please post matches I missed/people you want me to find match times for in the comments!
The brackets are out for the Mundials, and since I’m not competing this year I have a little more time to think about watching as just a fan.
Some years, I try to do a pool where people predict the champion in each weight class. Maybe I’ll do that again this year. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on each division: I’m going to take a stab at picking the winner and then say a little something about the reasoning.
MEN
Roosterweight: Bruno Malfacine. Bruno is one of the best competitors ever, so he has to be considered the favorite. I’ll be interested to see Joao Miyao after another year of experience, though, and I hope for a rematch of last year’s final.
Light featherweight: Paulo Miyao. It looks like a Samir Chantre-Miyao final here, and although Samir is one of my favorite people in jiujitsu, this looks like Miyao’s year.
Featherweight: Rafael Mendes. Still the best.
Lightweight: Lucas Lepri. I was tempted to pick JT Torres (another of my favorite guys) here, but Lepri has the experience edge. Plus, he’s in North Carolina now. I will say that I’m very excited for this potential final.
Middleweight: Murilo Santana. This is one of the upsets I’m picking. Murilo Santana is probably the most underrated competitor in jiujitsu: Gracie Mag didn’t even list him among their top 5 likely winners of this division. And it’s true has a tougher road to the final than last year’s champ, Otavio Sousa. But I think Santana vs. Victor Estima, which is the potential quarterfinal matchup, is a great match that Murilo can win. I don’t think there’s anyone in the field Santana can’t beat, and I’m looking forward to watching him compete.
Medium Heavy: Leandro Lo. No Keenan Cornelius in this division as a last-minute surprise makes Lo the favorite, I think, with Guto Campos a potential opponent for the final.
Heavyweight: Xande Ribeiro. This was an interesting division even before Keenan entered, with veterans (Ribeiro, Lucas Leite) alongside younger competitors like Jackson Sousa and Tim Spriggs. Xande is timeless. I think he’s the favorite.
Super Heavyweight: Bernardo Faria. Faria’s game is tough for anyone to deal with. Even if some people don’t like watching it, I imagine it’s way worse competing against it.
Ultra Heavyweight: Marcus Buchecha Almeida. An ultra heavyweight that moves like a lightweight and doesn’t get tired? And no Rodolfo?
Absolute: Marcus Buchecha Almeida. See above.
WOMEN
Light featherweight: Gezary Matuda. Matuda is a boss, and has no Leticia Ribeiro or Nyjah Easton in a small division this year.
Featherweight: Michelle Nicolini. Nicolini and Mackenzie Dern have awesome matches, and I expect another in the final. To be the women, you gotta beat the woman. And watch for Dern-Tammi Musumeci in earlier rounds!
Lightweight: Beatriz Mesquita. Last year’s absolute champion is still, in my eyes, the pound for pound queen. It’s tough to see anyone beating her in this division.
Middleweight: Luiza Monteiro. It’s an excruciating pick between Monteiro (one of my current favorite athletes) and Luanna Alzuiguir (one of my all-time favorites). Alzuiguir signed my belt when I met her at the worlds in 2011, a year in which she took double gold. But Monteiro has competed more recently, took silver to Mesquita last year, and I think she breaks through here. Assuming this happens, it’ll be an epic final.
Medium Heavy: Ana Laura Cordeiro. Last year’s champ. Another all-time great. Another small division.
Heavyweight: Dominyka Obelenyte. This is a small but very tough division with Gracie Barra’s Tammy Griego and GF Team’s Vanessa Oliveira as well. But Obelenyte, of Marcelo Garcia’s team, was a monster at brown belt and continues to perform at a high level. Watch out for her in absolute as well.
Super Heavyweight: Venla Luukonen. Without Gabi Garcia, last year’s champ remains the favorite. But watch out for Talita Nogueira, a former world champ and current Bellator fighter.
Absolute: Beatriz Mesquita. The argument against Mesquita repeating as absolute champion is primarily size-based. But remember how she was able to keep matches even against the mighty Gabi close, and don’t bet against her.
Those are my initial impressions: take them as you will. And remember there are always surprises, so I’m looking forward to watching people I’m not as familiar with.
People love stories. Whether it’s a great book, movie, or TV show, humans love to get caught up in a gripping narrative. That’s why people watch sports: the best contests feature rising action, a climax and satisfying resolution.
