DaRuckus337 is biased. His sampling is probably not comparable based on my experience with population of the typical wrestling practice versus the typical BJJ practice. He is a wrestling coach and wrestled for a long time. That definitely colors his perception. I certainly don't like him. He said I sucked without ever meeting me or seeing how I do. That implies that he rushes to judgments without all the facts, at least with my experience.
His argument makes no sense, anyway. There is a lot more static strength involved in gi, but there is a lot of dynamic explosive motion as well. You have to be explosive, since you have to overcome rough clothing with a lot of friction. Hesitating allows your opponent to get his grips and that's not good as well.
Lockjaw211 is also biased, since he does mainly gi. However, he is a good no-gi grappler and speaks from experience. Most high-level grapplers like Marcello Garcia agree with him. My experience collaborates Lockjaw's statement to a certain degree. I started in no-gi, wrestled in high school, and I do more no-gi than gi. However, when I started gi, I hated it and found it very hard to adapt for a while. Now I find each the same difficulty and I like neither better or worse.
After thinking about it, I came to a reasonable conclusion. Actually it depends on what you're good at. Some people are better at gi, and others are better at no-gi. NEITHER IS HARDER THAN THE OTHER BY ITS NATURE. Some people are fast twitchers and others are slow twitchers. Generally for technique, GI seems harder. There are just more options than in no-gi. For control, no-gi is harder. People are more slippery and often use simple power because gripping is harder. What you have to do is what you are not-as-good at.
Someone on this forum stated you do something until it is easy, then you find a way to make it hard. I want challenges, and that means doing something that isn't as easy as it normally would be. So wrestlers should put on the gi. It may make a lot of their instincts not as effective, but that makes it helpful. The mantra of wrestling should be "hard work" and forgoing the gi because it is too hot or negates too much of your instincts is counter to that philosophy. OTOTH, gi grapplers should remember to take off the kimono as well. They must learn to work without as good grips or with slippery opponents. Some gi grapplers said that the kimono makes them feel "safe" - which is insane in my humble opinion - and they should learn to work outside their safety zone.
