More BJJ bullshido - The Gracie Combatives Licensing Program™

[chingythingy]

Presumably the argument is that these are only entry-level instructors, and they are only teaching beginners. Still, it is a potentially worrying development, but then I haven't seen the material, and they've only just announced the program. Hopefully it won't turn out to be as ripe for abuse as it appears to be on a first look.

Sure there is plenty of potential for worrying developments. They are the same worrying potential that exists for all affiliates of known BJJ entities. There is a certain level of "hiding out" under an affiliate's name that is possible while an instructor takes market share from legitimate black belt instructors and uses that as a cover while developing his own skills.

At this point with the Gracies their only advanced level endorsed schools besides Torrance are the Valente's. And nobody is questioning whether they are legit or not.

We will just have to see how this develops and hopefully trust that Rener and Ryron will have enough integrety not to let it get out of control - they do have seminar travel in place and evaluations in Torrance to help out with that.

But just like any other affiliate program it is the responsibility of the organization to maintain the quality of their affiliates. There are plenty of known issues around doing so, and dirty laundry regarding this all over BJJ.

[slideyfoot]

For tl;dr - the Gracie Combatives Licensing Program (2007) and the Gracie Combatives DVDs (2009) are two different things. As far as I can tell, the Gracie Combatives Licensing Program has been replaced by the Instructor Certification Program.

That Instructor Certification Program has now also changed, according to the latest Gracie Insider email, and it is a very interesting development, particularly in the context of the debates that have been going on in this forum. I'm not sure if this deserves its own thread, or if indeed it has already been discussed elsewhere on the forum: I couldn't see it, but I may have missed the link.

As far as I can tell, it would now appear that you can become a certified instructor of Gracie Jiu Jitsu almost entirely online, bar a two day visit to the academy in Torrance:

The New Instructor Certification Program
The complete system is now available to all dedicated GJJ students

For three generations, the primary mission of the Gracie Family has been to make the invaluable benefits of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu available to people everywhere. To accomplish this, we created the Gracie Academy Instructor Certification Program (ICP). Although the original ICP enabled us to certify several instructors around the world to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu according to the exacting standards of the Gracie Academy, the structure of the original program and the costs associated with certification restricted many potential instructors from participating.

• Anyone Can Participate: In the past, you had to be a martial arts instructor to participate in the ICP. But now, we have opened the ICP to include all dedicated practitioners who pass the blue belt test, with a score of 90 or greater, and meet the four basic qualification requirements. It is important to note that although we are committed to making the ICP accessible to more people, participation in the ICP does not guarantee certification. The program is very demanding and the standards for certification are very high.
  

• Online Instructor Training: To make the ICP accessible to more people, we digitally recorded all the instructor certification lessons, lectures, drills, and demonstrations, and have made all 52 instructor training videos available online through www.GracieUniversity.com. As a result, ICP course participants can become familiar with all the teaching methodologies from their homes, at their own pace. Upon successfully completing and passing the online ICP course (usually takes about 30-60 days), the participant will be invited to California to have all their skills tested in person during a 2-day live evaluation.

• 3 Ways to Establish a Certified Training Center (CTC)

There are four levels of certification at which an instructor can be recognized to teach Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. To be eligible for the Level 1 Instructor Certification Program, the only technical requirement is that the prospective instructor perfect the Gracie Combatives techniques and demonstrate their proficiency by passing the blue belt test with a score of 90 or greater. Upon successful Level 1 Certification, the instructor will be authorized to establish a CTC and teach Gracie Combatives and Gracie Bullyproof. As they continue to sharpen their own skills, as a teacher and student of the art, they will be considered for higher levels of certification
10% Off for the First 100 Instructors
Many people around the world have been waiting for quality Gracie Jiu-Jitsu instruction ever since UFC 1. To ensure that prospective students don't wait any longer than they have to, we are offering a 10% discount on the ICP tuition to the first 100 qualified candidates. If you've scored 90 or greater on the Blue Belt Qualification Test and you are interested in getting certified, don't wait, over 30 of these spots have already been taken.

