sorta off topic question but what MAs have survived a mcdojoism. what allowed them to survive it, was sactioning bodies, was it the way they train or they happen to not be as popular and it just wasn't worth the money to go down that route. this is more out of curiosty than anything else.

Every MA has some sort of Busllshido and/or McDojoisim, its just a fact of life.
Its how this bullshido/Mcdojoisim is accepted by the practioners of said art, that is called into question.

i understand that every art has McDojoism but why is the level so much worse in things like Ninjitsu, TKD, Wing Chun and TMAs and not in ones like Judo and Boxing and what about these arts causes this.
I have nothing to backup the level of McDojoism i stated above i am just goin off of what i have read in threads, i see alot of bullshido threads dealing with the Ninjitsu, TKD, Wing Chun and TMAs than with Judo, Boxing, Bjj. This is the only thread dealing with McDojoism in the latter that i have personally come across

Because Boxing, Judo and the vast majority of combat arts are easy to "test", Bullshido is harder to fine, also, judo for example belongs to a regulated organisation.
Boxing, is so very simple that its pretty hard to build it up to be something its not.
But even they can become over commercialised - McDojofied.

But as long as the CONTENT and QUALITY remain the same/constant, very few people will bitch and complain about the instrcutor/owners making some coin.

Because Boxing, Judo and the vast majority of combat arts are easy to "test", Bullshido is harder to fine, also, judo for example belongs to a regulated organisation.
Boxing, is so very simple that its pretty hard to build it up to be something its not.
But even they can become over commercialised - McDojofied.

But as long as the CONTENT and QUALITY remain the same/constant, very few people will bitch and complain about the instrcutor/owners making some coin.
.....I'd also add that in MA like wrestling, boxing and judo, the practitioners are usually competitive athletes. Most people who train seriously in any of those 3 styles are doing so primarily to compete in a sport, not to learn to defend themeselves in the street. I think the mindset of the practitioner is another factor that makes it difficult to slip in much bullshido.

.....I'd also add that in MA like wrestling, boxing and judo, the practitioners are usually competitive athletes. Most people who train seriously in any of those 3 styles are doing so primarily to compete in a sport, not to learn to defend themeselves in the street. I think the mindset of the practitioner is another factor that makes it difficult to slip in much bullshido.

the thing is that bjj falls under the same category as judo/boxing/wrestling etc and from the looks of things, its going to turn bullshido as well

no art is safe anymore

the thing is that bjj falls under the same category as judo/boxing/wrestling etc and from the looks of things, its going to turn bullshido as well

no art is safe anymore


Except no judoka/boxer/wrestler took a bunch of unprepared pointfighters to school in a popular MMA tournament. Some did, but none became as well known as Royce did.

Whats your experience Xero?


Trained under Dave Camarillo almost 2 years now. Before that about 12 years of wrestling.

Oooh ooh dare I say it?

"Do you have teh R33L BJJ?"

Seriously though. I read some recent interviews with Helio and he said he's pretty disgusted with the way BJJ is headed. Now I understand what he meant.

I think this kind of thing will make BJJ people feel a lot like legitimate KF peeps have been feeling for some time.

I think that Helio's disgust primarily comes from the devaluation of rank, and certain individuals handing out belts that may be questioned by instructors with tougher criteria for belt levels.

Whilst travelling, I've seen this difference first hand. Several people I encountered, whilst wearing a belt higher than my lowly blue :) were not all that much more skilled than myself, or weren't as technical as people at an equivalent rank at my school are required to be.

Unfortunately, I think this may be a side effect of the popularity of the art.

This phenomenon does not seem to be only confined to my experience, either. I've been training for nearly four years to date. I have some degree of competitive success, and I'd consider myself, at this point, one of the more experienced blues in my academy, an opinion that seems to be shared by my training partners and instructor.

Look at belt/time threads on Sherdog, MMA.TV, JJgear and other boards, and there are a number of posters claiming to be wearing purples inside three years, and blues inside 6 months/1 year. Now, I know two people who have received purple belts after three years of practice. One won the Absolute Blue division at the Mundials, the other is a machine with the triangle and guard of doom.

Phenoms are fairly rare. Having experienced the quality to be found outside of my own little sandbox and read about it, I sincerely doubt that the conflict between what I read on message boards and what I find in person is isolated in nature.

Honestly, lets face it: The standards of the art are, at this point in time, wholly dependant on the higher ranks to administer it. And there are a lot of them. BJJ.org doesn't even begin to cover the sheer number of black belts in the world, as it is dependant upon registration. Just look at the discrepancy in numbers between the black belts listed on graciebarra.com.br and those listed on bjj.org under Carlos Gracie Jr for illustration of this fact.

As there are a great number of them, there most likely will be distinctly differing views upon the skill level that constitute a certain rank. Those instructors with lower standards will produce black belts in a shorter period of time, some of whom may go on to teach others, and so on and so forth.

