Rener Gracie/Gracie University

Yes but my point is how many good, pro kick boxers come out of a cardio kickboxing gym!?

Yup

Guys made it to the UFC from Tiger Schluman

I have a hankering that Al bundy was never that good at jiu jitsu.

People not from this area would probably be surprised that ā€œGracie Universityā€ and the Gracie Academyā€¦ DOESNā€™T have a great reputation, locally. --At least not for the last 25 years.

Iā€™d wager that just about every BJJ school in southern california has experienced students from the Gracie Academy and been surprised that they didnā€™t know very much and had lower rolling skills, compared to similar ranks from others schools.

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I bet they can tell you a shitload about Helio gracie though.

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do they just do static drilling of basic white belt shit all day?

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Thats my point, atleast Tigers have some legit guys going to a high levelā€¦Gracie Uni had 1.

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I know there is no sparring until you get your Blue Belt.

Because of respect for the Gracie family most academies and instructors wonā€™t say publicly what they think about the Gracie Academy and GU students.

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Two if you count Lowel Anderson. Yes, thatā€™s how old school I am.

Schulman has produced a lot of high quality students. He was a badass back in the day. Gracie university has embraced the helio model academy

This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name

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I only have two experiences with former Gracie academy students and they are actually good ones.

One came to barra Northridge as a purple(way before i got here) and is now a black belt under romulo and is surprisingly really really really good. Not sure how much of his skill he got from Torrance but heā€™s tough and highly skilled and won a bunch of stuff like pans in the lower belts.

The second is an extended family member who is reners current protoje. He conpetes at high rollers and other orgs, successfully. Heā€™s also going into mma, and is one of tcitys main training partners. Heā€™s a 21 maybe 22yo blue belt and if i didnā€™t have a solid 30lbs on him a well over a decade of more experience i donā€™t know long i could hold him off when we grapple. Just naturally athletic and picks things up fast.

Iā€™m pretty sure he would be a stud at any gym he was at but he happened to end up with rener who took him in and under his wing

Like others have said I think their target audience is probably not that type that seeks to compete frequently or at high levels.

Additionally, when Iā€™ve seen Gracie Jiu Jitsu practictioners compete many have solid fundamentals but get ā€˜gamedā€™ by more experienced competitors and scored on heavily and frequently, without necessarily being threatened or close to being submitted.

The material that they put out is high quality in terms of the detail, Iā€™ll say that much.

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As a former student at the gracie academy back in the early 2000s this was my experience. Early on at tournaments id give up lots of points and it took me time to realize my approach was all wrong. Even with basic stuff like warming up before my first match.

Funny enough i one time reported back after a tournament in which i subbed everyone and took 2 golds. The gracie bros didnt give a shit.

Once i left the gracie academy and trained elsewhere i started doing way better at tournaments. I dont think its because i learned new fancy moves. Just my mentality for tournaments changed and i understood the ā€œgamesmanshipā€ of it all better.

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I think like the Valente Brothers they donā€™t care about tournaments, just not their focus

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They care enough to run their mouths about them and disparage anyone who does them as not doing ā€œrealā€ jiu jitsu.

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I donā€™t think anyoneā€™s saying Rener isnā€™t great at BJJ or canā€™t teach people. They are saying getting beats thru sending in videos is laughable.

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I can understand the consensus on that point when they used to do that. I disagreed with it but I do see the point that was made.

I disagreed with them when they stopped doing that though. I felt like they should have kept awarding blue belts based on the combatives test. That test is hard. So they have a ā€œcombatives beltā€ now that they give out. White with a blue strip. That was 7 years ago they made that change.

I do not know of any other belt they award through sending in videos.

However, they do award stripes based on videos sent in. The level of knowledge a student will have from doing the online program and getting through the 4 stripes of the blue belt program will be encyclopedic.

Add in the training on the 32 principles that is required to get through the stripes on the purple belt and we will have a student that understands jiu-jitsu at a very deep level.

But belts will only be given in person.

There is a much more important factor in play. By putting this program together (Gracie Combatives 2.0, etc.) the brothers have solved an inherent problem in the jiu-jitsu community. Which is each generation teaching what they are good at and forgetting to teach certain techniques.

Interesting incident occurred at a kids class at one of our local clubs. Instructor was teaching a basic trap and roll against punches to the kids. The assisting black belt was a little disappointed that the school owner was working on that as opposed to some competition oriented technique.

I happened to be standing next to a parent who commented without any prompting how glad he was that his daughter was learning this particular technique as he could see how valuable that would be outside the jiu-jitsu school/competition environment.

It has surprised me several times to hear non trained parent observe Gracie Combatives techniques being taught and making similar comments of ā€œI can see how that would work, etc.ā€ Turns out layman know things as well.

Iā€™ll never forget a student that came from a ā€œreputableā€ school in South California (years ago) as a blue belt that had a wicked Berimbola and basically knew nothing else. Gracie Combatives will help future students to get what they are actually paying for. A workable system to help them survive an assault. Not some specialized set of moves to compete with that will most likely not work that well out of their weight class. And might become passeā€™ in a decades time.

Combatives provides such a solid fundamental skill set that can be used as one gets older and at the same time helps a student find out what Gracie Jiu-Jitsu really has to offer the average individual.

I know instructors (TMA) that are learning the material and incorporating it into their curriculum. Good for them! Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course. But it makes for a fun little IQ test. If you are bitching about Rener, GU and/or the old ā€œbelts by mailā€ they used to do you just might be depriving yourself of the best jiu-jitsu fundamentals program that money can buy.

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