This applies to jiujitsu competitions, too. I’ve watched an absurd amount of jiujitsu matches, but there will always be a few that stand out to me, and I understand them the same way I understand any good story.
I want to talk today about one of the two best matches I’ve seen in person, a match featuring a legendary multiple-time world champion facing a newer, up-and-coming competitor.
Time was running short. With the world championship on the line, the six-time black belt world champion was down on points against the young upstart. There was just over a minute to go.
Then, from guard, the champ caught the challenger in a dangerous armlock: this elicited a fierce battle, with both competitors fully aware that the outcome of this submission hold would decide the match — and the Mundial championship. The champ was fighting to finish, with the challenger trying to hold on and win that first black belt Mundial gold.
Then the shoulder went. The challenger’s arm was suddenly at an angle that seemed all wrong.
But there was no tap. Arm hanging loosely in the air, the challenger refused to submit.
This was at the 2014 Mundials. I was a few rows back, watching this match live next to a tough purple belt friend of mine. “Why isn’t she tapping, Mary?” I asked. Mary has way more technical knowledge than I do, so I assumed she had an explanation. “I … I don’t know,” Mary said.
You might have figured this out from the headline or the match description, but the pronoun should give it away: this was Michelle Nicolini against Tammi Musumeci in the 2014 black belt final. Ultimately, an unbelievably tough but one-armed Musumeci gave up the sweep, yielding points — and a seventh world title — for Nicolini.
Speaking as a fan, this match doesn’t just represent why I watch jiujitsu, this is why I watch sports itself.
It has every element you need for a dramatic viewing experience: a great story, top-level skills, athletic prowess and a tremendous act of will. It features rising action, dramatic tension, and a last-minute comeback by a legendary competitor to defend her crown against the next generation.
It’s a great match and a great story. Here, watch it for yourself:
From the beginning, I want to say that there are many non-economic reasons to ensure some women’s matches make it onto PPV cards. The women I’m most interested in watching — Nicolini, Leticia Ribeiro, Beatriz Mesquita, Ana Laura Cordeiro, Gezary Matuda and Luiza Monteiro to name a few — have simply earned the right to compete in high-profile events. With six matches on every card, surely simple respect dictates that we get more than one match every six events.
But since basically every argument in defense of Metamoris starts with “the women’s matches won’t sell,” that’s the only argument I’m going to be addressing in this post. Simply put, I think that putting at least one women’s match (and ideally more) on each card makes economic sense.
Gracie admits the bout between Dern and Nicolini was successful enough in terms of box office drawing power and even match complexion, but suggests the dynamic between the two isn’t replicable at scale.
“We had that one match and it was cool, but that was more of, ‘That’s cool and that was interesting and I want to see that again if the girls are cute.’
Leaving aside Ralek Gracie’s offensive ‘if the girls are cute’ comment (and leaving aside what he must therefore think of Jeff Monson’s looks), this is an argument that is on its face absurd. So, the Nicolini-Dern matchup drew well at the box office and everybody liked the match — but that can’t be repeated? Really? We tried it, and it worked, and so we can’t try it again?
It is also an argument we hear with every iteration of women’s sports. Sometimes it winds up looking like a true argument, and sometimes (as with women’s tennis, which is more popular and a better game than men’s tennis) it looks silly. And Ralek’s comments just show the double-bind that this attitude causes: if you try it and it fails, you were right. If you try it and it works, well, clearly, you can’t replicate that success.
My capsule summary: every sporting event must be sold, and every sales pitch starts with a story. Generally speaking, the sports that have succeeded have taken the time to tell the stories of their athletes to give the audience some investment in the final product.
Who wouldn’t buy this card? I would buy this.
This should actually be easier with jiujitsu than with many other sports, because the core audience — grapplers — already has an investment in the product, and they know good jiujitsu when they see it.Every new product faces this challenge, but the barrier to entry here is much smaller.
Explain who people like Michelle Nicolini and Leticia Ribeiro are, for example, and you’ve got a ready-made marketing strategy. Let me explain why this makes economic sense in both the short- and long-term.
WHY IT MAKES SENSE IN THE SHORT TERM
There are three reasons putting at least one women’s match on each Metamoris card makes economic sense: match quality, targeted audience marketing, and opportunity cost. Let’s start with the first because it’s the simplest.