Reserve Your Territory
There are many benefits to establishing a CTC. Among them is the opportunity to establish an exclusive territory in which only your school will be authorized to teach the proprietary Gracie Academy training programs. If you have a CTC location in mind, and there isn't already a CTC located within five miles of the prospective location, you will have the opportunity to temporarily reserve your territory as soon as you get accepted into the Instructor Certification Program. If you successfully complete the ICP and establish the CTC, your territory will go on full reserve. If you do fail to complete the ICP successfully, the territory will be released for the next qualified candidate.

I would be very interested to watch those 52 lessons (there is a brief description of each one up on the main site), so it will be fascinating to see how this affects the development of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. As with Gracie Combatives, it means that Helio's attack on Carlson Jr's program from many years ago looks increasingly difficult to support. Here he is on Gracie Jiu Jitsu Advanced, back in 1998:

Didn't you see Carlson's son is selling a certificate in the United States? To anyone who buys four or five of his tapes, he'll give a certificate as an instructor. What else do you want? Is there a bigger con artist than this? [...]

This kind of dishonesty I do not approve of. I already elected Rorion my representative in all areas, not only because he's my oldest son, but because he is the one who is more dedicated to jiu jitsu for what jiu jitsu is and the way I like it. [...]

Lets not confuse the student with those presumptuous ones who want to become teachers, because my own sons, who were born with me and since three years old have been doing jiu jitsu, only got their certificates after practicing their teaching skill for ten years.

Now an individual comes by my academy and spends five or six months or a year, and then leaves calling himself a jiu jitsu teacher. There's no way. Because for me, the instructor skill is not the learning of the movements, its in the philosophy behind the movements. In Brazil, unfortunately, it is very difficult to find someone with the morals I expect to become an instructor at my academy. That's the problem.

Apparently now those morals can be evaluated in a mere two days, and the teaching skill only requires a Gracie Combatives blue belt and a further 52 online lessons, rather than ten years of hands-on practice as a teacher of jiu jitsu. The (very brief) video of Helio on that Gracie Insider email contains the following message from the man himself:

I approve the new method through which people all over the world will be able to learn Gracie Jiu Jitsu.

Of course, as that was recorded in 2009, there is something of a disconnect, and he doesn't say anything about it being a wonderful thing that people can now become instructors almost entirely over the internet.

Presumably the argument is that these are only entry-level instructors, and they are only teaching beginners. Still, it is a potentially worrying development, but then I haven't seen the material, and they've only just announced the program. Hopefully it won't turn out to be as ripe for abuse as it appears to be on a first look.

[gonzomalan]

Noted and noted.

[It is Fake]

We rarely close threads.

This still gets discussed so, it will remain open.

[gonzomalan]

Again, i find myself joining the party late.

As has been mentioned earlier in the thread, and I've outlined here, the Gracie Combatives Licensing Program has been supplanted by the Instructor Certification program. This being the case, I believe this thread should either be closed, or re-focused on that specific program. I personally was hoping to get some replies to what I posted in the GU thread, as I feel that's more related to the main points of debate in the recent points of this thread. I'll be posting something there shortly.

[RaiderFunk]

You mean Rener and Ryron, presumably, Rorion's sons? Royler and Renzo are from Rorion's generation. This is Ryron and Rener, from the DVD set cover: not obvious from the picture, but they're both much bigger than Renzo and Royler:





While this is Renzo and Royler, from the cover of their book, Theory & Technique:



Renzo in particular does not think much of Gracie Combatives.

Oh shit! renzo is going in! Wow...I need to write dude a love letter!!!

[It is Fake]

Okay cull time:
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=101611

[slideyfoot]

Combatives and Gracie Jiu Jitsu don't belong in the same sentence. It's a good marketing strategy, but when I watched the end of the first disc (I borrowed them from a friend) and Royler and Renzo suggested asking a group of attackers to fight them one on one I almost lost my fucking mind.

