Royce: "Jiu-jitsu is enough ... I believe in pure jiu-jitsu."

If he means it is silly for a bjj guy to stand with a striker, yes, he is right. Think of Rhalan Gracie, and now Rolles, getting lit up buy guys they could have subbed, for no good reason.
 
'Pure jiu jitsu' is enough as long as you train striking and wrestling as well, then still call what you do 'pure jiu jitsu.'
 
Rolls trained wrestling to add to his arsenal so perhaps he would have disagreed with this too? Pure Jiu-Jitsu is in the gi, when you take it off to fight you need to incorporate other styles, this is what mma has shown us and what Luta Livre proponents have said for years. I've started to steer clear of the philosophy of bjj from the Royce/Rorian perspective and take more philosophical influence on the grappling arts from the Carlson Gracie and Luta Livre guys.
 
I think it all comes down to this. If grappling is clearly your best skill you'd be crazy to have your striking and wrestling supplant your grappling rather than setting it up...as we all have ranted about on here so many, many times...

So wrestling isn't grappling. That's a bit weird..
 
this is what Royce said 2 months ago, the same question:

SI.com: What do you think of the MMA that your kids are growing up watching? The fighters of today are well versed in a variety of disciplines, from standup to the ground. The thinking is you can't survive as simply a jiu-jitsu guy anymore. Do you agree?

Gracie: Fighters have to adapt. Look at Lyoto Machida, for instance, or Chuck Liddell. They come from a karate background, but they had to learn wrestling to avoid being taken down. If they did wind up on the mat, they had to know jiu-jitsu, just to know what's coming at them. I learned my boxing and kickboxing not because I was planning to knock somebody out. I just needed to know how standup fighters moved, how they would set me up with a kick or punch. So, yes, fighters have evolved, but they all have one main style that they call home, where they feel most comfortable.


and this is what Royce said 10 years ago when Couture beat Belfort for the first time:
O Tatame: Jiu-jitsu has lost in its last two confrontations with wrestling. What are you going to do differently from what Carlao [Baretto] and Vitinho [Vitor Belfort] did?

Royce: I am going to fight with the right techniques. Those guys tried to win with force and brute power, which is what the American wrestlers [gringos] know best. They could have won using their jiu-jitsu that they have always done.

Q: What did you think about Vitor vs. Couture?

Royce: I think that he [Vitor] exaggerated the preparation of boxing and weight training and forgot about what was the most important thing. What is going to win the fight is not boxing, it is jiu-jitsu. It was the first real test for Vitor, with action on stand up and on the ground, against his first real opponent It is easy to win by beating someone down. The difficult thing is to get beaten down and come back and win.


keep in mind that when a Gracie and old school jiu jitsu practicioners say "jiu jitsu" they mean also self defence, takedowns, clinch work, defence against punches and so on.
in the mma world today brazilian jiu jitsu = ground work, but it isn't true.

that being said, i think that the Carlson/Belfort approach was right, it's better to be good in striking and jiu jitsu than only jiu jitsu.
 
Royce is saying that the new guys want to complement their game with other skills instead of supplement it. "I've trained boxing in the past to learn the distance, trained wrestling to understand how he would take me down". He's saying that's fine, but trying to become a legit striker separate from your jiu-jitsu base is not. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, just trying to clarify his statement.

Exactly what happened to Maia for a while
 
Pure Jiu Jitsu, or Pure Tae Kwon Do (or any other TMA) would probably work just fine against someone who knows nothing.

In the early days of the UFC, pure jiu-jitsu plus a crappy double leg take-down was enough to end the fight because nobody knew any takedown or ground defenses.

Now with the cross training, you've got strikers like Jon Jones (a white belt in BJJ) who can destroy some of the best MMA fighters.
 
IMO I agree with Royce, but there's a catch. I believe "pure Jiu-Jitsu" is a complete martial art with an emphasis on ground work and submissions. What this means is that Jiu-Jitsu should have a strong set of stand-up techniques meant to handle striking situations with the goal of getting the fight to the ground and submitting the opponent.

In other words, I agree with Royce but the Jiu-Jitsu we know of today is not "pure Jiu-Jitsu."

In other words, I believe MMA as we know it right now is closer to "pure Jiu-Jitsu" than Jiu-Jitsu as we know it right now is.
 