The Metamoris audience is composed of people who want to watch exciting submission grappling, and women’s matches deliver. Plus, many of the best women in the world have expressed interest in competing. Do we really think the average fan would rather see Jeff Monson, Chael Sonnen (who gets two matches) and Babalu than the some of the greatest women ever?
If you see matches with one of these women and don’t like it, you might not actually like jiujitsu.
Even if you buy that, though, consider that there are 6 matches on each card, and people buy cards for different reasons. As I’ll discuss in a moment, Metamoris has UFC fighters on the card to try to draw fans from mixed martial arts.
Having a variety of matches enables you to tell a variety of stories — and women’s matches are particular stories that would appeal to particular demographics. Think of a blue and a purple belt sitting 10 rows up for Nicolini-Musumeci: even if those people aren’t interested in, say, Chael-Babalu, having a match featuring one or both of those women draws them in even if you wouldn’t otherwise get them to buy the event.
Finally, consider return on investment. When the Metamoris Needs Women images started circulating widely, I honestly thought there was a good chance Metamoris would add a women’s match to the card. This would have been a way to signal that they heard fans’ concerns, and given that a lot of the top competitors train in California anyway, would have been a relatively small economic investment.
Now more than ever.
Instead, the Metamoris brass chose not just to forego a women’s match, but to give an interview saying they might get to it eventually if the women were deemed sufficiently attractive.
Which would have been a wiser economic strategy: to invest a few thousand dollars into adding a women’s match to the card, or to alienate a healthy portion of your core audience?
Let’s say I’m wrong about this economic calculus, though. Let’s say it would have increased Metamoris’ costs in the short term. It still would have been a wiser economic decision in the long run. Here’s why:
WHY IT MAKES SENSE IN THE LONG TERM
I don’t buy that women’s matches wouldn’t draw, and Metamoris’ lone experience with a women’s match supports my thoughts. But even if they wouldn’t draw now, adding some matches would be a great chance for Metamoris to retain core fans and to expand its audience.
The primary audience for Metamoris is always going to be people who enjoy grappling — and that audience is composed largely of grapplers. It’s smart to both recognize that this is the core audience and to attempt to expand that audience.
This, I believe, is what Metamoris is trying to do by bringing in prominent MMA fighters: people who have seen Brendan Schaub, Joe Lauzon and Chael Sonnen in the UFC may check out a Metamoris PPV even if they aren’t fans of submission grappling per se.
That’s the theory, anyway. If this is the perspective we’re adopting, however, this is just another reason why it makes more economic sense to have women’s matches at Metamoris: fan retention.
Who is more likely to stick around and buy multiple events, the MMA fan who likes Brendan Schaub or the fan of women’s jiujitsu who likes Michelle Nicolini? Chances are that without MMA guys on the card, the fight fan is just going to go back and watch the UFC. Unless every Metamoris card contains the likes of Schaub — a move which risks alienating the core audience — the people who are only fans of mixed martial arts are likely to be one-and-done buyers.
Conversely, if you’re a fan of great jiujitsu, you’re probably going to love watching Nicolini, Mesquita, Ana Laura Cordeiro, etc. Some of the most exciting matches these days are women’s matches, and if you’re reading this post, you probably saw the Brendan Schaub match. Enough said there.
A tournament is a story. A career is a story.
Again, I dispute the notion that putting on women’s matches would cost Metamoris money. If so, though, one match on each card could function as a “loss leader” — to get new fans in the door and create further demand.
Every great new product in the market transforms that market. If you’re a guy grappler who has never seen a women’s match, watching a terrific contest of this nature is likely to leave you wanting more. That’s one reason it’s a long-term winner to have women’s matches at Metamoris.
But there is another, broader reason. Currently, fewer women train jiujitsu than men. This is sometimes used as a reason not to put women’s matches on PPVs. First, that’s based on the faulty assumption that men will not watch women’s sports.
Additionally, though, Metamoris should think about this as an untapped market: the more women who train, the more potential grappling fans there are. And how do we get more women to train and keep training without showcasing the best women athletes?
With more visible women’s matches, more women train and get the benefits of jiujitsu. That means more people training, and more people watching. That makes us all better.
IN CONCLUSION
Here’s the sad part: with Ralek’s most recent comments, it might honestly be too late for Metamoris.
