By Kevin Gallagher
Professional jiu-jitsu has become a business now—complete with high-dollar matchmakers and star athletes exhibiting all the traits expected from their newfound fame and fortune. As the sport grows to new, previously unthinkable heights, many purists are torn between celebrating the increased interest in their passion and lamenting the necessary changes that have made professional jiu-jitsu cards into the spectator-friendly, pay-per-view events they are today.
Admittedly, like many elders of the art, I’m constantly torn between watching interest in jiu-jitsu explode over the last few years and cringing at the often awkward antics of its stars as they hype a match.
So, here are a few observations from a grumpy old black belt—maybe a bit bitter his competitive ship has sailed, but still concerned with protecting the integrity of the art he loves.
BJJ Athletes Need to Grow Up
The divisions between athletes and their academies have always been a part of BJJ history. From the old-school Creonte philosophy in Brazil to modern grapplers’ claims of technical dominance, rivalry has always been part of the game.
But in today’s world of social media trolling, the stakes have gotten so high that the jiu-jitsu itself has, in some cases, become secondary. Instagram fights between competitors often get so personal and vile that a mere jiu-jitsu match isn’t enough to settle the insults. This was evident in the unfortunate scuffle between Gordon Ryan and André Galvão earlier this month.
Professional BJJ athletes should remember that regardless of the personal gain that comes from stirring chaos on an opponent’s Facebook timeline, they are still representatives of the art. New practitioners—young and old—look to them as examples of how to conduct themselves. Consider the weight of that responsibility a bit more heavily before posting your next Instagram story or speaking at a press conference.
There Are More Important Things Than Money
For decades, most jiu-jitsu champions competed with zero financial compensation. While I’m proud to see athletes finally getting paid to compete on the big stages, the road it took to get here has, in some ways, taken away from the beauty of the pursuit of being a champion.
The premier events of our sport have always been unpaid championships. The IBJJF and ADCC didn’t pay all their competitors until recently. But every BJJ athlete’s dream was to one day stand atop those pedestals and be spoken of alongside their idols.
When financial gain becomes part of a passionate goal, it can dilute the beauty of the pursuit. Olympians have struggled for decades to climb the ranks and earn the chance to represent their countries—often at tremendous personal expense. That sacrifice is part of the journey toward the ultimate goal.
Athletes getting paid is not a problem—on the contrary, it’s a beautiful thing. The fact that BJJ now supports paying events is remarkable. But becoming a champion should still mean more than just getting paid to do it.
Come Up With a Standard Ruleset
This may be an unresolvable matter at this point, but it’s still a valid observation from a spectator’s standpoint. So many events have so many different rules formats that even the athletes get confused. Now imagine being a new white belt—or a civilian—spending their hard-earned cash to watch an event they can barely follow because they missed the rules meeting.
It’s true that many jiu-jitsu matches suffer from the same problem: they can be exceptionally uneventful to watch. Even a knowledgeable audience gets bored. But in their tireless quest to create more fan-friendly formats, event coordinators have inadvertently fractured the sport into multiple factions.
Specialists in points-based formats can claim superiority over those in sub-only formats, and vice versa, adding another layer of confusion for fans trying to keep track of how a match is scored.
Jiu-Jitsu Is Evolving—Don’t Get Left Behind
Gordon Ryan is both the hero and the villain of professional jiu-jitsu’s modern story. And while there have been many times I’ve disagreed with his methods—pushing me to the brink of tuning out entirely—there’s no denying his skill far surpasses every other athlete competing today.
John Danaher may be the genius behind the development of Ryan’s systems, but without Gordon’s raw talent, work ethic, and charisma, those systems might have stayed unnoticed.
The often dogmatic world of BJJ can stifle development. Stubborn instructors become stuck in their ways, ignoring new technical innovations or remaining complacent with antiquated systems they’ve taught for years.
As instructors, it’s our job to stay on the cutting edge of the art as the sport grows. 10th Planet gyms and modern American academies have been pushing the limits of BJJ’s direction for years, and other schools should take note—or risk getting left behind.
When Gordon Ryan says that most high-level competition gyms are light years behind him, and unless they start training these new systems he’ll keep beating them, he’s not lying. His complete dominance on the mats should be proof enough that it’s time to expand our minds to new developments in the art.
The Real Treasure
Professional jiu-jitsu has burst onto the scene with an excitement unparalleled at any time in the art’s history. But with this growth have also come questionable variances from what truly makes jiu-jitsu special.
Old black belts like myself recognize that the real treasure of jiu-jitsu isn’t in how much money you make or how many Instagram followers you have—it’s in the transformation training puts its practitioners through. Sharing in each other’s struggles and overcoming them together makes us better people, period.
So when we see our stars acting like white belts fresh off the streets, it makes us shake our heads in disbelief that the art we love could be so cheaply misrepresented.
Food for thought.
If you love jiu-jitsu for more than the hype, then keep training, keep learning, and stay connected to the roots that make this art special. And if you want to refine your game with systems that work at every level, check out my Gracie Trinity Academy for proven training strategies, or dive deep into my Leglocks for Dummies course to sharpen one of the most dangerous weapons in modern grappling.