Rickson Gracie Article by Maynard Keenan

Evaristo Medrano

Amateur Fighter
Joined
Nov 9, 2005
Messages
1,951
Reaction score
0
Most people dont know , but TOOL's Lead Singer , the Great Maynard James Keenan is a purple belt under the BJJ great Rickson Gracie. I found this article. Good Read. Im just sharing the wealth. Enjoy.

by Maynard Keenan

Balance. This simple concept seems to be the underlying answer to all questions posed to Rickson Gracie (pronounced Hickson) this morning. Rickson, a native of Brazil, is one of the older brothers of Royce Gracie (three-time champion of the popular pay per view event "The Ultimate Fighting Championship"). With a record of far more than four hundred straight wins, Rickson is considered to be the most formidable of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu practitioners. Steve and I asked at great length what, in his opinion, made it possible for him to achieve such a status. Much to my pleasure, it had nothing to do with being a three hundred pound hairy ape on steroids. It had nothing to do with lifting weights till you achieve stretch marks or eating any and everything all day long. Nor did it have anything to do with hatred, psychosis, or whateveraphobia. It did, have everything to do with balance.

Rickson: Jiu-Jitsu is like a philosophy. It helps me learn how to face life.

Maynard: In what way?

Rickson: In every way. To understand our society, to relate myself to people, to compete in an actual self defense tournament, to feel confident, to walk on the street and to be able to help people, to be strong enough to forgive
 
"He totally invented 80 percent of the Jiu-Jitsu we have today. Leverage and sensitivity and using the opponents energy against himself are basic to Jiu-Jitsu, but the application of these principles was never done in the way my father developed them. My father broke the mold. He initiated a different perspective"

LoL BJJ propaganda like Jigoro Kano was a big dude
 
This is a misconception I had about the Gracie family as well. I was under the impression they invented all the submissions on the ground until I learned that all the moves (for the most part) were in judo but were banned a long time ago from competition/olympic judo.

I still have a lot of respect for them and how they've brought their style to the US. I now have a Royler academy 5 minutes from my house and if it weren't for Royce fighting in the early UFC, there would probably be nothing but karate and kung fu and tkd schools in NE Ohio.
 
chokingvictim said:
This is a misconception I had about the Gracie family as well. I was under the impression they invented all the submissions on the ground until I learned that all the moves (for the most part) were in judo but were banned a long time ago from competition/olympic judo.

I still have a lot of respect for them and how they've brought their style to the US. I now have a Royler academy 5 minutes from my house and if it weren't for Royce fighting in the early UFC, there would probably be nothing but karate and kung fu and tkd schools in NE Ohio.


Lucky fucker , Close to a Royler academy. I live about 15 min, from a Royce Academy.
 
YeahBee said:
"He totally invented 80 percent of the Jiu-Jitsu we have today. Leverage and sensitivity and using the opponents energy against himself are basic to Jiu-Jitsu, but the application of these principles was never done in the way my father developed them. My father broke the mold. He initiated a different perspective"

LoL BJJ propaganda like Jigoro Kano was a big dude


kano never fought. And btw the bjj guard evolved through a different enviroment than judo's old guard. Judo never whent through a time when they offically had mma/vtd matches. Not a knock on judo but just stating the fact.
 
Either this article is quite old already, or every Rickson interview looks alike.
 
this is very old, one of the first things i ever read when i was getting interested in MMA and i thought it was pretty cool because i'm also a big tool fan. still good to read it again, thanks.
 
The Guys in Sepultura are also rumoured to be training Vale Tudo and frequently entering amatuer bouts anyone know if this is true?
 
great read man.. i really appreciate you posting this.
 
Nice interview. I really respect Rickson for his life philosophy.
 
WingChunMan said:
Lucky fucker , Close to a Royler academy. I live about 15 min, from a Royce Academy.

Hahaha, if he is lucky then I must be as luckier, I live 5 mins away from the Relson Gracie Academy and 30 mins away from Relson's house where the bbq parties are held at.
 
jjmuaythaiguy said:
Hahaha, if he is lucky then I must be as luckier, I live 5 mins away from the Relson Gracie Academy and 30 mins away from Relson's house where the bbq parties are held at.

Thats nice man , Ive been saving up money to move out to Hawaii man. I got a bit more to save , and Plan to live in Hilo for about a year or two. I want to train BJJ with BJ Penn man. They have a really dam good rate.
 
There is something very funky about Keenan's purple belt.. he's not listed anywhere as ever attaining a belt from Rickson (that I have seen) and he said years later that he dropped BJJ because he was tired of being crushed by larger guys at the gym and it wasn't fair for him to have to roll with guys that large.

How does a purple belt that weighs ~140 say that he's too small to enjoy BJJ? Especially one who is familiar with the Gracie family. Either he has no heart or got private lessons for years and realized his belt was bought at some point shortly after rolling with the general public.
 
btw here are some pictures of Maynard before he wimped out of the sport

mjkgj3.jpg


mjkgj2.jpg


mjkgj5.jpg
 
Dave Camarillo in a Ralph shirt...wow, those are old.
 
This is a misconception I had about the Gracie family as well. I was under the impression they invented all the submissions on the ground until I learned that all the moves (for the most part) were in judo but were banned a long time ago from competition/olympic judo.

I still have a lot of respect for them and how they've brought their style to the US. I now have a Royler academy 5 minutes from my house and if it weren't for Royce fighting in the early UFC, there would probably be nothing but karate and kung fu and tkd schools in NE Ohio.

You're from cleveland? How's the school up there? I might come check it out some time...I currently go to the Dudu Barros school here in akron/fairlawn...But I was thinking of training with some other people a little bit to get used to a different "style" before competing again..Do you think the instructor there would care? PM me with any more info so we don't clutter the thread.

As for the article, great read, and yes I knew about the tool thing, because I saw that video a while ago, and I was very excited. :p
 
The Gracies were taught by Kosen Judo practitioner Maeda. Kosen Judo is a ground oriented Judo style taught in Japanese highschools and colleges.

Anyways, I do beleive that the Gracies got VERY good at Ne-Waza, but let's face it: Kimura beat Helio. Yoshida beat Royce.

The major step for BJJ was simply creating a contest that focused on the ground game (Thank Carlos jr.)
 
Back
Top