There’s a window of opportunity for everything, and the last few days may have slammed that window shut. An opportunity to tell fans “yeah, we heard you” turned into a monumental blunder that sent the message “yeah, we don’t care about you.” It will take considerable effort and will to come back from that.
I’m an optimist by nature, so I’ll finish by noting two things: first, that Metamoris competitor Polaris has pledged to have at least one women’s match on each card; and second, that the fundamental principles I’ve written about above remain in place.
There is still a market out there, ready to be served and expanded. Some company, maybe Polaris, is going to take advantage.
At the end of the day, I want everyone to train. I want everyone who trains to feel like there is a place for them in jiujitsu. And I want to see more matches like Nicolini-Musumeci.
Making sure that more great women get the chance to compete on pay per view cards would serve all three goals. Let’s make this happen.
If you’ve trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu for any appreciable amount of time, you’ve had injuries.
Personally, I consider myself one of the more fortunate. Sure, I’ve had the occasional malady, but I have been lucky to avoid a major injury that would require surgery. Besides the pain and expense — as much it galls me to admit this — I don’t want to take the time off from training that a major injury would require.
One of the first pieces of advice I try to tell the new guys who go too hard is that injury is the real enemy: if you want to get better at jiu-jitsu, staying on the mats is job one. Especially for a guy who weighs 138, turns 40 this year and trains regularly, I’ve been very lucky.
It takes a very steady hand … and believe me, the “Skill Game Where You’re The Doctor” bit from the original game applies to our community’s rampant self-diagnosis.
That’s what I keep telling myself this month. Leading up to the New York Open, I had a nagging foot injury that I trained through. At the tournament, I re-injured it during my finals match. Now, every time it gets manipulated in the wrong way — even gently — it becomes debilitating.
But there’s the Catch-22: you can’t train without risking injury, but part of the reason you want to avoid injury is so you can keep training, especially with a tournament (like, say, the Mundials) coming up. Where is the line between being tough and being stupid?
The answer I’ve come to is that you must evaluate two factors: risk of re-injury and reward of training. When you’re nicked up, which is how I’d classify my current injury, you can still train some things. For example, one of my training partners hurt his knee and spent his healing time working half-guard. You also must evaluate your ability to protect yourself while drilling and rolling, and figure out whether you’re taking too great a chance on setting yourself back.
Naturally, figuring this out depends on the severity of an injury. I’ve had back injuries that were simple stiffness and would loosen up once I got moving, and back injuries that I’d have had to be a lunatic to train through.
Given my various experiences with being nicked up, I’ve often been surprised at how easy some injuries are to train with and how hard others are. I do a lot with gi grips, for example, but finger and hand injuries are relatively simple to train with. You can wrap ’em up and hide the injured hand. (In fact, at least one person reading this has choked me using only one hand).
The opposite end of the spectrum: rib injuries. I’ve had two ribs pop out. You use your core for everything, in jiu-jitsu and in life. One of my rib injuries was extremely painful and fairly debilitating. The other one didn’t hurt much. But then I tried to sit up and couldn’t. This foot injury has shown me — again, stupid as it sounds — just how much you use your foot, both in guard and on top. It’s harder to hide than you’d think.
After musing on which of my little bumps and bruises were hardest to train with, I made this graphic rating the injuries on a scale of 0 (a cakewalk) to 10 (sweet merciful crap, maybe we’ll stay in bed and watch videos).
This is just my own experience and is not meant to be taken very seriously. The only medical advice I feel comfortable giving is “you should eat right and train jiu-jitsu.”
This is a super-scientific image from my most recent x-ray and MRI. They combined them into an MRX.
There shouldn’t be many surprises here. The big muscles and joints are always big problems. I also always think it’s worth noting that if you have an infection, that’s a 10 and you should stay home, period: I raise an eyebrow at how many folks don’t get this.
One notable rating, and this might be a function of the severity of the injury: I personally found it easier to train with a messed-up knee than with a messed-up foot. Obviously, my knee injury wasn’t a major thing, but I was able to change up the things I was doing fairly effectively to protect the knee.
With the foot? Can’t be on top, you’ve got to stand on it. Can’t really keep the guard closed, and with open guard, you either have to step on hips and biceps (ouch!) or try to hide that foot by putting it further away from your opponent — which means you need to shrimp off of it (also ouch).
We all have strengths and weaknesses. In terms of the old remedy of Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation, my ICE game is tight, and the rest I have a problem with. (See what I did there?)
