Online Gracie acadamy??

peter p

Hey,
came across this website http://www.gracieacademy.com/ If you have a trainning partner /friend you can actually rise up the belts via webcam! wat u guys think?

Clive

I think that Brasilians like money.

Niall Keane

In 1850, Yang Lu Chan who became to be known as "Yang Wu Di" (Yang the Invincible) came to Beijing and on a Lei Tai beat all its famous masters, including those of the imperial guard. His art was called Tai Chi Chuan, nowadays more commonly referred to as simply "Tai Chi". This of course is apt, as the Chuan refers to fist or martial art, whereas most who practice now know nothing of the martial.

This happened especially from the third generation on, the inheritor of the style Yang Cheng Fu never learned the "family" martial art, and on the death of his father was berated by the father’s students, telling him he had through laziness lost a treasure. So he learned from his father’s students and took over the style as leading master, even then brand image meant something!!! Anyway he basically reinvented the applications based on the form (forms come from applications not the other way around), and started teaching "for health".

I.e. he was interested in business, on capitalising on his family’s historic record of martial ability. No longer would his style be passed down in small groups directly from master to disciple, maintaining a "Zhen chuan" or true transmission, instead it was opened up, until today most would agree that Tai Chi "players" have become the butt of jokes in the martial arts world!

Despite, as some of you here on boards are aware of, the fact that I personally practice Tai Chi Chuan with an emphasis on the martial, and have competed successfully in Chinese boxing and wrestling, and have also trained others to do so, there have been occasions, not infrequently, when Tai Chi players, have told me that what I was doing was wrong and not Tai Chi Chuan, on one occasion a lady announcing to me her qualifications as a Tai Chi teacher, I didn't have the inclination to argue with such a, as my Sifu - Dan Docherty would call, a pygmy detractor. She was qualified from some other Tai Chi player, probably officially recognised now by IMAC or such, in fact if you were bothered you could probably trace the trait of hopeless inability back several generations of so called self qualified masters.

My question... Is BJJ the new TCC? I see now there are 3rd degree black belts???? Guess that happened once black belts started becoming more numerous?? BJJ exploded onto the world stage, and rapidly gained popularity, that means that there is probably a lot of business minded rather than martial minded guys out there now, waiting to reach the point of the pyramid scheme where they can start firing out and charging for belts? Doing this over the internet, isn't this the exact bullshido that BJJ set out to correct?

cletus

this has been discussed quite extensively of bullshido.net. It turns out that you you can only go as far as brown via the website:rolleyes:

I posted an interview with Renzo Gracie recently on this forum, where he discusses what he thinks of Rorion's business models, (albeit not this directly) its worth a listen

On a personal level, I think its bull****, and it can only serve to lower the standard of the grades in jiu-jitsu

spiral

Rorion loves the money !

There are of course suspect belt awards in BJJ but not to the same extent as some of the other martial arts .
If you are a blackbelt in BJJ you will have a blackbelt game simple as and if you dont then something is wrong and people wont care where you got your belt from, they will go somewhere else to find out what they are looking for .

Doug Cartel

The videos themselves are really good, the ranking is super dodgy, and - fittingly - Rorian is pronounced "whore-ian".

Baggio...

$

cletus

Niall Keane wrote: »

My question... Is BJJ the new TCC? I see now there are 3rd degree black belts???? Guess that happened once black belts started becoming more numerous?? BJJ exploded onto the world stage, and rapidly gained popularity, that means that there is probably a lot of business minded rather than martial minded guys out there now, waiting to reach the point of the pyramid scheme where they can start firing out and charging for belts? Doing this over the internet, isn't this the exact bullshido that BJJ set out to correct?

