Hargreaves - the point of the 1st vid was to show just how good an instructional can get.
No way you can't learn from the Sperry series
Better to have 1 good instructional than 10 faggot instructionals though!
Thank you, thank you very much!
There's nothing like having an awesome black belt and a few browns and purples to improve your game. Especially a black belt focused on self defense and not sport. Ryron and Rener are awesome, but that doesn't mean there aren't other high level Jiu Jitsu fighters that you can learn from. Video will always be a supplement to live sparring and training at an academy. I trust that Ryron and Rener and their associates can tell the difference between a white belt and a solid blue belt. But, there's nothing like stepping into a sea of constantly changing partners with a few who stick around to help you learn Jiu Jitsu. There's just no comparison to making contact with people you hardly know outside of an hour and a half session 3-5 times a week. It's all too easy to get comfortable training with the same 5 friends. Trust me on that, i'm autistic. Nothing compares to sparring with a fresh white belt while being instructed by a competent black belt.
UGCTT_Fillthy - lol @ 'resume-building strength' of a blue belt.
are the GU blue belts devaluing your blue belt?
If that blue belt gets his ass handed to him by a bigger stronger more athletic guy who doesn't know jiu jitsu then, yes. There is a certain amount of honor in training the most applicable form of man vs man combat in the world.
UGCTT_Fillthy - lol @ 'resume-building strength' of a blue belt.
are the GU blue belts devaluing your blue belt?
No, they are devaluing the art. That was the whole reason why pretty much every Gracie not making money off this program spoke out against it, and so does everyone else (who is not a student).
JiuKaraKwonThaiKungDo Master -BigEyedFish -" again, I don't think people appreciate the standard that they set. Even if it was a blue belt, it's still just a blue belt. Let's not lose sight of that important fact."
maybe im just skewed because in my day, a blue belt was a hell of an achievement. I busted my ass off for it (which I got at the gracie academy)
maybe that is my point....
You busted your ass to earn your blue belt, no one can ever take that away from you. But that doesnt mean that a GU blue belt didnt bust his ass to get his belt. We all bust our asses in some way or another to get to where we are.
Uhhhhh, totally no homo!
I seriously doubt there is any GU blue belt that went to the lengths of committment that I had to go to in order to progress (properly) in BJJ.
BigEyedFish -Again, that doesn't mean they didn't work hard to get to where they are.JiuKaraKwonThaiKungDo Master -BigEyedFish -" again, I don't think people appreciate the standard that they set. Even if it was a blue belt, it's still just a blue belt. Let's not lose sight of that important fact."
maybe im just skewed because in my day, a blue belt was a hell of an achievement. I busted my ass off for it (which I got at the gracie academy)
maybe that is my point....
You busted your ass to earn your blue belt, no one can ever take that away from you. But that doesnt mean that a GU blue belt didnt bust his ass to get his belt. We all bust our asses in some way or another to get to where we are.
Uhhhhh, totally no homo!
I seriously doubt there is any GU blue belt that went to the lengths of committment that I had to go to in order to progress (properly) in BJJ.
" How are they devaluing the art? "
They are devaluing the art because it once stood alone as a martial art that was different due to its effectiveness. It was effective because you can train 100% and tap if you want to stop. This makes the training method extremely adaptable to muscle memory, if you do it enough and with enough types of people. There is a reason Royce won the first couple of UFC in the fashion that he did. He would have lost if he trained BJJ on his computer with a few buddies.
" More so than the local 'self defense instructor' who 'trained BJJ' and is now offering a jiu-jitsu classes? More than Pedro or Eddie selling belts by affiliation to guys like Ari?"
I dont know the specifics of the Pedro and Eddie soap opera but suffice it to say I dont agree with anyone selling any belts. I think that should have been apparent by now. As for the local self defense instructor, I recently paid one a visit. I dont agree with that either. Its worse than what Ryron and Rener are doing. But do the degrees of inappropriateness of these actions really matter that much? I dont agree with any of it. Judging by the dynamics in this thread and others on the topic, there are usually only 2 or 3 people on this forum who are firmly on your side. The rest of the community, esp the black belts here, went through the same hard work I did to get where we are. We know what is up.
" If it's so easy, why don't you take someone who's never trained grappling, give them Combatives for a month, and submit their videos. Prove your point. In my experience, it takes 1.5-2 years of spending an hour on the mat every night to get a blue belt through GU. GU students win tournaments, if that's your measuring stick...I just don't understand the metric of the devaluation that you're claiming."
