BJ Penn, the phenom myth????

BJJ_Rage

BJJ_Rage

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I was talking to a friend, and he told me that in reality, BJ Penn getting his black belt in 3 years is just a bunch of BS... he told me that he used to train with Ralph Gracie back for quite a long time, then he moved to Nova union, and went as a white belt, then got promoted to Black Belt in 3 years and then won the worlds etc etc... Then, there is this video, where Ralph (I belive) is talking saying how bj went to his school as a kid and trained there for a long time (not 1 or 2 years)... So, kind of makes sense, anyone got some insides about this??? I think the case could've been that he was training MMA and No gi with Ralph, thats why de did not have a belt rank, then, moved to train with Nova uniao and started training with the gi, and his natural skills plus the training he put on no gi traning could have speeded up his promotion...

Edit: here is the video...

YouTube - Ralph Gracie BJ PENN is mutherfuckin traitor
 
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I think for the most part all of those facts are wrong. Off the top of my head I think BJ took a lesson in Hawaii with some guy that was looking for training partners and got hooked, he wanted to train full time and his family was wealthy so he moved to Cali to train full time and did so under Ralph for 2-3 years and got his purple belt, then there was some issues and he moved to Nova Uniao and got brown and black from Andre Pedenieres right before Mundials and then went down to Brazil and won.
 
xMikeyX said:
Your source is a friend? I think he is wrong.
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not really..
its actually true. Ralph was bj's fathers friend or neighbour or close ascociate (one of the three lol) and ralph would give bj private lessons regularly for a while.. later bj joined an actual school. This doesnt discredit bj's hardwork put into jiu jitsu.. he trained all day everyday to gain his level of succsess.
Plus he is naturally talented and freakishly flexible.
 
If you read BJ's book Why I Fight, the timeline is laid out there. He trained for a very small amount of time with a man in Hawaii who was only a novice grappler himself, he was originally a karate teacher or something of the sort but was kind of a train as you can, seminar attending type guy. BJ spent alot of time playing soccer at this time and didn't really train. He graduated HS. His father moved him out to OC to train with Ralph. There he became friends with Bobby Southworth and Dave Camarillo. He started as a white at Ralph's because the karate guy could not rank him. He worked up to purple. Him and Camarillo were tearing up the BJJ scene as purples. That is when he left. He then left to train under Andre Pederneiras, and got ranked quite quickly, I believe he was given brown in only a few months and then with all the mundials success was promoted to black. Then he won that in 2000(?).


His speedy promotion, according to this timeline, is pretty accurate IMO.
 
I have read BJ's book, and I doubt that he is lieing in it so here's what it said
He started training no gi in Hawaii with a guy named Tom who was a Karate guy. but knew some grappling and was looking for training partners. He was there for about a year I believe maybe less. Tom saw the whole time that BJ was very talented, and that he could no longer teach BJ or be very competitive with him. So he took BJ to California to meet Ralph and see if BJ wanted to train there. BJ's dad told him to go, BJ went got all the way up to purple with Ralph. Then he left to Nova Uniao, got his brown and black belts and won the World's.
 
BJ in his book speaks about moving to california and training at ralph's academy twice a day because he literally had nothing else to do. he also says 3.5 years after beginning, he got his blackbelt.

so i'm guessing 3.5 since the day he joined an actual school and if this is the problem for some of you guys i really don't understand you. he was training in hilo, but it was training with someone who "had taken some jiu-jitsu lessons with ralph when he was in california". the way i see it this was some whitebelt dude that rolled around with BJ a little.

so you can say he trained longer than that, but then you admit that the youtube idiots that roll around in their living room are actually training.

so obviously it wasn't 3 years from the second he was first shown what an armbar is, but i don't see how that makes a difference. he still only needed 3.5 years to go from whitebelt to blackbelt world champ. even if he spent a decade rolling around with a bluebelt in his cellar before that, it's impressive as fuck.
 
ok, so anyone knows how long it took Bj to get promoted from purple to black?
 
BJ has also said in several interviews that he doesnt know half the stuff thats in the book, and he had a small part in writing it..
 
gullis187 said:
BJ has also said in several interviews that he doesnt know half the stuff thats in the book, and he had a small part in writing it..
Click to expand...

I have a hard time believing that. Anyone that has read it knows why...
 
IQwrestler said:
Start what? rolling around in his boardshorts with his friends and a tkd instructor or training with ralph
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ermm well when did he start training i dont no much about bj so not sure about how serious him rolling with his tkd instructor was ..
 
Sayian said:
not really..
its actually true. Ralph was bj's fathers friend or neighbour or close ascociate (one of the three lol) and ralph would give bj private lessons regularly for a while.. later bj joined an actual school. This doesnt discredit bj's hardwork put into jiu jitsu.. he trained all day everyday to gain his level of succsess.
Plus he is naturally talented and freakishly flexible.
Click to expand...

no it's not.

Ralph Gracie is not connected AT ALL to the penn family other than training bj when he went to live in california.
 
BJ put in his time, the guy basically rode a bike to practice in the morning trained for from what I remember him saying in his MMA book 2 1/2 hours then riding the bike back home and doing it all over again in the afternoon. He also was heavily involved in the tournament scene. If you calculate 5 hours of training a day minimum by 5 days a week multiplied by 52 weeks that mean BJ trained approximately 1,300 hours a year. Compare that to the average person that goes three times a week for one to one and a half hours a class that averages out to 234 hours a year training.

So to put it bluntly BJ put in his time, he was lucky enough to have a schedule that allowed him to do that, keep interest and avoided injury. Add to that the guy was fast learner with some very good natural attributes. So congratulate him for his accomplishment and let's all get back to worrying about our own training instead of second guessing someone elses.
 
BJ went to Ralphs, BJ was a white belt and Camirrilo was a blue, they both got to purple about the same time.
 



Just felt like that deserved an embed (I hadn't seen it).
Anyway... those eyes. I'm biased due to reading camarillo's description of his experiences with Ralph, but that vid was... particularly interesting in that context. [Note: I don't know Ralph and am making no claim as to what he's like as a person or teacher. Just to be clear :) ]
 
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well, as you can see guys, ralph says "he didnt train for like 1 year or 2, he trained like a LOT (or something like that).... I mean, if he trained A LOT, how much is A LOT? I dont think he will be saying that if Bj had only spent a couple of years there...
 
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