Niall, I see what you are saying, but the difference in this case is that this refers specifically to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, as opposed to bjj. GJJ is Rorions trademarked term. Unless you got your black belt from Rorion, you cannot claim to teach GJJ

As a result, if you train with, for example Renzo Gracie, you are doing "Renzo Gracie jiu-jitsu". This is how the rest of the Gracie family get around the trademark issue

Those instructors who do not have Gracie as a surname, simply refer to what they do as bjj.

There are certain problems with this. Rorion regards anything other than his GJJ to not be the "pure" jiu-jitsu, and he believes that sport jj or bjj has diluted his family's art.

Hence, there should be no overall problem with bjj ranks worldwide, however, you will probably have guys who want to be able to say that their dojo does grappling/mma/whatever, will try to abuse this system to try and legitimise what they they teach

Liam_B

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvVObjQwwE haha

I can understand ,trying to pick up some idea's but giving out Ranks online!?!?
All this online Ranking doesnt smell well.

Reminds me of a story on EFNSPORTS a while back about a Gangster who was going walking into Carlson Gracie Seminars to take photos with Carlson & Rodrigo Meideros, then saying he was a black belt under them and started a online curriculum giving out ranks in Jiujitsu and MMA. Mike oberegovich was the guys name I think
http://www.efnsports.com/forum/index.php?topic=4801.0

Oh ..& as Cletus mentions above , check out the interview with Renzo and then Reners response on Fightworks Podcast
http://thefightworkspodcast.com/

cletus

Rener sounds quite cultish when describing the 3 stages of Gracie world domination

dasmoose

Another thing to bear in mind is that because of the competitive nature of BJJ, like Judo, it will be hard for people to water down their belts and not be caught out. If there are any schools wear people are training for years and years and no one ever competes they're going to be a bit confused when they go online and see people talking about Roger Gracie's latest Mundial win.

Also the nature of the seperated belt ranks in tournaments means each level will stay the same - and in fact I think theres an argument for it going higher as there is a wider pool in each division. Most instructors take competition performance into account (at least to some extent) when awarding belts and if it's harder to do well...

dasmoose

Oh and another thing.... you know who doesn't compete? The Gracie Academy.

Because apparently time limits and points don't exist on the street. Wonder where we've heard that before.

Gorman

This is exactly why belts are a stupid idea - people get upset about the validity of belts, mostly the reason being it diminishes the perception of their own belts when someone buys theirs.

For example lets say I spent 10years of hard work to get my blackbelt and some other guy put in 1year on on online course and paid the $$$. Now I probably will be a little upset about the online guy, but really it doesn't matter, I'm still as good as I was. The only difference is that the outside world views the two of us to have the same ability, however people who are actually involved with the sport will know who the poser is.

The funny thing is Rorion and his sons are absolutely legit when it comes to BJJ, more power to them if they can get cumps to send them money, but it doesn't take away from the fact they are excellent teachers and have great BJJ.


It won't bother me at all if they promote people online, anyone with a clue knows that you have to put time in on the mat. Actually eventually it could make me look good I might start tapping purples, browns and blacks

KevinH

dasmoose wrote: »

Most instructors take competition performance into account (at least to some extent) when awarding belts and if it's harder to do well...

I thought you had to compete to get a purple ?
Maybe that is only certain schools ?

dasmoose

Must only be certain schools.

Gorman - so degrees are stupid because a degree from Oxford is worth more than an internet degree from John Joe's School of Turnips?

Gorman

dasmoose wrote: »

Must only be certain schools.

Gorman - so degrees are stupid because a degree from Oxford is worth more than an internet degree from John Joe's School of Turnips?

Well - from what I've seen peoples degrees don't seem to count for much either (in turns of ability), but thats another discussion.

but the fact is you'll be found out found out fairly quickly when start working, in BJJs case when you roll with other poeple, teach or compete

cletus

Gorman wrote: »

but the fact is you'll be found out found out fairly quickly when start working, in BJJs case when you roll with other poeple, teach or compete

not necessarily, i mean, if you have never done bjj before, and you go to johnny x's class, and he has a cert from the Torrence academy, how do you know whether he's teaching properly.

