Marcelo Garcia winning his weight division at the 2007 ADCCs. Photo credit European Fight Network

Marcelo Garcia is perhaps the most successful middleweight grappler in the history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The ever-smiling Alliance competitor has won the gold medal at the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship five times, at the ADCC Submission Grappling World Championship four times, and the Brazilian National Jiu-Jitsu Championship three times.

Garcia comes from a sleepy town in the province of Minas Gerais called Formiga, which means “ant” in English and has a population of less than 75,000 people. Remote and without much jiu-jitsu, Garcia headed for the city on a quest to learn more BJJ and found that upon arrival the differences in his accent and those of cariocas in Rio made it difficult to communicate! Later his path brought him to Sao Paulo where he came under the tutelage of Alliance leader Fabio Gurgel, who would later promote Garcia to black belt.

Marcelo Garcia teaching a no gi armlock technique with assistant instructor Antonio Batista. Click to enlarge.

Several years and many gold medals later, Marcelo runs a successful Brazilian jiu-jitsu school in a radically different environment than Formiga: New York City. Just blocks from bustling Times Square and a quick elevator ride up six floors, newcomers to the academy are prone to spontaneous approach from Marcelo’s students who are quick to express that they feel lucky to train under the unassuming middleweight from a remote corner of Brazil. Those who are not nearby to his academy in the city are able to learn jiu-jitsu online via Garcia’s virtual BJJ school, MGinAction.com.

Join us this week as The FightWorks Podcast sits down with Garcia one-on-one in person at his school in Manhattan for a conversation about how the humble star began jiu-jitsu, details of his journey in the martial art, and his current plans.

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New York City’s Times Square, just a few blocks from Marcelo Garcia’s academy.

At the end of 2008 we asked what your New Years Resolution for BJJ was going in to 2009. Cohost Dan and I were thinking of the new year we have in front of us in 2012 and wondered what types of things might prevent a jiu-jitsu person from achieving their goals for the year we now have ahead of us.

There are probably many things that could come between you and the BJJ glory you have cooked up in your head (a gold medal at the Mundials, maybe?), but Dan and I decided the five options in this poll would cover many common problems that we face. So which of the options above do you see as the biggest issue for you and your BJJ this year?

Let us know by voting in the poll, and in the comments section for this post, let us know what you plan to do to overcome the obstacle you voted for!

Roger Gracie, perhaps the most consistent BJJ athlete in submitting his opponents, prepares to finish Tarsis Humphries at the 2010 BJJ World Championships.

Later this month, Rose Gracie (daughter of Rorion Gracie and wife of Javi Vazquez) will hold the Gracie Nationals BJJ and No Gi Tournament in Los Angeles. Rose has been holding this event since 2008 as part of the LA Fitness Expo and has made some noteworthy changes to the way things are run this time around:

• Some athletes will be randomly selected for testing to detect performance enhancing drugs.
• The competition (gi and no-gi) will be a submission only tournament. No points will be awarded. You can only advance in the event if you submit your opponent.

Rose has some very strong feelings about the state of Brazilian jiu-jitsu today, and believes that the steps above are necessary to return jiu-jitsu to her grandfather Helio Gracie’s original ideas. We’ll speak with Rose on these ideas in our first interview in our show today. (Related: see her cousin Kron Gracie’s performance at the inaugural 2008 Gracie Nationals, where he submits four opponents!)

On a similar note Alliance Jiu-Jitsu, who last year became the first BJJ organization to win all four major IBJJF events (the World Championship, the Pan Jiu-Jitsu Championship, the European Championship, and the Brazilian National Championship), will be holding a series of submission only jiu-jitsu events at their United States headquarters in Atlanta. We will speak with Alliance leader Romero “Jacare” Cavalcanti about what made them decide to use the submission only format.

Happy new year! May 2012 be the best year of your Brazilian jiu-jitsu yet!

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Last week’s Brazilian Jiu-jitsu poll asked you whether you think BJJ will become an Olympic sport and if so, what it will look like. Lots of interesting points of views came out in the comments section, and here at FightWorks Podcast headquarters we received a phone call on our toll free line 877-247-4662 raising the possibility that BJJ as an Olympic sport may not necessarily be a positive development. The caller referenced judo in the Olympics and suggested that acceptance as an Olympic sport may have a negative impact on the martial art.

What’s your take? Do you think BJJ would be better off if it were an Olympic sport, or do you think it’s best if jiu-jitsu is never accepted into the Olympics? Let us know in the comment section or feel free to leave us a voicemail on the phone number above!