You mean Rener and Ryron, presumably, Rorion's sons? Royler and Renzo are from Rorion's generation. This is Ryron and Rener, from the DVD set cover: not obvious from the picture, but they're both much bigger than Renzo and Royler:





While this is Renzo and Royler, from the cover of their book, Theory & Technique:



Renzo in particular does not think much of Gracie Combatives.

[Team Python]

First, I just wanted to say that I love your blog. :)

As you mentioned in the later part of your post, the inclusion of punches is a key issue. Specifically, how does one close the distance and achieve the clinch, while minimizing the chances of being knocked out? The combatives course (as do several of the other self defense focused BJJ schools) has methods that address this issue.

A second area that a more SD focused BJJ school addresses that perhaps an exclusively sport focused BJJ school doesn't are standing grappling attacks, such as standing headlocks, bearhugs, standing RNCs and front chokes, etc. While some folks might not thing that those attacks are "realistic" in a real street scenario, I know for a fact that they are. On multiple occasions (usually in bars) I have seen some guy either headlocking or doing a front choke on another guy.

In one of the countries I regularly travel to, a guy was committing a series of strong-arm robberies against tourists by simply walking up behind them and putting an RNC on them. I know a gentleman that was the victim of this. He tried fighting back, but had no idea how to get out of it. The next thing he knows, he is waking up on the sidewalk a few minutes later, without his wallet, watch, and passport.

A third area that a more SD focused school will address are at least SOME techniques that can be employed that do not REQUIRE the defender to go to the ground with the attacker. While Gracie combatives has one technique for this (standing armbar) IIRC, the Gracie Barra fundamentals does a better job with multiple techniques to address this, my favorite being a simple hip throw.



I think what many BJJ instructors are beginning to realize (something that most other martial arts instructors have known for decades) is that folks like yourself don't make up the majority of the potential customer base. SOME bjj schools seem to market themselves to three groups:
1)Those entering MMA
2)Those who want to compete in BJJ/submission wrestling tournaments
3)Those looking to get in shape

Whereas, I would be willing to bet that the MAJORITY of people interested in taking a martial art are among these two groups:
1) Self Defense
2) Those looking to get in shape

A martial arts school that ignores the self-defense market is missing out on a HUGE market. If you are the only BJJ school in town, you can probably get away with ignoring self defense. However, in my city and the surrounding suburbs there are probably over 20 places offering BJJ programs, many (most?) with black belt instructors. Someone opening up a school has got to carve out a niche for themselves.

I agree with your statements and good response

[slideyfoot]

In one of the countries I regularly travel to, a guy was committing a series of strong-arm robberies against tourists by simply walking up behind them and putting an RNC on them.

Interesting: do you have any links to news sites running that story?

A martial arts school that ignores the self-defense market is missing out on a HUGE market. If you are the only BJJ school in town, you can probably get away with ignoring self defense. However, in my city and the surrounding suburbs there are probably over 20 places offering BJJ programs, many (most?) with black belt instructors. Someone opening up a school has got to carve out a niche for themselves.

True, although I'm not sure I would say that those BJJ schools are ignoring self defence, just that they're not explicitly emphasising certain techniques as 'self defence' rather than 'sport'. I can't think of many martial arts schools that don't mention "learn effective self defence" somewhere in their marketing.

Still, I agree that with the rise of Gracie Combatives, it is becoming a point of divergence. That's presumably why Alliance wanted to clarify that they can cater to a self defence market as well. I would be interested to know if the explicit distinction between 'sport' jiu jitsu and 'self defence' jiu jitsu has had widespread recognition for many years in BJJ, or if it is a more recent split due to the success of Rorion's recent marketing. I've only been training since 2006, but it seems I'm seeing that clear division discussed with specific terminology a lot more now than when I started.

Then again, that Pedro Carvalho video series talked about it, and that was 14 years ago. Something Mario Sperry talked about on his old vids too, IIRC, not to mention the well known interview with Helio on the Gracie Jiu Jitsu Advanced series. This is Mario Sperry in an article from 1998:

The majority of the Brazilian jujutsu instructors in America are teaching sport jujutsu. Americans must understand that sport jujutsu may not be the most effective method of self-defence in the street. [...] If they try these [sport] techniques in a real fight, they are going to be in for a big shock. These techniques won't work. Everything from the takedown to the finish of the fight is different.

