I always talk about it by saying Jiu Jitsu, but there's the local Judo club that calls is self defense program jiu jitsu and there's another japanese jiu jitsu school in the area so sometimes I need to clarify by saying that I do Brazilian jiu jitsu or just by saying:'' no I do the real stuff, I do BJJ''
I would love to just call it grappling, because I do as much no gi that I do gi training, but it's way too generic and people won't relate if they are not martial arts ''connaisseurs''
All of my long term coaches have been American or Armenian.
If I stop in to train at a Gracie Barra while travelling, while it's easier to say "yes I have BJJ experience" it's not technically accurate.
But then again I'd get some really confused jiujitero in that same Gracie Barra for trying to explain "yes I have no gi grappling and judo experience and a purple belt in Armenian Jiu Jitsu."
Because of branding and competition rules, at the moment American jiu jitsu has the image of a fat dude with a poney tail wearing a black gi with a coral belt at thet age of 39 years who is guilty of larping away with some bs self defense stuff.
Japanese Jiu Jitsu, just as bad.
Personally I feel like Brazilian isn't the best adjective to describe what we're doing anymore.
Live Jiu Jitsu, or Competitive Jiu Jitsu would be more accurate for the worldwide grappling scene.
I've seen JJJ classes, they didn'tt let anyone roll. Went to one at the Y once, they do forward rolls in the warm up with an ultra specific aikido style, I forward roll judo style and all of a sudden a "brown belt" pulls me out of the warm up because I'm clearly going to hurt myself.
I explain to him I can roll that way on the concrete and it's fine. No it's not fine, only the larp way is acceptable.
We spent the next 30 minutes on his larp aikido version of a technical standup. The whole time I'm looking around and there's no live training at all. Never went back. It made a kids judo class look hardcore.
So for me, it isn't that what we're all training is Brazilian, it's that it's alive.
Like Muay Thai vs Communist Wushu (comrades cannot fight comrades!) it's the liveness that makes all the difference in the world.