Small correction - they do award a pink belt for their Women’s Empowered program. Another killer program instructors should learn and teach to their woman only classes.
I have always been a fan of Gracie combatives. I think all bjj practitioners should learn the combatives and competition techniques.
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i think VT should be a requiremnt in jiujitsu. To me rhere is no SD w/o VT. And unless they have moved beyond set in stone Helio SD curriculum in 2.0, is there really much benefit?
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Wait so whats in this 2.0? What are the differences? Or is it just a rebranding for marketing purposes?
I’ve had people come in from the local affiliate that have trained months. They show me the moves they’ve drilled. They have done very little rolling and do very poorly on the mat. Anecdotal. But my experience going back decades.
I find they are the same as others that come in boasting comparatives training.
They know moves. They just can’t grapple or fight as well as those from sport based schools.
As I believe was evidenced in 1993 in the ufc.
Wrestlers, boxers, judoka, kickboxers and sport based bjj guys fight much better than anyone training for self defense. And I believe this is just as obvious when u peruse YouTube or worldstar. You’ll find people from sport based styles like boxing and wrestling smashing dudes in street fights.
But I’ll grant you that in theory combatatives trained people are the best fighters. In theory.
The game changer is live sparring.
The wing chun ninja aikido guys could be decent fighters if they incorporated some full contact live sparring.
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If WT guys sparred a lot their style would evolve into boxing and aikido into judo
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Woah! I actually posted on their forum asking for a breakdown of changes as I was too lazy to create my own list.
In brief - I think the major change is how much better they are presenting the information. Some of the lessons are twice as long. And none of it is fluff.
I do like this line “rebranding for marketing purposes” - sounds like something I read in a a book by the marketing gurus Al Ries and Jack Trout. Last year the marketing guys rebranded “Alka Seltzer” to “Alka Seltzer Plus.” This year they dont know what to rename it as a result. Maybe “Alka Seltzer Plus Twice.”
Reminds me of a job I had a long time ago. I walked in one day and saw signs everywhere that said “New Low Prices.” I was so confused for a few minutes as the prices had actually gone up.
So I guess the question is a fair one. Their ad copy does lay out the changes which are all legit.
For me its the quality of instruction. Its even better than 1.0. Every once in a while Ill check out the online offerings of some other “name.” To be blunt there is nothing that comes close. My main complaint with the competition is their lessons are too short. They are usually a few minutes long for a technique. The brothers will easily spend an hour.
Their real genius is the information they provide which is a roadmap to learning the move, not just how to do the move.
Safety tips are worth the price of a surgery you can avoid.
It’s not just a collection of techniques but a complete system that anyone can learn. Their goals are very specific and are guided by several criteria.
I dont know what the “set in stone Helio SD curriculum” consists of. My instructor, Pedro Sauer said Helio was constantly learning and passing that knowledge on down. I was able to see the evolution of several techniques when I was training directly under him.
Gracie Combatives also has some not insignificant changes to techniques. A couple that I had issues with in the 1.0 version that have been made easier to execute. When GU put their system in place to track quality it also created a feedback loop that gathered information from instructors and practitioners. (Heck, I think they included a tweak that I made to a move.)
Check out the first 3 lessons for free. (technically 4 if you include the intro lesson.) Decide for yourself.
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Ever watched the Valente in-house tournament footage that has been posted on this forum…?
I know it’s just an in-house tournament and these are just students, but… it’s underwhelming. Completely cured any shred of interest I had in the Valentes.
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pray tell
Ive a theory that if you took a sport bjj champion that’s all about jumping guard and invertions and you put him in a prison cell with a combatatives instructor…
I feel like the street lethal combatatives guy would wind up using his bottom game.
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I’d love to learn from Rener. I’m kinda done with the sport gyms that teach complicated techniques that only work against nonresisting uke just pretty much watching as one does 4-5 different sub-moves in order to execute a technique.
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One of the ironic things in BJJ is when the “self defense” BJJ dorks come out and rip on “sport only bjj” nobody knows who the hell they are talking about and they never name names, but the second anyone brings up the bullshit self defense BJJ people everyone immediately knows exactly who they are talking about.
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It’s ironic. Bjj blew up because the UFC proved sport based fighters beat the shit out of self defense trained ones. Yet I’ve had students of the gracie affiliate come in to my school and show me the same moves I learned in kenpo as a kid that I’ve never once see work in a fight.
It’s like how so many atheists develop illogical beliefs and silly dogma.
Humans never learn.
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I don’t know of a gym like this. If self defence-style BJJ works so well, surely it will defeat these useless complicated techniques. Get in there and show them!
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I went to the IBJJF North American Masters Tournament on Wed.(It’s right before the worlds)
The jiu jitsu at the Master tournament was very different. It’s like they were doing a different style. Some of these guys were blue belts & purples, so it’s not like they have been doing BJJ for 20 years, yet their technique looked very “old school” to me.
I guess this is a function of being older.
But today in the adult divisions people jump and leap past their opponent’s guard and do a giant long step passes; It’s a different style of play.
This master’s tournament looked a lot like jiu jitsu from 20 years ago.
At the Worlds this weekend you’ll see a completely different style of play, it’s almost a different art.
It made me think: maybe in addition to weight, age & rank divisions, they should also add “era” divisions. Like you can choose to compete in “90s style bjj” or “2010’s style BJJ” or “current style BJJ”.
Because “90s style BJJ I GET”. I know that sh!t. But with “Current era BJJ” sometimes I’m like “hmmmm, ok… I kinda see what he’s doing there… I guess.” LOL.
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Goes to show the old school way passes the test of longevity. Coaches get old and show what still works for them I guess. Kind of cool.
Yeah.
good jiujitsu never gets old… + if you are really efficient you will simply solve the problem presented without a bunch of extra fluff… and at the end of the day the juice has to be worth the squeeze at 40 plus god bless you and your c5 disk for every inversion to apply to prevent a guard pass 
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My observation is that GU is not focused on sports bjj or mma primary but rather bjj as a self defense strategy and making bjj accessible to regular people instead of focusing on athletes. It’s a different perspective and focus. I’d say that they definitely wisely try to mold bjj into particular niches like bully programs, women’s classes, healthcare providers and police officers. Their law enforcement classes are some of the best classes I’ve ever been to. Even though I didn’t agree with some of the tactics that they encourage, the program is undeniably well constructed and the methodology is very well designed.
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