Is Gracie Jiu Jitsu worth it?

[Practical Goat]

Just started at a GJJ school and I've had a few people telling me to stick to a proper BJJ school and avoid Gracie stuff. Is this true, if so, why?

My intentions are to do this as a hobby, a confidence boost and self defence. I'm never looking at entering the cage or bjj rolling comps.

 

[shodown]

I'm going to say it just depends on the school. The curriculum in gracie jiu jitsu is actually pretty good. The problem is that you don't do any sparring until you finish it(Again this depends on the school). So depending on your schedule it may take over a year to get all of it done, while if you went to another school you would be positional sparring with no submissions the first few weeks then building from there(again this depends on the school, but the schools I visited afterI moved all didn't allow full sparring for students for at least a month or 2). At the end of that year you would be a way better grappler than someone who was only doing the Gracie curriculum. I'm saying this as someone who started in GJJ then moved to another school when I moved. I had stripes on my belt, but no sparring and I was getting destroyed by people who had less time than me on the mats. Gracie was a good warmup intro into BJJ, but the lack of warmups(shrimping, break-falling, tumbling etc) does a huge disadvantage to students when if they are learning these things from day 1 they can build upon it. With that said GJJ brings you in slow and once you have some skin in the game your less likely to quit. Also if you stay at the GJJ school and move to master cycle it does come with that gut check when sparring is added.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

If you're serious and not a troll thread (since this same topic has been covered many times) feel free to pm me with questions. I've been at a Gracie Academy CTC for 2+ years and trained at an no-gi sub grappling mma gym for 3~ years before that. I will be able to answer any legit questions you have.

 

[Jeff Goldblum69]

I trained with Helio Gracie... he was pretty legit

 

[Practical Goat]

If you're serious and not a troll thread (since this same topic has been covered many times) feel free to pm me with questions. I've been at a Gracie Academy CTC for 2+ years and trained at an no-gi sub grappling mma gym for 3~ years before that. I will be able to answer any legit questions you have.

If I could that would be great. I'm definitely not trolling. I'm just very new to the sport and didn't want to waste my time in a crappy area of the sport. I've been rolling with the instructor after every lesson but it's more positional. My friend, who is hoping to turn pro this year has said that Gracie is like franchise, money grabbing rubbish.. I don't know any better so not sure what to believe.

 

[Quebec Nick]

I'm going to say it just depends on the school. The curriculum in gracie jiu jitsu is actually pretty good. The problem is that you don't do any sparring until you finish it(Again this depends on the school). So depending on your schedule it may take over a year to get all of it done, while if you went to another school you would be positional sparring with no submissions the first few weeks then building from there(again this depends on the school, but the schools I visited afterI moved all didn't allow full sparring for students for at least a month or 2). At the end of that year you would be a way better grappler than someone who was only doing the Gracie curriculum. I'm saying this as someone who started in GJJ then moved to another school when I moved. I had stripes on my belt, but no sparring and I was getting destroyed by people who had less time than me on the mats. Gracie was a good warmup intro into BJJ, but the lack of warmups(shrimping, break-falling, tumbling etc) does a huge disadvantage to students when if they are learning these things from day 1 they can build upon it. With that said GJJ brings you in slow and once you have some skin in the game your less likely to quit. Also if you stay at the GJJ school and move to master cycle it does come with that gut check when sparring is added.

I will seem clueless but I never envision BJJ with no sparring at the end of class. I know that the amount of rounds and the format (takedowns, starting in the guard, guard pass vs sweep only...) can vary from school to school, but no sparring at all just doesn't feels right.

We don't have the Gracie Jiu Jitsu academies in Quebec, we have Gracie-Barra, BTT and Nova Uniao in my area.

I remember my first BJJ class and we did 3 X 6min sparring rounds in the beginners class. I had some experience in no gi so I knew one or two things. I did well against other white belts with one or two stripes but got choked out by a baseball bat choke, against a blue belt in the last round. First time I realized how dangerous a lapel was. The next class I got straight to the regular classes where we did 5 to 8 X 6 min sparring rounds. Rolling with everybody from white to brown belt.

It was maybe a rough start for some people and I'm sure that it can make some people quit right away. But there's a middle ground between no sparring for months and sparring 20 to 45 minutes every classes.