This sort of thing happens all the time in various martial arts, and saying buyer beware is not good enough, its people like us who are actively involved in martial arts that need to stand up and say no, its not acceptable, if we want to have integrity in what we do

zenboy

the material is top notch,instruction the best ive seen and certainly many bjj schools dont teach defense against a striker,at least they dont train it regularly.However the blue belt program contains no resisted training or sparring so isnt effective at evaluating anyones ability to function under pressure .The sparring starts after blue belt I hear.

Ug Lee

The Gracie Academy seem to recognise that there is a difference in how you will fight in the street and how you will fight in a competition. They state that they don't claim to be the best grapplers in competitions and that students of the Gracie Academy might not fare as well in competitions as other BJJ students of the same belt. However students of the Gracie Academy might be better prepared for a street fight. So for example they will teach how to defend against on opponent who is punching you when they are mounted on you. Alternatively they won't emphasise flying triangles for the street.

However I am not sure about the term "pure" to describe Gracie Jiu-Jitsu as the term is very subjective.

I find the lessons very good and while I am not sure about grading people online, they have stated that a substantial percentage of students fail which is encouraging.

Again, some of the best people in Ireland who teach BJJ started with books, videos and practise. Imagine if they had something online like this.

And yes, they let people start teaching basic GJJ who have no GJJ/BJJ experience but so do other BJJ schools in Ireland with their affialite programmes.

Doug Cartel

Ug Lee wrote: »

However students of the Gracie Academy might be better prepared for a street fight.

Well they would say that, wouldn't they? You know that one of the things the things the GJJ guys preach is that if you're pinned you should just wait until your opponent makes a mistake? (That's why they think time-limits are bad)

I've read interviews where they claim this is a perfectly valid thing to do on the deadly streets - just wait and wait until whatever. Shows how solid their grasp of what 'real' self defence is.

JohnMc1

cletus wrote: »

Rener sounds quite cultish when describing the 3 stages of Gracie world domination

Considering one of Rorian's sons [Reylson IIRC] almost turned away one of Renzo's Blue Belts because Renzo "Isn't teaching true Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu" I would be surprised if there is a cultish vibe at the Gracie academy.

cletus

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Considering one of Rorian's sons [Reylson IIRC] almost turned away one of Renzo's Blue Belts because Renzo "Isn't teaching true Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu" I would be surprised if there is a cultish vibe at the Gracie academy.

why would it surprise you?

JohnMc1

cletus wrote: »

why would it surprise you?

Thanks Cletus. Meant to say it wouldn't surprise me. The Renzo Blue got some payback though because he was eventually allowed to train there and he tapped out all of the higher belts.

cletus

JohnMc1 wrote: »

Thanks Cletus. Meant to say it wouldn't surprise me. The Renzo Blue got some payback though because he was eventually allowed to train there and he tapped out all of the higher belts.

thought thats what you meant, but this is the internet after

JohnMc1

cletus wrote: »

thought thats what you meant, but this is the internet after

Yeah typos suck.

Furious-Dave

Thought this would be a humorous addition to the thread -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvVObjQwwE&feature=player_embedded

I know this video has been used for so much but it's funny.

JohnMc1

Furious-Dave wrote: »

Thought this would be a humorous addition to the thread -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvVObjQwwE&feature=player_embedded

I know this video has been used for so much but it's funny.

LOL. Great video.

Gorman

Furious-Dave wrote: »

Thought this would be a humorous addition to the thread -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jvVObjQwwE&feature=player_embedded

I know this video has been used for so much but it's funny.

Thats class, very well done

Martin25

Very funny video!

mmaireland.com

Furious-Dave wrote: »

I know this video has been used for so much but it's funny.

I'd seen the vid used to parody other stuff but not this. "I can remember days where my arse was red raw from working on canvas mats..."

Superb!