I have 2 students at my club who train the GU cirriculum. I bring one of them in to teach a combatives class because I think the material is excellent. Winning tournaments is absolutely not my yardstick for anything in jiu jitsu. Like I tell my students, points are for basketball players. Not sure why you would mention that at all. The metric of the devaluation is something both I and everyone else here have stated dozens of time: Without constant training with different body types, mentalities, and belt levels, you do not achieve the same level of progression as someone learning on a computer and wrestling with a static group of 2 or 3 friends would. It just doesnt work that way. Sorry. Ask any gracie not making money from this program and they will tell you themselves.
" And I'll point out again, for 6 years none of the family spoke out against it...not until Rener said it was better than their program, for some students. So maybe their speaking out had more to do with preserving their business model than legitimate gripes about the GU program."
I seriously doubt that. There are hundreds of BJJ academies all over the place now and I would think that the loss of market share would upset other family members more. Of course no one is more in tune with loss of market share than The Gracie Academy. I spent enough time in south bay to see the explosion of academies in the 1990s and beyond. This is why they created GU. $$
"Helio and his designated successor Rorion have condoned it, who are we to question it?"
Helio was extremely old when this concept was designed. I dont think for a second he understood all of the nuance behind what was happening. As for Rorion, he was always very good to me and I liked him a lot. But lets not pretend that his reputation as a shrewd businessman and money maker does not precede him. As for the 'who are we to question it' part - Jiu jitsu no longer belongs to the gracies. There are new instructors, innovators, champions, etc. If you think that this one family knows what is best for hundreds of thousands of practicioners, then you are just burying your head in the sand. Combine this with the dozens of times we heard throughout the 1990s about The Source, learning from only the gracies at gracie academies, etc...and you start to smell the bullshit.
Man, I drank the cool aid for a lot of years. I know I did. But when you get enough people telling you the same thing over and over again after years, you should probably start listening to what they are saying. I know I did. And again, not a knock on their cirriculum. I still think that the very best (by a significant measure) school for the instruction of the basics in BJJ is gracie torrance. I love their program and think no one teaches it so well. But the truth is the truth and no one is infallible.
Id like to add that if Rorion wasnt so ambitous over what they wanted both from their graduated instructors, and their franchisees, they probably would have seen a huge proliferation of gracie academies across the world. But no one could afford them and the instructors could barely pay themselves after Rorion took his cut, so the idea failed in light of better options. Again, hence the birth of GU.
I hopped on to type a somewhat heated response to the recent GU supporters' comments in this thread but I have to say that BigEyedFish summed it up nicely.
A couple of additional points...
If it weren't about the belt for the GU people, and they weren't trying to build business/revenue/grappling resume/future promotions off of it, then why test for it? Why wouldn't don't the GU people merely watch the instructionals, get to together and grapple?
Better question... If no belt of any kind were available from the GU online program, how much would that affect the sales of their product?
There will always be outliers and exceptions and everyone loves to point out the "Evan Tanner training with a couple buddies in a shed" example. But OVERALL, the garage trainers are considerably poorer jiujitsu players and less skilled in making their jiujitsu actually work than academy trained students. So the directions being pushed by the GU belting system is generally (and appropriately) viewed as watering down the art.
A minor side that I think is of note though is how GU people are "explaining" things to me like the idea behind bowing and "Sir-ring". Explaining the benefit of their comfortable couple of buddies training, etc. Scroll up to BigEyedFish's post and you'll see the telling point where he mentions that BJJ works primarily because of its unique training environment and "live" modality. There are major and minor contributors to BJJ's training environment that have historically set it apart from the TMA's. Most of these GU scenarios change all of that and point it towards that TMA setting which have been shown to not be as effective as BJJ was.
Of course most of the GU'ers don't "get it" as far as what the problem with all of this is. They don't have the yard stick of actual progress that is made by training at a quality, real academy to understand. Just like the group of guys getting together at Gold's to "box" don't get it on why they are shorting themselves by not going to an actual quality boxing gym.
Quick addition to my FRAT above...
Are they devaluing the art more than the self defense instructor or the Ari's of the world? I'd like to think we aren't playing to the lowest common denominator here. Just because someone is devaluing the art more doesn't make other ways of watering down the sport somehow ok.
It shouldn't be a "which is worse" so much as a "is this helping or hurting?" Is it lowering the bar or raising the standard? Is a BJJ practitioner at any given level better or worse, more capable or less capable in this generation than the last? Are we headed towards making the BB in BJJ an even more impressive/dominant grappler or a less impressive/less dominant one?
"I have 2 students at my club who train the GU cirriculum. I bring one of them in to teach a combatives class because I think the material is excellent"
thats funny,you can learn to teach from the vids,but you cant learn from them and earn a blue.