 

[Kyuktooki]

Schools should be judged on a case to case basis. Here are some red flags for me:

• Gym has no sparring.
• Gym makes you buy their gi and wear their patches.
• You aren't allowed to train at other gyms.
• Coach or certain students will roll very hard with someone due to a perceived slight.
• Coach shows no interest in the progress of certain students in the class.
• They never practice without the gi.
• Students frequently injured because of negligence.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

I like the GJJ curriculum, I love the combatives course, bur there is absolutely no fucking way im holding someone from rolling till they reach blue belt. That whole thing is focus towards retaining payers. I agree that you should build your fundamentals slowly, but larping around for a fucking year, no way, hell I make eveyrone who join my class roll from day 1.

 

[andrewm2211]

Didn't Rickson get involved sometime ago and insist that white belts have to roll before getting their blue?

 

[lechien]

Just started at a GJJ school and I've had a few people telling me to stick to a proper BJJ school and avoid Gracie stuff. Is this true, if so, why?

My intentions are to do this as a hobby, a confidence boost and self defence. I'm never looking at entering the cage or bjj rolling comps.

Where do you train?

 

[shodown]

Didn't Rickson get involved sometime ago and insist that white belts have to roll before getting their blue?

Yes you do have to roll before you get your blue, but you still have to complete the combatives courses before you start to "Roll", I've seen some schools break this model and made sparring an after class thing, but most schools don't include it in class. I do believe its a money thing. They keep you on the hook for 96 classes and you aren't rolling, but have a feeling your learning something keeps you coming back. With that said I've seen very few people finish combatives and quit right away after they start rolling, they feel they have invested too much time to run. I see both sides of the coin.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

I like the GJJ curriculum, I love the combatives course, bur there is absolutely no fucking way im holding someone from rolling till they reach blue belt. That whole thing is focus towards retaining payers. I agree that you should build your fundamentals slowly, but larping around for a fucking year, no way, hell I make eveyrone who join my class roll from day 1.

That's changed. I believe you have to spar before going to blue, including fight sim (rolling with strikes and mma gloves).

That said, no rolling never applied to all schools. White belts roll at the CTC I attend day one if they want.

 

[Was at Pride GP 2000]

Didn't Rickson get involved sometime ago and insist that white belts have to roll before getting their blue?

No

 

[andrewm2211]

No

It's in this video

 

[cardkid]

So did you stick with the Gracie academy?

 

[Hotora86]

I trained with Helio Gracie... he was pretty legit

I trained with Helio Gracie... subbed him 400-0.

 

[Uchi Mata]

If I could that would be great. I'm definitely not trolling. I'm just very new to the sport and didn't want to waste my time in a crappy area of the sport. I've been rolling with the instructor after every lesson but it's more positional. My friend, who is hoping to turn pro this year has said that Gracie is like franchise, money grabbing rubbish.. I don't know any better so not sure what to believe.

It really depends on the school and on the coach. There are some Gracie schools that are extremely strong and produce good fighters (whatever else you want to say about them, Ryron and Renner train some very high level UFC fighters). There are also Karate schools with a guy who got his blue belt over the internet teaching Combatives. If your school is run by a legit black belt, preferably one with some sort of competition record (BJJ or MMA), then you're probably fine. If it's just some guy who hasn't really spent a lot of time on BJJ and just has it as an addendum to his Tae Kwon Do school, I'd look elsewhere.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

It really depends on the school and on the coach. There are some Gracie schools that are extremely strong and produce good fighters (whatever else you want to say about them, Ryron and Renner train some very high level UFC fighters). There are also Karate schools with a guy who got his blue belt over the internet teaching Combatives. If your school is run by a legit black belt, preferably one with some sort of competition record (BJJ or MMA), then you're probably fine. If it's just some guy who hasn't really spent a lot of time on BJJ and just has it as an addendum to his Tae Kwon Do school, I'd look elsewhere.

This ^^^^^ 100%

 

[trustdoesntrust]

Just started at a GJJ school and I've had a few people telling me to stick to a proper BJJ school and avoid Gracie stuff. Is this true, if so, why?

My intentions are to do this as a hobby, a confidence boost and self defence. I'm never looking at entering the cage or bjj rolling comps.

Is it true Gracie Jiu Jitsu, or just one of the innumerable schools with a Gracie in the name?

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

Is it true Gracie Jiu Jitsu, or just one of the innumerable schools with a Gracie in the name?

I don't train under Humaita (Royler) or Royce schools, but from my observations the curriculum at each is very similar to the curriculum under the Gracie Academy (Rorion lineage). I would imagine Relson's curriculum is similar as well (just a wild guess). Basically I bet anyone under one of Helio's kids will have similar experiences to each other (as well as Valente bros). As far as I can tell, and I may be wrong, the differences would be when you start getting into the Carlos/Carlson/Gracie Barra etc affiliations.