Rolls trained wrestling to add to his arsenal so perhaps he would have disagreed with this too? Pure Jiu-Jitsu is in the gi, when you take it off to fight you need to incorporate other styles, this is what mma has shown us and what Luta Livre proponents have said for years. I've started to steer clear of the philosophy of bjj from the Royce/Rorian perspective and take more philosophical influence on the grappling arts from the Carlson Gracie and Luta Livre guys.

I'm jealous of your lineage.
 
I think he is right when it comes to top bjj players trying to be strikers. If bjj is your bread and butter you should be learning striking and wrestling as a means to get the fight to the ground. I think you can apply this form of thinking to high level strikers and wrestlers.
 
Pure Jiu Jitsu, or Pure Tae Kwon Do (or any other TMA) would probably work just fine against someone who knows nothing.

In the early days of the UFC, pure jiu-jitsu plus a crappy double leg take-down was enough to end the fight because nobody knew any takedown or ground defenses.

Now with the cross training, you've got strikers like Jon Jones (a white belt in BJJ) who can destroy some of the best MMA fighters.

not true, pure TKD or any pure TMA will not be enough, this is bullshit, striking arts that have no real Full contact are worth for nothing. in a fight of a regular joe vs tkd XXX belt, normally the tougher guy will win.
 
I lost faith in TKD when an Olympian blindsided a ref with a kick to the face and the ref wasn't even phased.
 
Rolls trained wrestling to add to his arsenal so perhaps he would have disagreed with this too? Pure Jiu-Jitsu is in the gi, when you take it off to fight you need to incorporate other styles, this is what mma has shown us and what Luta Livre proponents have said for years. I've started to steer clear of the philosophy of bjj from the Royce/Rorian perspective and take more philosophical influence on the grappling arts from the Carlson Gracie and Luta Livre guys.

bjj has been an ever evolving art, whether helio liked it or not. I can say I train pure bjj, and I train no gi 3 times a week, and in my class, besides the 1 month LL we did, no one has ever wrestle in their life, we got a couple of judo guys though. So no, unlike what LL guys have said for decades, jiu jitsu is jiu jitsu, wheter you take the gi off or not. If you are doing "submission wrestling" in a bjj class gym, under a bjj instructor who has learned everything he knows from a bjj instructor, then we are just doing no gi bjj.

I know you switched from Bjj to LL, but dont turn into a LL taliban (boy they are radicals, way worst than bjj talibans). I have THE most respect towards LL, and will continue to train in it as many chances I have, probably will be training it for 2 months straight December-January this time.
 
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In other words, I agree with Royce but the Jiu-Jitsu we know of today is not "pure Jiu-Jitsu."

In other words, I believe MMA as we know it right now is closer to "pure Jiu-Jitsu" than Jiu-Jitsu as we know it right now is.

pretty much.

Royce grew up defending the Gracie Challenge.

Sometimes he will fight with a gi, no strikes or strikes, one time he rann down to fight in his speedos at the Torrance Academy.

He was trained to fight with strikes. No date to prepare for. A guy would just turn up and it is on.

How many of his or anyone students are able to claim such type of experience and training?

I listened to Berhing podcast and it was the same for him. At the age of 16, he was fighting Gracie Challenge as well. strikes or no strikes. No time to get ready. Carlos will just tell him the take a gi and would take him to another location to fight.
 
pretty much.

Royce grew up defending the Gracie Challenge.

Sometimes he will fight with a gi, no strikes or strikes, one time he rann down to fight in his speedos at the Torrance Academy.

He was trained to fight with strikes. No date to prepare for. A guy would just turn up and it is on.

How many of his or anyone students are able to claim such type of experience and training?

I listened to Berhing podcast and it was the same for him. At the age of 16, he was fighting Gracie Challenge as well. strikes or no strikes. No time to get ready. Carlos will just tell him the take a gi and would take him to another location to fight.

I agree, I haven't been around long enough to remember when "pure jiu jitsu" was the standard/norm. Does anyone know when the change became really prominent?
 
I agree, I haven't been around long enough to remember when "pure jiu jitsu" was the standard/norm. Does anyone know when the change became really prominent?

About the time where it was more financially viable to run the sport image instead of the old image.
 
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