The old saying goes, “If you wake up one morning after training and nothing hurts, you died.” My hope is we all start to prove that saying wrong. Happy and healthy training to all of you.
To tell you how I feel about belt rank progression, I have to tell you about the one tattoo I’ve ever seriously considered getting. I also have to tell you something about Greek language.
If you’re still with me, oh how I love you. I promise it’ll be quick and painless.
We get our English word synecdoche from a Greek word, συνεκδοχή, that means “simultaneous understanding.” The word is used as a figure of speech or a metaphor.
You know how sometimes people say “50 head” meaning “a herd of 50 cattle,” or “three hands” meaning “three sailors”? Those are examples. A synecdoche is where the thing-in-itself (like a sailor) has the same meaning as something that represents that thing (like a hand). We understand that those two meanings exist simultaneously.
After the Mundials this past year, I started think about getting a tattoo of the Greek letters. The ink would be a reminder that, in life, we should consider both the thing-in-itself and what the thing represents. Also, Greek letters look pretty boss. That was a secondary consideration.
Why did the Mundials get me thinking about this? Because a jiu-jitsu belt is a synecdoche.
Before I got promoted, I spent a lot of time thinking about my next belt. It’ll be so rewarding, I thought, to be able to tie that around my waist every class.
But at the end of the day, it’s a piece of colored cloth. There’s that famous Royce Gracie quote that a belt only covers two inches of your ass, and the rest of it you have to cover on your own. It’s true.
As hard as we work for those promotions, a belt is just a thing, an object. It’s what that object represents that matters.
Discipline. Commitment. Loyalty. The respect you’ve earned from people that you respect (your instructors, your training partners). It might sound corny, but that’s what I think about when I think about promotions: a shared journey that, if done the right way, has spectacular rewards. The new addition to your wardrobe is lovely, but is it really anything compared to what the belt actually represents?
People do think about and talk about belt rank. It’s natural. When jiu-jitsu is a big part of your life, and BJJ people are a significant portion of your social circle, it’s only normal that you would talk about progression with your friends. And I do think that belts serve a purpose: they can be markers along the way of a long, long journey. My instructor is fond of pointing out that there are only five belts in BJJ, and everyone starts with one of them: promotions don’t happen often.
Sometimes, I hear folks get frustrated because they didn’t get a stripe from their instructor, or were passed over for promotion during the head of their school’s last visit. We all know people who have gotten frustrated about matters like these. Frankly, most of us have been those people at one time or another.
If you want a belt that’s a rank up from where you are, I’m sure you can find someone to give it to you. But what would that mean? You’d have the thing itself. You wouldn’t have what it represents. It wouldn’t be a synecdoche.
Training the right way — and doing so with patience and humility — allows you to have both the thing-in-itself and what the thing represents. I don’t want to cheat myself out of having both, and neither, I suspect, do you.
On the topic of data visualization, the folks at Bishop BJJ have put together a first-of-its-kind breakdown of statistics from the Mundials. You can see from my last post why this type of information would fascinate me — all the more so because I competed at the tournament this year.
My next big graphic project is compiling data from US Grappling tournaments and making infographics. If I think the results are interesting, maybe I’ll do a post comparing the US Grappling events to the Mundials in terms of data results.
… OK, done with the data nerd stuff for a while. We now return you to your regularly-scheduled grappling stories and whatnot.
A few weeks ago, my team took a small cohort to the IBJJF World Jiu-Jitsu Championships, commonly known as the Mundials. It’s no exaggeration to say it was one of my greatest life experiences so far, and I’m a late-30s hobbyist who does this for fun.
If you do Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you seriously should go. And if you’re going, you might as well compete and be a part of it.
Not convinced? I have three reasons for you. True, these three reasons are a cleverly disguised excuse to tell some Mundials stories, but I mean them all the same. REASON ONE: IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW YOU DO: YOU WILL LEARN A TON
Any time you step on the mat, you’re going to get valuable information. At the Mundials, though, you get people gathered from all over the world — each of whom takes a slightly different approach to jiu-jitsu. Even if you only get one match, you’ll get a valuable sense of what others are doing, and how that differs from (or mimics) what you’re doing at your school or in your region.
Examples of what I took away from the Mundials are too numerous to name, but let me list a couple: most people want to pull guard, so I need to shoot faster if I want to get takedown points; and I’ve put in a lot of work on passing the open guard, but I need to put in a lot more, especially on spider guard variants.