So could well be that Gracie Combatives simply provided a way to rekindle the debate. I wonder if that goes for the specific self defence orientated programs that are now coming out of Alliance, Gracie Barra and Gracie Humaita too, or if those kind of programs have been around for a long time, and these are just updates?

First, I just wanted to say that I love your blog. :)

Thanks for the kind words.

[mcjon]

Ok, but again, in those beginner classes I mentioned, I have never seen anyone teach upside down guard. In fact, because I'm a geek, I've noted both on a blog and in a spreadsheet exactly what I've been taught since I started training in 2006 (so, the extra geeky version of this).
...

First, I just wanted to say that I love your blog. :)

As you mentioned in the later part of your post, the inclusion of punches is a key issue. Specifically, how does one close the distance and achieve the clinch, while minimizing the chances of being knocked out? The combatives course (as do several of the other self defense focused BJJ schools) has methods that address this issue.

A second area that a more SD focused BJJ school addresses that perhaps an exclusively sport focused BJJ school doesn't are standing grappling attacks, such as standing headlocks, bearhugs, standing RNCs and front chokes, etc. While some folks might not thing that those attacks are "realistic" in a real street scenario, I know for a fact that they are. On multiple occasions (usually in bars) I have seen some guy either headlocking or doing a front choke on another guy.

In one of the countries I regularly travel to, a guy was committing a series of strong-arm robberies against tourists by simply walking up behind them and putting an RNC on them. I know a gentleman that was the victim of this. He tried fighting back, but had no idea how to get out of it. The next thing he knows, he is waking up on the sidewalk a few minutes later, without his wallet, watch, and passport.

A third area that a more SD focused school will address are at least SOME techniques that can be employed that do not REQUIRE the defender to go to the ground with the attacker. While Gracie combatives has one technique for this (standing armbar) IIRC, the Gracie Barra fundamentals does a better job with multiple techniques to address this, my favorite being a simple hip throw.

I generally don't find training with a self-defence focus all that interesting, but to each their own...

I think what many BJJ instructors are beginning to realize (something that most other martial arts instructors have known for decades) is that folks like yourself don't make up the majority of the potential customer base. SOME bjj schools seem to market themselves to three groups:
1)Those entering MMA
2)Those who want to compete in BJJ/submission wrestling tournaments
3)Those looking to get in shape

Whereas, I would be willing to bet that the MAJORITY of people interested in taking a martial art are among these two groups:
1) Self Defense
2) Those looking to get in shape

A martial arts school that ignores the self-defense market is missing out on a HUGE market. If you are the only BJJ school in town, you can probably get away with ignoring self defense. However, in my city and the surrounding suburbs there are probably over 20 places offering BJJ programs, many (most?) with black belt instructors. Someone opening up a school has got to carve out a niche for themselves.

[Team Python]

Ok, but again, in those beginner classes I mentioned, I have never seen anyone teach upside down guard. In fact, because I'm a geek, I've noted both on a blog and in a spreadsheet exactly what I've been taught since I started training in 2006 (so, the extra geeky version of this).

If I filter it for beginner classes, the only thing I can see that might be thought of as particularly 'sport' is a month Gracie Barra Birmingham spent on De La Riva (during Augustclaims will result from training at a 'sport' school, apparently defined as anywhere that isn't Gracie Academy certified).

Absolutely, punches make a massive difference. However, Gracie Combatives does not feature people actively trying to punch you any way they want (does sparring with punches feature as a part of the Instructor Certification Program?) In fact, it doesn't feature any resistance at all, as the whole point is to be co-operative, so I'm not sure I would count that as being properly trained to deal with punches in a grappling situation.

If I wanted to test my grappling against somebody trying to punch me in the face, I would look to train some MMA. Or indeed somewhere like your school (presuming that's your place?), where I could try vale tudo and cross-train in muay thai.

