BJJ Poll: How Did You React When You Received Your Most Recent Jiu-Jitsu Belt Promotion?

by Caleb on June 2, 2012

You know Slideyfoot, right? The PhD candidate, BJJ blogger, teacher, and purple belt lives in England. Here at The FightWorks Podcast we consider him a longtime friend. He wrote us this week with a suggestion for our BJJ Polls:

It would be interesting to know statistically what the split was between those whose first thought upon getting promoted was “Hooray! I’m a # belt! I feel great!” and those who think “Oh crap. I’m a # belt. Can I give it back?”

Always the enquiring mind! We are curious too! Slidey’s email to us continued:

It would be even more interesting to further subdivide those results into academies that promote via a test, others who promote via competition and those who just throw a belt at you without warning.

Also good questions. We have a little data around those topics here:

We wonder… was this BJJ poll question prompted because a certain spectacled Englishman may be getting his brown belt soon? Time (and Roger Gracie) will tell!

In any case, let us know how you reacted when you were last promoted in BJJ and leave us a comment to tell us about that crazy day.

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2012 BJJ World Championships Are Here!

by Caleb on June 1, 2012

Just like a little kid at Christmas, I will be getting up very early tomorrow morning. Instead of racing downstairs with bad bed-head to see what’s under the tree, I will be racing 2 hours from San Diego to Long Beach, California for the 2012 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championships!

It’s the most important BJJ tournament of the year by anyone’s measure. Twenty-six hundred competitors from around the planet have converged on the Long Beach Pyramid in a feeding frenzy of mats, sweat, shouting, and tears. Yes, there will be tears.

Last year Alliance BJJ came home with the team trophy, meaning that over all their warriors captured most of the more valuable medals at the event. According to GracieMag, this time around Alliance commanders Fabio Gurgel and “Jacare” Cavalcanti are bringing 10% of all participants! Alliance has traditionally been the most winning team in BJJ for the past several years but we have seen some vulnerabilities in their dominance over the last 18 months or so from some very hungry challengers, most notably the scrapping, happy go lucky crew at CheckMat BJJ, not to mention the powerful fighters from Atos BJJ.

While I have not been training on the mats the way the champions from those teams have been (or even like the average brown belt I should be has been, for that matter!), I have been getting ready for the broadcast, which I’ll be commentating on with the great crew from BudoVideos. Take the image below for example: look at all those pages I had to print!


All the print-outs I’m bringing with me! Stats, brackets, schedules… That must be an inch of paper! Click to enlarge.

And yes, I spent a little time with the new IBJJF rule book.

If you’re not going to be at the Long Beach Pyramid in person this weekend, I really hope you will join us on the BudoVideos broadcast, which you can access right here. My co-host for the broadcast Shawn Williams and I will be bringing you the action live as it happens on every mat! You can also expect some interviews with big BJJ stars, and you can even jump in with us and the rest of the audience with the live chat!

Okay – I can’t delay anymore! I have to go pack and get ready for this weekend! See you there or online, Family!

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BJJ Poll: When Do You Prefer to Train?

May 26, 2012

The well was dry when I was trying to come up with a good Brazilian jiu-jitsu poll for this week, so I turned to twitter and asked if anyone had any good ideas. Many thanks to gerry g, who suggested this idea for a poll: @bjjradio If you had to choose, would you rather train [...]

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#257 Red Belt BJJ Documentary from Rio and the Top Five Most Underappreciated Legends

May 20, 2012

Know the name Hywel Teague? If you don’t, you should. Hywel (pronounced “how-ell”) records some of the most popular Brazilian jiu-jitsu videos out there for BJJ Hacks. This British journalist and wizard of BJJ media lives in Rio de Janeiro and is now taking on the biggest project of his life: a full length documentary [...]

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BJJ Poll: Does Your BJJ Academy Emphasize Drilling?

May 19, 2012

We received this suggestion for a poll from Franck, a longtime member of the Mighty 600,000: Hello Caleb Just a simple question for a poll: Does your academy emphasize on drilling or not? For me it makes a troumendous difference especially regarding the quality if rolling. The more you drill the better it is . [...]

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BJJ Poll: Have You Ever Complained About a BJJ Referee Decision and Would You Referee?

May 12, 2012

I was speaking with a BJJ purple belt I know recently who commented on how hard it must be to be a Brazilian jiu-jitsu referee at a tournament. “Sure, a lot of people criticize them, but how many of them would actually be a referee?” I wondered. Then it struck me: why don’t we actually [...]

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#256 Keenan Cornelius, Michael Liera, and Brian Morizi

April 29, 2012

Keenan Cornelius (blue gi) of Team Lloyd Irvin It is probably true that the majority of purple and brown belt athletes out there have priorities in life that come before their Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Woe to those poor recreational, non-black belt jiu-jitsu competitors who happen upon one of our interviewees in today’s show. Today we begin [...]

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BJJ Poll: Have You Read the New IBJJF Competition Rules?

April 28, 2012

In late 2011 the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation updated its rules governing jiu-jitsu competition. The new edition contains tons of full color images, so the scenarios being described are communicated very well. However it’s not just the attractive design that’s been updated. There are changes to the rules themselves, some of which are subtle. Have [...]

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BJJ Poll: If You Had a Magic Wand and Could Become a BJJ Black Belt Tomorrow, Would You?

April 21, 2012

The path to achieving the rank of black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu is long. For the most gifted and hard-working BJJ students it’s still several years before they are promoted to black belt. If your BJJ fairy godmother visited you and said, “Oh hard working grappler, would you like to be a black belt when [...]

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Alliance’s Fabio Gurgel Reviews the 2012 IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship

April 4, 2012

Alliance’s Bernardo Faria (blue gi) applies a bow and arrow choke to CheckMat’s Antonio Carlos on his way to winning the super heavyweight black belt division at the 2012 IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship. In 2011 Alliance BJJ won the “Grand Slam” of Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition: the European Championship, the Pans, the Brazilian Nationals, and the [...]

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