The result of such lower standards will inevitably be a growth of lower standards, thus resulting in a similar situation to the Bullshido that permeates TMAs.

I have been told that the CBJJ has been trying to rectify this by ensuring that competition is a requirement for higher rank. However, their promotions page has not been translated into English, and my Portugues is rusty from lack of use, and of dubious value in accurate translation anyway. As BJJ skill qualification for rank is a hard thing to quantify, I believe that this requirement would have a positive effect on creating more or less homogenous standards of rank.

That's...fairly bizarre. Or should be.

I've taught higher belts certain techniques that I happen to specialize in at times, but I've never tapped a brown belt. I came close on one occasion, but even if I had, my win-loss ration would still be like 6:1 in the brown belt's favor. I've had white belts teach me some things as well.



I've seen blue belts that have tried to explain to me why they should've been safe under side mount after I tapped them.

Defending by instruction indicates a distinct lack of class. The blue belt should have accepted that he/she lost, and learned from the experience.

To quantify the skill range at the purple belt level...how long is a piece of string? Some of my training partners who recently got promoted were pretty much tearing chunks out of the rest of the blue belts, and starting to become competitive with the purples, and possessed of a fair amount of knowledge as well as their own distinct individual game. I think thats a pretty good analysis of a newbie purple belt

Okay, the blue tapping the brown makes sense. Male and female standards for promotion seem to be completely different for many instructors.

The blue belt...I stand by what I already said about defense by instruction.

However, there is a world of difference between a newbie blue belt and an experienced blue belt, which may be the difference between one blue belt and the other(by the sound of it, I doubt it is a stylistic clash). My game now bears little to no resemblance whatsoever to my game of two years ago, for example.

From a number of interviews of Helio's I've read, it seems to me that his concern is with the direction BJJ is taking. He feels that BJJ is meant as, first and foremost, a self-defense art. He sees it as going more and more towards sport with self-defense work not being emphasized as much.

I was at a seminar a few weeks ago with Carlos Gracie Jr. and he was saying the same thing: that there is not enough emphasis on self-defense (especially standing grappling) in many BJJ classes these days.

Except no judoka/boxer/wrestler took a bunch of unprepared pointfighters to school in a popular MMA tournament. Some did, but none became as well known as Royce did.

See if anyone remembers Royce in 40 years either.. :P

http://www.genelebell.com/stories.asp

Savage leaned against the ropes and compelled Gene to come to him. Gene moved under Savage's jabs and managed to throw Savage with a spectacular left sided "maki hard goshi". He quickly followed with a "neck choke." In a few seconds the boxer was "out cold". The choke was what Gene wanted to use. He explained that he had several opportunities to apply an arm-bar but fear that he might seriously disable Savage. He wanted to prove that judo could be effective without maiming the other party.

When I trained in bjj in the mid 90's gaining rank was incredibly slow and tedious. You would rarely if ever see blues tapping purples and for a blue to tap a brown would be unheard of. When a blue did begin to tap a purple with any type of consistency then the learning curve was being approached and they would soon find themselves with a purple belt. Whites tapping blues was way more common but keep in mind that the blue may be newly promoted as well. The blue belt category was always the fattest layer at any academy with both good and bad bjj players. The bad players would never make purple and would see people pass them by and the good blues sometimes suffered as the instructors wanted to keep them there for positive tournament results. There were certain blues who I'd toy with and certain blues who would wipe the mat with my face. I remember I went to a submission grappling tournament as a newly promoted blue and popped a guys arm with an armbar in less than 30 seconds. I saw him not more than 1 month later and the dude was a friggen purple belt. He came from a very questionable school who's instructor somehow went from purple to black quickly and I guess the apples didn't fall far from the tree. Interestingly when you look at certain "o.g." instructors like the Gracies, Machados etc. the belt process is still slow. It seems to be the next two to three generations who have sped it up.

Maybe, if this helps with some insight as to where BJJ may go in a few years.

A girl from my school got her black belt after 4 years of training.I know it sounds very McDojoish!But what can I say.She had been assisting in instruction at our Dojo for 2 years before that since she was a Green belt.So she knew her ****.Even if her fighting is still left to be desired.However there are still some who take 6 or more years to get a Blackbelt.

As for fighting prowess.Kyokushin karate was a very tough style once.With a higher drop-out rate than we see today. In fact if this was 1965 and not 2005 with any of the tma karate styles.I would have decided to quit long before I got my brown belt. Heck! Who am I kidding?I would have quit after a few classes.I don’t know but there’s something about getting punched in the face in every class that would've stopped me and give me pause to think while I contemplated my existence on earth.

I don't know if it's comparable to the present situation with selling Brazilian Juijutsu instruction through DVD-mail order. Perhaps, it’s not? After all, no one is selling DVD's of full-contact instruction trough the mail.