The Girls in Gis 2 year anniversary in Texas. Click to enlarge. Image courtesy Mike Calimbas.

by Jen Flannery

We may one day look back and say that 2011 was the beginning of a new era in women’s Jiu-Jitsu. A record number of female competitors at the 2011 world championships in Long Beach (a 30% increase over the previous year) is only one of many reasons why.

The high point of the year was the IBJJF’s announcement that the Brown/Black belt division would split for the first time in 2012, demonstrating a firm belief from the powers that be that women’s Jiu-Jitsu is growing and here to stay. The last split was when the female purple belts were given their own division in 2005; with an ever-increasing depth at each belt rank since that time, the ladies have arrived!

The lowest point for women’s BJJ in 2011 is that the world’s highest-level and most prestigious submission wrestling event (ADCC) still neglects the women’s divisions. It is understandable due to a lack of elite-level depth at this point that the selection committee is hesitant to expand from its current 8 participant format to the same 16 invitees of the men’s divisions, but with only two weight classes (over and under 60kgs) and a cancellation of the women’s absolute division this year, they seem to be slowly regressing. At the very least, they should return to the 4-weight-class system plus absolute that existed 4 years ago, because under the current structure many of the top women are excluded from participation while others hold a massive size advantage over their opposition. The emerging Abu Dhabi World Pro tournament circuit experiences similar problems that significantly limit the female athletes. Here’s hoping that 2012 or 2013 will bring more women’s divisions to both of those tournaments!

2011 Firsts… (Kept to a number of highlights due to space restraints)

• The first Arab women training BJJ in the Emirates entered their first competition in April at the Abu Dhabi Pro Jitsu Championship.
• The first Swedish woman was promoted to the rank of black belt. (Ida Hansson)
• The first resident Australian female, Esther Tavares Tutida, received her black belt (Sofia McDermott Drysdale already held the rank but she resides in the U.S. with her husband Robert Drysdale)
• Australian ladies held their first BJJ camp.
• In London, a Check Mat purple belt started the first weekly open mat for women in the UK.
• The ladies at Clockwork BJJ in New York City held the first of a now regular open mat series in the city.
• The IBJJF split the blue/purple female No-Gi division into two separate divisions at the No-Gi Pan and the No-Gi Worlds for the first time.
• The first instructional video to be made by a female black belt was released earlier this year (Emily Kwok).
• The first website geared towards providing comprehensive coverage on female practitioners, competitions, seminars, camps, etc became known (Grappling Girls Guild). [Full disclosure: the author of this article runs the site - Caleb]
• 6x World Champion Leticia Ribeiro (Gracie Humaita) started her own training camp, running the first in Stockholm, Sweden in March and the second in San Francisco in December. The San Francisco camp hosted 64 women from across the US and Canada and from all affiliations!

Other high points for women in BJJ come in the form of the continued success of past ventures such as…

- In Princeton, NJ, Women’s Grappling closed out the year by holding their 9th official camp at Emily Kwok’s (the first female Canadian black belt) academy.

- Girls in Gi’s (an open mat series for women in Texas) held their 2-year anniversary open mat in August, hosting 40 women from all across the state.

- The return of the Holland BJJ camp for ladies, 30 women from all across Europe gathered to train together in August.

Superlatives

• Submission of the Year goes to 8x World Champion Hannette Staack (Brazil-021), who returned to the competition circuit this year, and her flying armbar over Ida Hansson (Check Mat) in the finals at the World Championships.
• Best (and most technical) Match goes to Kyra Gracie (Gracie Elite) and Michelle Nicolini (Check Mat) for their 14-minute battle in the finals at the Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling World Championships in Nottingham, England. Kyra came out the victor but both women proved that the top BJJ ladies are as exciting and technical as their male counterparts. Inspirational.
• The Most Dominant Black Belt this year was definitely Gabi Garcia (Alliance) with the best record of the year, not losing a single match at her weight or the open at the Europeans, Pan Championships, World Championships, or ADCC! Incredible performance that isn’t likely to be repeated in the near future (except by Gabi).
• The Most Dominant Lower (non-black) Belt is a bit more of a toss-up. On the one hand, I’d like to give the number one slot to young (16 yrs old) Dominyka Obelentye (Alliance) for her dominant performance in her division and the absolute at the World Championships and No-Gi Pan. However, she missed the Gi Pan due to a knee injury and missed No-Gi Worlds due to the SAT’s (kids…) so she can’t be considered most consistent. The most consistent purple belts placing at the top, were Mackenzie Dern (Gracie Humaita) and Rachel Demara (Lloyd Irvin).