(Oh, and one of my teammates kept saying that maybe he’d go, but only to watch. We talked him into competing. He wound up with a (well-deserved) bronze medal. No excuses!)
You also get to pose like this in front of Walter Pyramid.
Besides competing, you can watch match after match. It was helpful for me to watch all the other people around my level. And it was beyond helpful and inspiring to watch those folks who are way, way, way, above my level. These folks are truly the best in the world.
Which leads me to reason number two you should go: REASON TWO: YOU GET TO BE A FAN
My teammate Hameed and I are admitted BJJ nerds. No shame in that game.
We fly the nerd flag high and proud. Got a DVD? We’ll watch it. Making a sweet new gi? We want it. Put out a jiu-jitsu podcast? We probably already listen to it.
Because I was competing at white belt and Hameed at blue, we got our matches done on the first day.This meant we were free to enter BJJ heaven immediately after. Almost everyone in the jiu-jitsu world that you would like to meet attends the Mundials, and almost without exception, they couldn’t possibly be nicer. Hameed and I brought our white belts to get people to sign. By the end of the tournament, both of them were covered with the signatures of top-level competitors and legends.
Now *that’s* how you dirty up a white belt.
This is one reason I love sport jiu-jitsu. Everyone is so approachable, including the best contemporary players and the best of all time. I hope jiu-jitsu continues to grow — at least, I think I do — but it’s nice that there’s such a community feeling even at a riotously competitive event like this.
When I say “community feeling,” I’m including the Gracie Barra guys who threatened to kick my ass if they saw that white belt end up on eBay. No worries, guys, I understand. Part of community is holding others accountable. But that belt’s hanging on my wall for the duration.
Then there are the matches. This year featured the Rodolfo-Buchecha match that everyone online was talking about, and let me tell you, it was even better in person.
Buchecha after winning gold.
Imagine watching 12 mats of action, and on maybe 6 of them you have at least one legend. That’s what the black belt competition day are like. I should write more about this, but just think: you look one mat, and there’s Xande Ribeiro. On another, there’s Caio Terra. On another, there’s Cobrinha, and … on and on.
Bill Cooper enthusiastically agrees that you should attend the Mundials.
It gets overwhelming. In the best possible way. If you’re fortunate enough to have your instructor with you, he or she can point out the details on what they’re trying to do, too.
Finally, the most important reason of all to attend the Mundials: REASON THREE: MIGUEL TORRES MAY DECLARE YOU A G
When my teammate Ryan got called to the bullpen before his purple belt match, I went with him. It’s important to have somebody with you in case something goes wrong — for example, a problem with your gi.
(Before next year’s Mundials, I’m going to devote an entire post to How To Make Sure You Don’t Get DQed. The gi requirements are no joke, and they’re serious about them.)
Ryan had a patch on the back of his gi that was frayed. They wanted him to remove it. Naturally, I didn’t have a knife — I’ll fix that next year. So I took a quarter and used the ridges to tear out the stitches. This worked just fine on three sides of the patch. But the fourth side was reinforced with adamantium or some shit.
Now, it’s nerve-wracking enough to be in the bullpen. You’ve put in tons of work, put out lots of money, and you’re about to put it all on the line. It doubles the nerves when it looks like they might not let you compete. I wanted to get rid of this patch problem and get the gi approved ASAP so Ryan could chill.
“Ryan,” I says, “lean back.”
I took the side of the patch between my teeth and just reared my head back. Yup, I got the patch off by tearing it out with my teeth. Sweet relief.
Then I hear from the left of me: “That’s some G shit right there!”
It’s UFC veteran and BJJ black belt Miguel Torres. “This guy’s a straight G!” he announces to the crowd, who laugh as Miguel offers me a fistbump.
If you go to the Mundials, I am sure something like this will happen to you.
This can also happen to you, but you’ve got to make sure your patch game is tight first.
IN SUMMARY
If you love BJJ, you’ll have a blast at the worlds even if you get submitted in under a minute. The sting of defeat is temporary. The experience is something you’ll value forever. Trust me.
Next tournaments: US Grappling July 28 (two days after I step off a trans-Pacific flight, yikes), and probably one more tune-up before the No-Gi Pans on September 29. Can’t wait.
