Machado Belts

I am confident, having met Rigan and spoken to him personally, he would NOT approve ANYONE to be 'skipping' belts...
 
I am confident, having met Rigan and spoken to him personally, he would NOT approve ANYONE to be 'skipping' belts...

I am confident after having spoken to this individual, that there are shady belt promotion practices at this AFFILIATE of Rigans.
 
I am confident, having met Rigan and spoken to him personally, he would NOT approve ANYONE to be 'skipping' belts...

As far as Charlie Cousens, he is a legit purple belt. I have seen him tap brown belts with a gi on. If I gave him a blue belt, I would be criticized for holding people back and sandbagging my students to make my school look better. This is why I learned not to try to please critics. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I'm very thankful to live in a place where we can freely express our opinions. -Ryan Fiorenzi Owner of East West Martial Arts

I think Mr. Fiorenzi in this very thread admitted to taking at least one student from white to purple. I'm pretty sure there are others.
 
I'm not sure why brollikk is getting scrutinized. There are multiple people from different schools all pretty much saying the same thing here.
 
I think Mr. Fiorenzi in this very thread admitted to taking at least one student from white to purple. I'm pretty sure there are others.

I would love to see this 'amazing' student come train at my school. While he could probably take me with ease (white belt), I doubt he could do much to our blues, let alone our purples.
 
All this slamming of sensei fiorenzi is very unsettling you should all learn some respect for the 6th machado
 
I would love to see this 'amazing' student come train at my school. While he could probably take me with ease (white belt), I doubt he could do much to our blues, let alone our purples.

I'm all for outing people who need to be outed, but if you ain't got the skills to punish frauds, you should just shut it rather than talking big.
 
All this slamming of sensei fiorenzi is very unsettling you should all learn some respect for the 6th machado

It's not disrespect of him as a BJJer. It is being critical of his way of business. you can divorce the one from the other.
 
better bump this before it escapes the first page
 
its the internet. anyone can call out anyone. its whether or not if that person can defend himself... thats the issue.

I don't disagree but a white belt passing judgment on a black belt's promotion decisions is a bit much imo.
 
I don't disagree but a white belt passing judgment on a black belt's promotion decisions is a bit much imo.

Why is that? Because a white belt can't possibly know the signs of a stupid promotion? How can you possibly justify the skipping of belts? Hell, my wife (a "non-belt") could tell you that doesn't make sense and is a disgrace to the Machado name.

Bash me all you want for judging someone else while I am a rookie, but for the record, it's the internet. I could claim to be a purple belt and it would be believed, but instead I speak honestly so judge away, but remember, it doesn't take a race car driver to know that turning right in Nascar is a bad idea...
 
better bump this before it escapes the first page

For the sake of fairness it might be better for you to post your full name, your rank and the school you teach at now.

Full disclosure is a wonderful thing.
 
I think Mr. Fiorenzi in this very thread admitted to taking at least one student from white to purple. I'm pretty sure there are others.

Possibly, if the school has a lot of advanced teens who have been training a while.

The IBJJF has specific standards as to who should be moved from green (adult white) to blue or even purple based on time in grade.

International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation

The time in grade is a minimum. The instructor must also consider performance and skill level and determine whether the teen can hang with the adults from the same academy, of the same weight, at the same rank. Some definitely can. A few do more than just hang. At the Worlds this year, the young woman who won the purple belt absolute is supposedly under 18.
 
No disrespect, but your a piss ant white belt questioning the belt integrity of the first family of jiu jitsu. It's doubtful you will even make blue and if you do, then you will know exactly what it took to get that blue. Why don't you try going to class ONCE before you worry about what people will think of your belt, that you don't have yet.

Lol I like this guy.
 
I'm really surprised at this thread because nobody has mentioned Fiorenzi's partnership with Sifu Robert Brown.

This alone should sink Fiorenzi as a "respectable" guy. Seriously. Sifu Robert Brown is a load of McDojo crap who has no idea what he is doing, but is really good at selling it to soccer moms and suburban fantasy basement dwellers. There are even a couple of bullshido articles I read about the guy from a few years ago after I went to visit the BJJ classes at "School of Asian Martial Arts" in Berkley.

Fiorenzi is the BJJ instructor there and trains Sifu Brown. The entire program is total crap.

I checked out the program about 6 months ago, after having only about 6 months training in BJJ, because it was closer to my house. Fiorenzi was NOT THERE when I went, so Sifu Brown was running the class. And Brown was wearing all black. I asked a student who was helping with my "intro" if Brown had a black belt. The student told me that brown had a REALLY high rank.

I got creepy cult vibes from everyone the entire time I was there. Everyone kept talking about how great Sifu Brown was, and everyone kept telling me how amazing Ryan was. They repeated to me probably 50 times that Fiorenzi was the highest ranked and best and most advnaced BJJ guy in all of Michigan. However, everyone there, from the other beginners to their most advanced "helpers" were the worst BJJ guys I have ever in my life seen.

I did not roll with Sifu Brown, but anyone I did roll with was completely clueless. They kept saying I was really good and kept saying I must have already trained for a long long time. I only had 6 months of twice a week training! And yet they couldn't pass my guard, couldn't control my wrists, couldn't get any choke or submission to work on me. And I could understand when I saw Sifu Brown "demonstrate" a few of the drills we were to go over because even me, with barely a beginners level, could tell he was explaning things terribly wrong. He said everything with lots of this almost mystical explanations too, as if he was some expert in body mechanics and physiology. But nothing he said was even white belt level. His RNC explanation was terrible (lots of wrenching things back), his armbars were terrible. No wonder his students couldn't get them to work at all (let alone get into position to attempt one in free rolling). And Robert Brown is apparently a purple under Fiorenzi and a Black under... some mail order thing. His students didn't seem to even know.

And Fiorenzi now runs Brown's programs and "zen" teaching at East West apparently (I have never been to East West). But it can't be good if his website claims to be running Brown's programs at it.

Also, Brown has no zen training. He just passes himself off as a zen and meditation master to make money off of the suburbanites. And apparently he has no actual kung fu training either, according to the other stuff I've hread about him on the web.

-------------------
Sorry to resurrect an old thread. I was just broswing around looking for BJJ in Michigan stuff.
 
Why on earth would you think a belt given out by a Machado brother would be non accredited? The Machado Bro's and the Gracies are basically the first people to bring BJJ to the US and the world.

I cant say for the other Machado brothers but I train under Carlos Machado and they have a set curriculum that you have to follow. One thing i do notice with him is that there are only 3 stripes on your belt compared to the standard 4 stripes that I see a lot of other schools have. (I mean I could be wrong there)

You have to put so many hours on the mat/attend so many classes before they even invite you to test etc.

In some instances they have given belts to guys in less time but only because they tapped higher belts legitimately.

I also know the instructors at most of the other schools around here and some of them give you a belt whenever they think you deserve it. So no time table at all.

The only thing I seem to see nowadays is that BJJ guys under the Machado's don't seem to be placing a lot in competitions but then again I am not in SoCal where a few of the brothers are adn don't follow the competition team there so I couldn't give an accurate account of that.

But looking at the top players currently in BJJ they either come from Gracie/Atos/Check Mat/Alliance etc.

Another thing the instructors in my area say is "Carlos Machado has the best instruction in Dallas period" Even though they own and instruct their own schools

So hard to access BJJ in the Dallas-Garland Area. -___-
 
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