Join Michael Jen (BJJ Black Belt and Moderator at MMM.TV) & Gene "Aranha" Simco (Author of The Master Text) for their second seminar together at NYMAG Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Academy on January 18th, 2003!

The seminar will begin at 1pm.

By Andreh Anderson

In February of 2003, Rorion Gracie will attempt to do to the Brazilian jiu-jitsu world what he did to the martial arts world in 1993-revolutionize it. With a bold new set of rules and the most enviable first prizes in the sport, Rorion is bound to make a huge difference in the direction the sport has taken.

The tournament is called the I.G.J.J.F. Open Championship, and it will take place in Carson, California, on February 1st and 2nd.

The rules are quite controversial. Points are only awarded for obtaining positions that demonstrate total control, not for actions such as takedowns or sweeps. There is no time limit, and no advantage points. The winner is the first one to twelve points, or to make his opponent submit. Stalling for any length of time will be penalized with a reverse in position. Competitors will be encouraged to look for an end to the fight, and will not be able to ride out the clock for a win.

I met with Rorion at the world famous Gracie Academy in Torrance, California, to discuss the tournament, his critics, and the unique rewards he is awarding for first place.

Andreh Anderson: You are credited with bringing jiu-jitsu to America, and subsequently, the world. There are now thousands of people training in the art your family developed. Are you pleased with the way jiu-jitsu has grown worldwide?

Rorion Gracie: I am very happy with the way the world has embraced Gracie jiu-jitsu. That was my goal. Unfortunately, I find that jiu-jitsu, at this time, has turned away from the original objectives for which it was intended.

RG: Jiu-jitsu tournaments today encourage stalling. The rules teach a person to score a point then to hold on until time runs out. That's not the reason people started training, nor is it the reason that the art is appreciated. The reason people admire and respect jiu-jitsu is because they saw one competitor demonstrate clear superiority over his opponent by submitting him. Jiu-jitsu tournaments today don't offer that. This is why I created this tournament. I want to return jiu-jitsu to the ideals it was developed for.

RG: Everyone who practices today wants to copy the effectiveness they saw when Royce was initially in the U.F.C. Every small person who saw Royce, and other jiu-jitsu fighters, defeat the big guy said to himself, "I can do that too!" But that is only true if they step into the fight with the same objective Royce has-to submit the other guy. So the public wanted to have the effectiveness displayed in those early U.F.C.'s. But that effect only comes from jiu-jitsu being applied objectively. Current jiu-jitsu tournament rules do not allow the display of that effectiveness because they encourage the fighters to use the rules, not their techniques to submission, to win the fight.

RG: The old days the fighters thought differently. In those days, anyone who competed did so with the intent to submit his or her opponent. Every jiu-jitsu instructor that grew up in Brazil knows how it used to be. It wasn't to score points; it was to make the other person tap. Unfortunately, the approach of using points has distorted the way people train. Now they think about making some points and holding them. It has backfired against them.

RG: The foundation is the same as it was since my father was the president of the first Brazilian jiu-jitsu federation back in Brazil, but over the years people kept coming up with "what-ifs". Those questions led to small changes here and there, until we now have a completely different animal.

RG: I don't watch much of the sport today, but of course Cumprido, Margarida, Saulo, Roleta, and all of the others at the top are exceptional. I really hope they make an appearance at the tournament because it is another chance for them to really establish credibility for themselves as world champions.

RG: A few have expressed interest, but we haven't confirmed them yet.

RG: First, there are no points for the takedown because we want to discourage someone from repeatedly taking the person down and letting them up over and over until time runs out. Let the wrestler or judo player enter their own competitions. Jiu-jitsu is won by submission on the ground. The only positions that count for points are the ones that demonstrate a clear superiority of one fighter over the other. A sweep is completely irrelevant unless you can land in a superior position. Those positions are: mount, cross-mount, and the back mount. There are no advantages given because they are subject to the referee's interpretation, and anyone who has competed knows that the interpretation will change from ref to ref. Also, there are many referees who are influenced by the coaches on the sidelines. You cannot have a world-class event with that kind of uncertainty. We also do not have a time limit. This is so that one competitor doesn't use the clock to win after scoring a couple of points. The first person to twelve points, in our competition, is the winner. Let the guy who has better technique win the fight. For those who think the fight might be too long, it won't happen. Different positions will be timed to prevent stalling. If someone wants to stall, let them stay home and watch T.V. instead.

RG: Usually when people grab the sleeves, they are trying to hold the guy on top from passing his open guard. It shouldn't be used for stalling. If you want to go for a sweep or submission and you need to grab both sleeves, that's allowed. But you can't hold them for long. You make your move and if it doesn't work, you can't just stall in that position.