Notable promotions earned in 2011:

• Rachel Demara (Lloyd Irvin) and Mackenzie Dern (Gracie Humaita) for their promotions to Brown Belt
• Bia Mesquita (Gracie Humaita) and Ida Hansson (Check Mat) for their promotions to Black Belt

The top three women’s teams for competition placement at the elite level in 2011 were Alliance, Gracie Humaita, and Lloyd Irvin.

With so many advances being made, 2012 is shining brightly for the ladies in our sport. The European Championships will kick off the tournament season in a few short weeks and I am excited to see who will be coming out of the off-season firing on all cylinders!

Jen Flannery is a purple belt under Ryan Hall at 50/50 BJJ. She is a consistent competitor at the international level with a number of medals from the IBJJF Pan and World Championships. Her website, “Grappling Girls Guild”, is dedicated to furthering female Jiu-Jitsu by recognizing important accomplishments and providing a sense of history that she hopes will inspire other women as they make their own journey in this life-changing martial art.

The idea for this week’s poll comes from – you guessed it – the most inquisitive mind in Brazilian jiu-jitsu: Ross, one of the Mighty 600,000 from Northern California. He wrote us here at FightWorks Podcast and said, “This is something that you’ve discussed on the Podcast several times, but I don’t think it’s ever been a poll question.”

He’s right! This is probably one of the most common debates on jiu-jitsu forums around the world, returning with the same predictable recurrence as debates over which attacks that target knee ligaments should be permitted in competition, or conversations about ACL healing times. In any case, here’s your change to formally cast your vote on the possibility that jiu-jitsu ever is something we’ll see in the Olympics.

Whenever possible, we try to bring you an episode of The FightWorks Podcast every week, and in each of those episodes we’ll review the most recent BJJ Poll that we had on our website for the prior week. Life can get pretty busy of course, so there are some Sundays when a new show isn’t published, which means we probably didn’t get a chance to discuss the results of a BJJ poll that was conducted in the meantime.

In today’s show we will review results of some of those polls whose results were never discussed in one of our shows:

• Does Your Instructor Still Compete in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Tournaments? from earlier this month
• Which of These Greats is Your BJJ Crush? from March 2011
• When I Have a Dream That Involves BJJ… from October 2011
• Now That So Many People Have Attained the Rank of Black Belt in BJJ, How Do You Think the Average BJJ Black Belt Today Compares to Those From Years Past? from October 2011
• Do You Prefer Formal or Informal Belt Ceremonies? from August 2011

As always, your opinion counts here at FightWorks Podcast headquarters, so let us know if you have an idea for a poll or just feel the need to reach out to us. We are always interested in what you have to say!

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Jiu-jitsu as most of us know it today began with the Gracie family in Brazil. In the 1990′s Rorion Gracie and his business partners created the UFC, which introduced the world outside Brazil to the Gracie style of jiu-jitsu. Since then, the large Gracie family has continued to actively spread jiu-jitsu across the globe.

Our very own Cohost Dan was wondering about the reach of the Gracie family directly within the jiu-jitsu community today. While jiu-jitsu has never been as popular as it is now, ours is still a very small community and the opportunity for jiu-jitsu practitioners to interact with popular and influential community members is available for many.

So how about you? Have you ever trained with any member of the Gracie family? If so, was it because a member of the Gracie family was or is your instructor or did you get the chance to learn jiu-jitsu from them in a seminar?

Let us know by voting in the poll and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section of this poll on our site!

You spend a lot of time on the mats. It’s what Brazilian jiu-jitsu people do. You also may spend a lot of money to train BJJ. For example, we know that even two years ago more than half of the people who train were paying more than $100 per month for classes!

In the same way you want to make sure you get the most value for your training dollars, you want to also know that the gi you buy is going to give you exactly what you expected. Gis are expensive too, right? And the average price of a gi seems to be going up every year though many would probably say that the quality of the average gi is not changing very much.

Luckily there is someone very passionate about gathering information about gis out there. Aesopian, aka Matt Kirtley, began collecting information about jiu-jitsu practitioners’ opinions in 2009. And he’s now collecting data again!

This week on the “audio home of Brazilian jiu-jitsu”, we’ll speak with Matt and learn a little about this year’s gi survey, including:

• why you should participate
• how long it takes
• what’s new in this year’s survey
• what we can expect to learn from it

TAKE THE GI SURVEY HERE

Even if you never get a chance to listen to today’s show, it’s important to take the 5 minutes and participate in the survey. Knowledge is power, so help make the jiu-jitsu community stronger by sharing your information in his survey!

