I have recently gotten Eddie Bravo's JJ Unleashed book. It makes some very bold statements. Such as BJJ has become stagnated for MMA and BJJ not translating well to MMA. He said this is because some BJJ practisioners have become too used to holding onto the GI and when they fight MMA there is of course no Gi to hold onto. Do most of you agree that MMA training should be done without a GI or do most of you believe more like the Brazillians start out with a GI and then take the Gi off? This book technique-wise seems so far very good. One more question the book's copyright says 2006 so is this an advanced copy or do Publishers put out copyright dates in advance of the actual year?
same goes for renzo gracie...he says that you gotta learn no gi befor you should even think about mma bas rutten says the same and even royler gracie stated sometime that you should at least have one year of no gi grappling experience befor you start out with mma so bottom line: edie is right
I totally agree with Eddie. If you're supposed to fight without a gi why the f**k would you train with the gi on? i practice submission wrestling (no gi) and when i fight with some BJJ guys i clearly see that they need a gi to set subs up. All Eddie says in that book is gold to me, simply because if you train and fight in competitions (both MMA and Submission)you need all the holds that can only be applied on the body: neck, triceps, wrists etc.etc. Sorry I don't know about the copyright. cheers
But the Gracies you quoted along with other Brazillians say start with the Gi. Eddie is saying Don't start with the Gi because you get too comfortable grabbing the Gi. So the question is to start or not start with a Gi?
don't start with the gi if you don't have to use the gi. Renzo & co. fought a lot of BJJ matches so of course they had to.
As far as MMA is concerned, I would think training with a Gi is a bit of a waste of time. This is only because almost all of MMA is now Gi-less. I think that it is important to remember that the concepts of 'Exercise Specificity' apply as much to MMA as any other sport. Therefore, why would you train with a Gi for a no Gi event? In these respects, I think that in order to be good at MMA, you can bypass the Gi completely if you want to. Bas Rutten said exactly that in his big books of combat. He said that he never trained with a Gi because he didn't need to. He is now recognised as one of the better grapplers ever to come throught the sport of MMA.
I guess the difference in opinion from most Gracies to Eddie is that he thinks you shouldn't train with a Gi at ALL if your goal is applying the technique to MMA,no? While (most/some of) the gracies still feel you should learn the techniques with a gi and then later transition to no-gi? Never trained BJJ myself,but Eddie's argument makes sense to me. It's kinda like some of the programming books I've read lately that start out teaching you all kinds of deprecated stuff and bad habits, and then the books on the next level has to spend a couple 100 pages to teach you how it should be done,and to help you rid yourself of those bad habits,which are now second nature. Of course,if your goal is learning BJJ as opposed to using BJJ in MMA or no-gi sub grappling it's a completely different situation.
But every grappling/BJJ type school starts you with the Gi. Also what about if you incorporate MMA and self defense together should you start with the Gi or go no Gi?
Bas knows his shit but I wouldn't go that far. I don't see any grappling championships amongst his titles.
Yeah. If you are training for MMA there is no point in getting use to wearing the gi, then having to spend all that time breaking the habits. Sleave controls, lapel controls, etc. If you aren't training to be an MMA fighter, it's cool to do both. They are like two different sports. No Gi is very slick, and obviously there are no sleeves to use, so you have to incorporate head and arm controls. As for the comment about Gi fighters stagnating MMA, I think he states that it's because they rely completely on the gi to set up their techniques, then enter the ring without one, and do nothing but lay in the guard. Laying in the guard while doing nothing in MMA get's you punched in the face a bunch. Hence, not the best technique.
I would argue that if you are incorporating MMA and self defence then you must also learn with a Gi. The reason being that if you find yourself in a Self Defense (SD) situation your attacker will almost certainly have clothes on and you must know how to use their clothes against them. This is something the Gi teaches. Therefore to put it briefly: MMA only - no Gi training required MMA and SD - Gi and no Gi training required SD only - Gi and no Gi training required
This BJJ instructor at this one place I used to go recently made it a requirement for everyone to wear the gi . . . I think he's afraid of no-gi/MMA guys tapping him out and he needs the other person to wear a gi in order to better set up his submissions.
I still think It's best for beginners to start with a Gi, Once they get to about blue belt level and learn the basics then If you want to stick to no gi then you should proabably train primarily without it.
Which is what this forum is for. Fights and MMA discussion is for the MMA forum, grappling discussion is for the Grappling forum.
Bas is one of the better grapplers to ever have come through mma is rediculous if you've ever listened to the stuff he says about groundwork during fights... He has made leaps and bounds during his tim in mma, and became well-versed in submission grappling, but I wouldn't call him an expert by any means. Eddie, imo, is teh correctness.