RG: Jiu-jitsu is ultimately a method of self-defense. A tournament should be a safe environment to practice your self-defense skills. Your performance in the tournament should reflect your effectiveness in a street fight without having the violence of a street fight.

RG: I think one should train with the gi, and without it. It is at the instructor's discretion when he thinks the student is ready to train without the gi. You can't always expect your opponent to be wearing something thick like a gi, but we train with it for hygienic reasons and because it allows for a wider variety of techniques. Training without the gi, once in awhile is good too.

RG: My idea is to change things over to these new rules, so no plans to send them to Brazil to compete yet. We are hoping for a grassroots movement that will change the way tournaments are run. My dream is to make Gracie Jiu-jitsu an Olympic sport. The only way we are going to be able to accomplish that is to have a large number of people abiding by the same rules. I don't think we will ever reach that goal (of having the sport in the Olympics) under the way the rules are now.

RG: Everyone can help by bringing their teams to compete. I want to hear back from the competitors, as in, "yeah! We like it!" or, "No. We don't." One thing for sure, there are people who don't like the way things are currently.

RG: More than anything, I wanted to encourage those guys who want to step up and support what we are trying to do. I want to show my appreciation to them. Because I am Helio's son, I can arrange this type of prize that money can't buy. It's as if I am the son of George W. Bush, and I invite the winners for a tour of the White House with the President. I really believe that this tournament will change things; the way the UFC changed martial arts. I did the UFC, so I know what I can do with this. My father is also very excited to have these winners there. He is looking forward to it.

RG: Well, if you take your girlfriend out for a nice dinner and buy a bottle of wine, it's about $100. Since you shouldn't be drinking anyway, this is a better investment! (Laughs) What you have here is a chance to spend one week in Brazil with the last of the great grandmasters in martial arts; this is the man who has actually created a style that has revolutionized the martial arts world. A trip like this is worth $100,000, so I think $100 is a bargain.

Happy New Year to all! My loyal readers (both of you) will know that I've spent the past couple months recuperating mentally and physically from my grappling training reaching its culmination of sorts. I'd recap, but I'd rather have you who are coming in late read the archives. In any case, all's well and all's exciting. During my mental convalescense period, I was priviliged to meet some people and see some things that...well, gave me mixed feelings.

In November, I attended one of Kipp Kollar's North American Grappling Association submission wrestling events. First off, all respect to Kipp. He puts on a big show. He also affords the many East Coasters starving for a tournament besides the Pan Ams the opportunity to compete. Over the past few years, he's built up the NAGA events to the point where their only rival is Grappler's Quest, which is bi-coastal, is run by Brian Cimmins, and gets the big names to come down and put it all on the line to keep the fans frothing. NAGA also has made some forays into MMA, which I haven't seen, but I'm sure are of a respectable caliber. I don't think the East Coast will ever see an event on the scale of NAGA, which has its good points and its bad points.

NAGA's rules and organization of weight classes, time limits, competition levels is excellent, but bigger isn't always better. I wasn't competing at NAGA, but one of my friends was and I can say it was one of the worst grappling related experiences I've been through. With eight mats and almost one thousand competitors, you're liable to run into some problems. We were told to be there sometime around eleven or twelve to weigh in, which caused us to leave our Long Island abodes for New Jersey fairly early in the morning. No problem. It's not a long trek. But once we were there, we waited...and waited, and...waited.

There's grappler's standing around literally everywhere. No one knows when they're going on, who's going where, what's wrapping up when. It's too much. There's kids in gi's running around on what we thought was a wholly no-gi day and poor apathetic girlfriends of grapplers who want to give support trying as hard as they can to suppress a yawn. It's very easy to get psyched out in a situation like that, which I could slowly see happening to my friend, who was enduring cramps from weight cutting but was afraid to eat because he didn't know when he'd be called. It was miserable. On top of this, you've got the heavyweights going first, which, let's be honest, is always a bit less interesting, so it's not like I, a devout grappling fan could even enjoy myself.

Of course, I've been through this before. We've been through this before. You could just put it down to the woes of competition. And it's true. Kipp Kollar couldn't have done much about this. The turnout is what it is because everyone wants to compete against the best that's around and if Bayonne, New Jersey is where they're at, everyone from Renzo's best to the backyard wrestlers in Puerto Rico are going to be there. Still, eight hours of sitting around twiddling your thumbs will not only disenchant a competitor, but will turn away and friends and family who might, under other circumstances, have become fans of the sport. The solution? As Thoreau once said, "Simplify, simplify..."