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In 2010 we asked you if you think your Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor continues to actively increase his or her knowledge about BJJ. Our unofficial head pollmaster Ross from Northern California mentioned that a good follow up to that would be to ask how many BJJ instructors still compete in tournaments.

We know that competing pushes us to be in better physical shape and whether we win or lose we always learn more about our jiu-jitsu, so it is indeed a great follow up question. But the demands of running a successful BJJ school can mean that there is less time to prepare for competition and it becomes less of a priority than maybe it once was in one’s jiu-jitsu training career.

Let us know whether your BJJ teacher competes these days, and we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

Once we’re down the road a bit in our BJJ careers, we begin figuring out what each one of us is good at. Some of us tend to favor certain submissions over others, playing from bottom or top, etc. But this week’s poll question gets at the difference between an armbar submission on your opponent and a triangle submission: which is a bigger accomplishment, all things being equal? Forget what skill level your opponent is, whether he or she is bigger or smaller than you. Forget everything except the nature of the submissions themselves in the poll question: an armbar or a triangle. Which is a bigger deal to pull off?

Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll here and feel free to tell us more about why you think the way you do in the comment section to this post.

Back to back Ross attack! Yes, the idea from our poll last week was sent in from the always curious and inquisitive member of the Mighty 600,000 Ross from Northern California, and the idea for this week’s poll does too! Just after the 2011 ADCC event wrapped up, he wrote us at the FightWorks Podcast headquarters saying, “This one came to me the other day after I woke up from dreaming about BJJ.” Maybe the ADCC submission grappling in Nottingham inspired him again!

Whatever the reason, you know what to do: let us know how or if you dream about Brazilian jiu-jitsu by voting in the poll above. If you have any especially interesting (or especially non-remarkable) jiu-jitsu dreams, let us know about those in the comments.

Thank you as always for voting and thanks to Ross for the great poll ideas!

Andre Galvao, gold medalist in the absolute and 88kg weight divisions at ADCC 2011. Photo courtesy Jon Shotter.

The 2011 ADCC Championship is behind us, and what an event it was. Anyone who was there in Nottingham or watched it live online will be quick to tell you that it was like watching a two-day long Hollywood action movie starring the world’s best submission grapplers.

This week on The FightWorks Podcast we will recap the 2011 ADCC action with San Diego’s own Kid Peligro, the author of The Gracie Way and many other Brazilian jiu-jitsu books. Kid has been present in person at every Abu Dhabi Combat Club championship since its beginning in 1998, so it’s difficult to find anyone who can analyze the action with such experience. We spend a few moments discussing every division (guys, girls, and absolute!) and compare this year’s event to those of prior years.

In addition, we bring you the type of exclusive content you are accustomed to hearing right here on the Audio Home of BJJ: an audio recording from the rules meeting held on the Friday afternoon before the tournament began. We received permission from the head ADCC referee Peter Ivanov to record his comments to all the athletes about the very unique rules in this important no-gi tournament.

The 2011 ADCCs were packed with submissions and nothing short of explosive. Join us in this review of last week’s action!

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Guess who is back in action? Our most frequent contributor to Brazilian jiu-jitsu poll questions here on The FightWorks Podcast, Ross! He’s one of the Mighty 600,000 from Northern California and has a supernatural gift for coming up with thought-provoking questions for you!

Ross’ poll suggestion today makes you consider the average BJJ black belt of today compared to those of the past. It’s a tricky question, with rather important implications. What do you think? Let us know by voting and we welcome your comments here as well!

Here’s a quick update folks on the timeline of events this weekend at the 2011 ADCC being held in Nottingham, England.

FRIDAY (today)

3pm: the competitors weigh in. I will be on site at the arena with Budo Videos conducting interviews with the athletes, who I expect to be pretty grumpy as weigh ins can be stressful if your weight is near the maximum allowed weight for your division! The content we put together then will not be broadcast live, but may make it onto Youtube or Facebook.

6pm: Open Mat courtesy of Gracie Barra Midlands, up the road in Mansfield. We want to attend and will try to figure out logistics so we can be there.

SATURDAY

12pm: Broadcast of the 2011 ADCC begins on Budovideos.com/online. If you have any questions about when it starts in your time zone, how much it is, Budo posted a FAQ about the broadcast. I’ll be commentating with Shawn Williams!

SUNDAY

9am-10am: Breakfast and Coffee with the Family! If you are here in Nottingham, please stop by the Holiday Inn Express (map) and talk ADCC with us! We have been doing these get-togethers at the IBJJF BJJ World Championships and at the IBJJF’s Pans for a few years now and it’s really fun to geek out with you guys, so please stop by. The guys at the front desk said it costs 5.95 pounds, and I can’t vouch for the food or the service, but the company will be great! Really hope you can make it!