Having said that, I thought Rener did a good job with the punch block series, and that certainly isn't something I've ever seen taught at the places I've trained (though at the same time, it isn't something I'd want to train either: I generally don't find training with a self-defence focus all that interesting, but to each their own).

Incidentally, if you're under Pedro Carvalho, then that makes a lot of sense, as I gather he was doing this kind of thing when Rener was still barely into his teens (judging from what I saw on Carvalho's old 1996 instructional).

Yeah the school is mine and I have been with Pedro since day one of my training. The basic techniques such as cross choke from the mount can be used in sport and a real fight....no doubt about that. A lot of techniques can be used for both. However as an instructor I have to let my students know how to modify a technique for use in a fight. Like I said I train my guys for competition but I don't focus all of my training on that alone. I believe you have to do all three. Rickson said it best in a recent seminar that was posted in an article. He said that 33 percent of training should be on competition training the reamining should be on Vale-Tudo and self defense. This I believe as well.

Now what the Gracie Academy does is their own business. I am not affiliated with them and I don't care what they do. However they must be doing something right because they are making a killing doing it.

[goodlun]

of course not. As I said before I am concerned that someone walks into a gym and does not know that the person teaching the course earned his credential via video tape. Now, based on how old this thread is and the other information, it appears that the process has been tightened up a bit. It's a concern, not an accusation.

Fair enough, and it is indeed a good concern. Its just that the Gracie Combative people from what I understand where never meant to have a gym that teach BJJ it was something that they compliment to there own training. IE the Karate place that wants to add self defense basic grappling to their training. So to be honest I am not sure how it really effects the ma population at large other than exposing people to the concept that they have to learn some ground fighting and some standing grappling to be viable in a street fight.

[RaiderFunk]

So because they made special dispensation for a guy who is at a physical disadvantage compared to the majority of people who go for blue belt you think the whole system is a wreck?

of course not. As I said before I am concerned that someone walks into a gym and does not know that the person teaching the course earned his credential via video tape. Now, based on how old this thread is and the other information, it appears that the process has been tightened up a bit. It's a concern, not an accusation.

[slideyfoot]

Sport technique would be anything that leaves you open to strikes. You eighter keep them real close to where their strikes are ineffective or at a distance where they can't reach you. Sport techniques such as upside down gaurd leaves you open for strikes so it is useless in a real fight.

Ok, but again, in those beginner classes I mentioned, I have never seen anyone teach upside down guard. In fact, because I'm a geek, I've noted both on a blog and in a spreadsheet exactly what I've been taught since I started training in 2006 (so, the extra geeky version of this).

If I filter it for beginner classes, the only thing I can see that might be thought of as particularly 'sport' is a month Gracie Barra Birmingham spent on De La Riva (during Augustclaims will result from training at a 'sport' school, apparently defined as anywhere that isn't Gracie Academy certified).

Why don't you roll with several people and have them punch you any way they want......try seeing if you can deal with the strikes easily without proper training.

Absolutely, punches make a massive difference. However, Gracie Combatives does not feature people actively trying to punch you any way they want (does sparring with punches feature as a part of the Instructor Certification Program?) In fact, it doesn't feature any resistance at all, as the whole point is to be co-operative, so I'm not sure I would count that as being properly trained to deal with punches in a grappling situation.

If I wanted to test my grappling against somebody trying to punch me in the face, I would look to train some MMA. Or indeed somewhere like your school (presuming that's your place?), where I could try vale tudo and cross-train in muay thai.

Having said that, I thought Rener did a good job with the punch block series, and that certainly isn't something I've ever seen taught at the places I've trained (though at the same time, it isn't something I'd want to train either: I generally don't find training with a self-defence focus all that interesting, but to each their own).

Incidentally, if you're under Pedro Carvalho, then that makes a lot of sense, as I gather he was doing this kind of thing when Rener was still barely into his teens (judging from what I saw on Carvalho's old 1996 instructional).