NAGA's a leviathan. While Kipp Kollar's proud as a first time father to have seen his baby grow us, trimming is in order. I don't know a tournament promoter in the world that wouldn't like to see one thousand guys, gals and kids rolling around on his mats, but recidivism is of importance. Competitors were walking around complaining like crazy that they didn't know what was up and they couldn't stand it. The programs that we got when we came in gave us some idea, but a better idea would've been to have the info on the NAGA website so the pre-registers would've just come later in the day. If I know I'm the seventh of eight weight classes rolling on mat number four in an event that will run until nine p.m., let me weigh in at six thirty or so, watch a little of what's going on and compete when it's my time. As for the people I've brought with me, let them in at a lesser price than the ten dollar admission, just like if you go in later in the game at some sports events, they charge you a lesser gate price. But you wouldn't be losing that much money, because the competitors would still pay the same amount.

Another possibility, though improbable, is to limit competition to those who pre-register. The problem with this is that you won't have the mammoth numbers you want as a promoter, but it's better on the competitors. Besides, one could always have more shows. Four shows in three months with 250 each is still equal to a thousand instead of one show of a thousand every six months. But what do I know about economics? The other problem is that there's no concrete source of communication in the grappling community, be it on the web or in the schools. This is a major problem that needs ironing out.

I'm running out of time to write and space, so I'll talk more about it in the future. I hope you'll dialogue about this on our bulletin boards or just email me. On the upside, I met Matt Serra, Sean Alvarez, Rodrigo Gracie, and saw Kenny Kronenberg compete. That made a lot of it worthwhile. That's all for now. Give me your thoughts when you can and, as ever, keep on rollin'...

Diami J. Virgilio
January, 2003
kneeblock@yahoo.com

GRAND PRIZES:

              California State University - Dominguez Hills
                             Main Gym - Torodome
                          1000 East Victoria Street
                           Carson, California 90747

TOURNAMENT RULES

• TIME LIMIT: There are no time limits or advantage points.
• CROSS SIDE MOUNT ...3 Points
  • Must have control of opponent for 3 seconds
• MOUNT FROM THE FRONT...4 Points
  • Both knees and feet must be on the ground for 3 seconds
• MOUNT FROM THE BACK... 4 Points
  • Both knees and feet must be on the ground for 3 seconds, or
  • Both hooks must be hooked inside of legs for 3 seconds
• STALLING: A competitor may not hold both sleeves at any time with the intent of stalling. The referee reserves the right to give TWO warnings for stalling which will count as 2 faults. The competitor then has 5 seconds to release the sleeve after each warning. The third occurrence will lead to immediate disqualification.
• REVERSAL: A competitor, when inside the opponents guard, must be trying to pass the guard and the competitor on the bottoms must be attacking. After 3 minutes, if the competitor on top cannot pass the guard, the referee will reverse the position. If at the three minute mark, the top competitor is at the half guard the fight will not be interrupted. He has 60 seconds to complete passing the guard. If he cant or if he is placed back in the guard, the position will be reversed immediately.
• POSITION CHANGE: If a competitor is on top of a cross mount and stops attacking or holds still for more than 30 seconds, the referee reserves the right to give TWO warnings for stalling. On the third warning, the match will be interrupted and the competitor on top will have to choose one of the two options: to pass or to defend the guard. If a competitor is on the top mount position and stops attacking or holds still for more than 30 seconds, the referee reserves the right to give TWO warnings for stalling. On the third warning, the match will be interrupted and the competitor on top will have to choose one of the three options: the top cross mount, to pass or defend the guard.
• FOOT LOCKS: Foot locks are permitted. Knee locks are permitted for brown belts and up only. Ankle locks are not allowed at any level.
• IMMEDIATE DISQUALIFICATION: will result from any of the following: Deliberate bending of the fingers or toes, hair pulling, striking, biting, pressure points, eye gouging, or groin shots. Disrespect through gestures or verbal abuse toward a referee, a competitor or a spectator will also result in disqualification.
• MATCHES WILL END: with a tap out; when 12 points are accumulated or by referee intervention (disqualification).

The 3rd annual Arnold Schwarzenegger World Gracie Submission Championships is one of the premier Professional/Amateur Submission Grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournaments in the World! Year after Year, the "Top Grapplers" in the World have come out to showcase their talents, and this year will be no different!

We would also like to announce the addition of the FIRST EVER Professional Women's No-Gi Division held in the U.S.! The addition of an Professional Women's division will finally allow the Female Grapplers the chance to not earn a "Big Pay Day" if they are victorious! We have already been contacted by some of the most technical and dominate Female grapplers in the World, so we encourage that you or any high level Female grapplers you know to get involved in this event!

As in years past, the 2003 event will offer Prize Money to the top Professional Male & Female athletes in our World Class Submission tournament, with prizes/awards going to the top Amateur competitors in both the Gracie World Championship Gi Tournament and the Submission Grappling tournament.

This World-Class event will take place at the Greater Columbus Convention Center between February 28th - March 2nd!