12 pm: Broadcast resumes on Budovideos.com/online for the final day of action.

Important reference links:

• Competition Brackets, courtesy of GracieMag
• ADCC 2011 Facebook page
• If you have a few minutes to read, theres a nice preview of the action at BloodyElbow!

We are now days away from what many consider to be the most important submission grappling competition. No-gi competitors from all corners of the globe will face each other at the 2011 ADCC in Notthingham, England on September 24th and 25th for large monetary prizes and more importantly, fame that will carry them for the rest of their athletic careers.

Lots of important details are being shared on the ADCC 2011 Facebook page by organizers. As is to be expected, injuries are preventing some hopefuls from being able to participate and the Facebook page appears to be the authoritative place to learn about last minute changes. It’s not uncommon.

Some changes of note:

• Roger Gracie and Robert Drysdale are out, presumably due to injury.
• Katrina Weilbacher from Paragon Jiu-Jitsu will be competing.

In today’s episode of The FightWorks Podcast we’ll spend time with Shawn Williams, a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Renzo Gracie. Shawn is credited with creating the Williams Guard and is also to be credited for putting up with me when he and I offer commentary during BudoVideos.com’s live streaming of important grappling competitions!

Shawn and I will go over lots of logistics about the upcoming weekend. Among other details, we’ll focus on some of the differences in rules between IBJJF and ADCC so viewers of the broadcast won’t be too surprised when they see their favorite grappling athletes behaving a bit differently than the viewer may expect. Like the rest of the BJJ and grappling community, we are very excited about the competition. Many thanks to Sheik Tahnoon and the United Arab Emirates for their patronage, which allows the event to take place.

In short, clear your schedule for next weekend! We look forward to you joining us during the live online broadcast or in person in Nottingham!

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ADCC 2011, one of the globe’s most important submission grappling tournaments, is not far away now! The bi-annual event begins Saturday September 24 and ends the next day. It will be broadcast live online in high definition from Nottingham, England by BudoVideos.com and I’ll be part of the commentating crew alongside with Shawn Williams.

Lots of updates on last minute details are being shared on the ADCC 2011 Facebook page. A few days ago they wrote:

The Main superfight between Braulio Estima and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza will be the last fight on Saturday, September 24, 2011. The second superfight between the ADCC superstars Renzo Gracie and Mario Sperry will be on Sunday, September 25, 2011 before the ADCC Absolute Semifinals.

Who do you think will win? Let us know by voting in the poll on this page, and be sure to leave a comment telling us why you voted for the outcome you chose!

As previously reported, Eddie Bravo and Royler Gracie will not be facing each other at ADCC 2011, to many fans’ dismay.

BJJ black belt Mitch Coats receives his black belt certificate from Alexandre “Gigi” Paiva . Image courtesy Coats.

One of the nice things about Brazilian jiu-jitsu is that when someone claims to have earned a certain belt rank, there is not too much room for variation in their skill level. Sure, while not all purple belts are created equal, when you train with just about any purple belt out there, you tend to say, “Yeah, I can see why that person is wearing that belt.”

But given the very practical and effective techniques in BJJ, it’s nearly impossible to claim that someone knows a lot of jiu-jitsu when they do not. It becomes clear quickly on the mat that their knowledge is shallow. This is disappointing to those who looked to that person for information and can be considered insulting to those who worked very hard for so long to legitimately earn their belt rank.

A situation recently arose in Boise where an individual is said to have made this type of false claim about his rank in jiu-jitsu. As one can imagine, the claims were disproven rather quickly and news travelled fast through the local BJJ community there. This week on The FightWorks Podcast we hear from Mitch Coats, a black belt under Alliance Jiu-Jitsu’s Alexandre “Gigi” Paiva. Coats shares the recent events in his town and how the community came together to set the record straight.

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Have you ever noticed the different ways people behave in their Brazilian jiu-jitsu class? There are fellow students in class who train hard no matter what. Some of those people are going all out intentionally, and some of them just don’t know any different. Then there are people who can vary their training between dominating their opponent, and playful rolling. I think some of us tend to come in with very little goals other than to have fun, leave, and do it again the next day.

Which of these are you most like? Sure, you might fall into more than one of those categories depending on your mood or how mad your boss made you at work that day, but in general which of these is most like you?

Let us know by voting in the poll here and if you have any funny stories or comments share those too here on the site. Maybe you started off one way and now train differently. I’m curious!