Well he has been my on again off again student for over a decade so I have confidence in his grasp of the techniques. 
Reading this thread something occurs to me....Not aimed specifically at any posters on thi thread, as I don't want to scroll through the whole thing and cross reference any of their other posts on this from.
But the way in which people are reacting to the "devaluing" of jiujitsu or the change in training methodology and criteria is kinda funny when one compares what many on this forum state when discussing the "martial/fighting art" v. "sport" debate. Things like "It's only a sport", "if you want to learn how to fight go train MMA" "sport training is all you need", etc.
Just something that occurred to me last night as I was reading.
LOL?
Personally, I think the GU program has merits as others have stated, it has an incredible level of detail and clarity. But indeed, a person working with more bodies and more variety of attributes will indeed develop a better "game", so a traditional academy approach offers those advantages.
But if as Fillthy (??) has stated, a person takes 1.5-2 years to train toward their blue belt....and in that time they drilled the material, AND SPARRED, then imho they would likely have a level of competency to meet the criteria of defending themselves successfully against an untrained attacker. Likely they would do poorer in a tournament v. the academy-trained blue whose training prepares them for that environment, but which is the better criteria for a blue belt in the "martial art" of jiujitsu?
I can only imagine what the GU criteria will be as they progress into the higher levels.....because lets be honest.....HOLY SHIT THE LEVEL OF DETAIL IS IMPRESSIVE! I've stated before, I know I could not do a "by rote" performance of their curriculum. Yeah I'm a black belt, but I don't think very highly of my skills. But I've trained with browns and purples from other places and on many things they've said "HOLY SHIT" at my level of instruction even as I sit their and say "HOLY SHIT" and marvel at their level of skill on shit I could never hope to match. So I'm willing to give the benefit of doubt to GU as they progress further along.....and if the critical aspect of training remains SPARRING.
I've stated many times on this forum that IMO....jiujitsu is a three legged stool. Its legs are:
1)fundamental jiujitsu technique
2)fighting application (SD/VT)
3)competitive rolling (recreational sparring or competition)
The bulk of the high level of attribute development and depth&breadth of grappling skill in jiujitsu comes from the third leg. But the proper implementation of jiujitsu technique AS A MARTIAL ART AND FIGHTING SKILL comes from the other two.
When I started learning jiujitsu, it seemed more balanced among the three. white-blue one trained movement, positioning and basic techniques and defensive skills. At the same time you sparred A LOT.....assholes&elbows flying all over the mat and lots of pressure and resistance. Competition/sport training was another facet of training that became a periodic focus of training. I think the question is, does/can GU address training in this manner as it progresses forward?
This is what I've come to rest my case on...
"If no belt of any kind were available from the GU online program, how much would that affect the sales of their product?"
EvilGumby - This is what I've come to rest my case on...
"If no belt of any kind were available from the GU online program, how much would that affect the sales of their product?"
That is a good point.
GU should have just aimed their product as a training tool. Belt evals should be in-house......isn't this the opinion of 12??
Over 95,000 people in over 150 countries.
UGCTT_Fillthy -armbarseverywhere -UGCTT_Fillthy - lol @ 'resume-building strength' of a blue belt.
are the GU blue belts devaluing your blue belt?
If that blue belt gets his ass handed to him by a bigger stronger more athletic guy who doesn't know jiu jitsu then, yes. There is a certain amount of honor in training the most applicable form of man vs man combat in the world.
If you get a blue belt from GU, you will not get your ass handed to you by a bigger, stronger, more athletic attacker that doesn't train jiu-jitsu.
?
UGCTT_Fillthy - defeating a bigger, stronger, more athletic attacker that doesn't know jiu-jitsu is the goal of the GU curriculum. Nobody gets their blue belt from GU if Rener doesn't think they've demonstrated the necessary reflexes and technical proficiency to defeat such an opponent in a street fight.White - preparing to defeat a same size or smaller untrained opponent.
Blue - prepared to defeat a same size or larger untrained opponent.
Purple - prepared to defeat a same size or smaller trained opponent.
Brown - prepared to defeat a larger trained opponent.
Black - mastery
JiuKaraKwonThaiKungDo Master - Over 95,000 people in over 150 countries.
You really believe those numbers? Cost of the program is $20/month. That means they are hauling in $22.8 million per year from the program to the tune of 1.9 mil per month.
Kind of a Catch22 there. Either it's factual (which I highly highly doubt), OR 23 million dollars per year is a heck of a motivator to push a shady certification for.