Bushido Notebook

The Gracie Academy has been able to reach out and gain influence in the jiujitsu community effectively acquiring schools through a de-facto affiliation.  The attraction has been through marketing their teaching methods via Gracie University, using that as a tool to gain and retain students and to grow your school and profits.  The gateway is Gracie Combatives (GC).  I recently completely and passed the GC online test, scoring high enough to qualify to attend the instructor certification course held at the Gracie Academy in Torrance, CA.  Currently a brown belt with over ten years jiujitsu experience I found the program surprisingly challenging and effective as a tool for teaching good self-defense techniques and providing an organized baseline by which to engage and measure my progress.  The good, the bad and the..the "it's up to you": The Good: There is an organized curriculum with highly detailed instruction on the philosophy of the training et...

I'd taken to learning techniques via video a few years ago. It is a great way to pass on techniques because as a student I can watch it as many times as I want and replicate the technique. The down side is that I don't have the instructor there to ask questions. Either way I thought it was good to go. Then I went to a seminar with Shaolin a few months ago. he was pretty point blank that he is against that type of learning. Maybe he is just old school or something. Lots of the "masters" are against that kind of training. But then again lots are for it. Just depends I guess. For me it is all about what you do with it. I think that some are against it because that means that students learn faster, therefore it makes them less important in the learning process, so why should a student pay them for what they can get cheep or free over the Internet and other sources? So then instructors institute minimum class hours in order to get promotions. Ok, well, makes sen...

There's been lots of controversy in the Brazilian jiujitsu community over Rorion Gracie and his sons' Gracie University, which enables people to learn and earn rank, primarily online. Many of the purest out there are outraged because of the far harder road they've had to take to get a belt. Here are some opinions of my own in posts to online communities about it: It's both and a great business strategy. But here's my thing: I practice both judo and GJJ.....which in my opinion is a subset of judo. Judo kata or GU simulated combat: What's the difference? I think there are many issues at play here, two of which are knowing the techniques for promotion and two, being able to apply them to an unwilling person. Up to blue belt I can understand just knowing the techniques, but beyond that in my opinion the point is to be able to apply them to an unwilling opponent. Another thing is that I don't get the 600 techniques that the Gracie Academy is talking about. I m...