Just passed my combatives test and got my combatives belt. Have been in master cycle for 3 weeks now. Knowing positions and what they are and having an idea of what to do makes jumping into sparring much more tolerable.
I ruined my life in juijitsu. Or someone else did. Broke my neck. I’ve been wanting some type of training back. Now I have heart disease and the technique only, for a few months sounds like the right way to build my heart up. Thank you for this bc I have a Gracie combatives not 5 minutes away. I used to drive a hour at times. I feel like I was meant to see this. Thank you 🙏🏻.
Wow, amazing story...I'm sorry to hear about your injury. Anything involving a neck break is life-altering. I hope Gracie Jiu Jitsu can offer you a path to getting back in to what you love, and I wish you well with everything. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!
There-in lies the issue with free-sparring with random strangers. I really feel like a person should pick training partners as carefully as they do a sexual partner. Your health is on the line in both situations, though obviously in different ways. Not talking bad on you, am sorry to hear about your neck injury. I think it's a problem with how BJJ is taught in general. I think it probably chews more people up than it creates good fighters. That is the problem with informal teaching and no clear progression or curriculum. I've been to schools that barely teach anything in terms of fundamentals. Do you care to talk about your injury? How/when did it happen and to what extent was the damage? Have you recovered at all? Best of luck to you bud.
Don’t give up I’ve had two heart attacks four stents I couldn’t see my life without exercise I tried ju jitsu once hurt my neck tumbling and after the session realized injury is part of the game rolling and decided to also look into the Gracie program to minimize injury and still learn tools heart disease is tricky look into sugar just as much as saturated fats and if you feel like trash and forget stuff it is probably the statins
Great breakdown of Gracie Combatives. I train BJJ at a local school, but I lead a Gracie Garage on the side. I also Teach a system of Taiho Jutsu (MPC).
During the 5 minute introduction for new students you positionally spar with the instructor in a very controlled manner. It is very humbling for almost everyone.
@@Overlearnerhaving been in both (and now a CTC owner) I'll bet if you did MC for a few months and then went back to a sports place to open grapple (minus the injury risk) you would do tons better. My first BJJ class I at least learned closed guard so I had a positional control as my first lesson. Of course that's all I did for months cause it was all I knew. Many places the first lesson is some submission (usually coming from some counter to a counter of techniques you never heard of let alone know). It makes no sense and your ability to remember it is extremely low. One of my early classes in BJJ was some 'Darce to Whizzer' submission. I was shown it 3 or 4 times. Never learned how we got into that position, nor the technique it was countering... Nor did I ever see it again. I still don't remember what exactly it was...
Hey Mate, Brissy fella here, thanks for your review, I am deciding between two different schools now, GJJ v BJJ. Good video, good production value, good editing, good work and good information. This vid was informative and useful.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m just starting this channel so I’m glad to hear it’s useful to someone out there! I wish you well on your Jiu Jitsu journey - let me know what you end up deciding on!
100% agree with this in-depth review. I got my combatives 2.0 belt and did 2 months of master cycle (from a CTC in US and continued in UK-- although 50 miles away from home) before moving to a sport gym closer to home as I wanted to train more. I absolutely love and miss the curriculum and progress plan from Gracie CTC. But fortunately love the culture of the new school. How was the transition to sport and sparring? The gap is HUGE coming out of combatives with limited sparring time compared to someone with 8 months sparring time. You do recognise the positions and can survive with your combatives techniques HOWEVER, the reaction speed and demand on your body adjustments are put to the test with faster more athletic younger partners (we use to do slower/flow-rolling in master cycle) from positional sparring. As I did go back to a white belt/0 stripes for my own development as there is a self-induced pressure to live up to your belt stripes and I didn't want this frustration to take over my training. The great thing about having graduated from combatives, is your ability to learn quickly, understand mechanics of techniques, comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm 54 and roll with 20/30-year olds, and the learning curve is actually much much faster with a combatives background-- you have an idea of what you're up against and what you're trying to do. The only thing I had to reconcile with myself moving from self-defence style to a sport style-- listened to loads of podcasts and concluded that you can still do self-defense in a sport BJJ school as it is a mind-set especially as it relates to keeping away from potential positions where punches are coming, and the energy depletion principle. I can say today, i have very good defence against a sport BJJ person, am able to conserve energy and outlast my opponent, but it will take a while on the points scoring side as the biggest difference I see between a given technique in Gracie self-defence BJJ and sport BJJ... is the intent
You shouldn’t have taken your strips off. No coach would tell you to do that. I know you feel you don’t deserve it but stripes are for your progression. It doesn’t matter if other people are better than you at a lower strip. It shows your dedication to the art.
I'm 58 , got a few permanent injuries I have to watch out for now, but I started training back in the 80's . I've done pretty much all types of super intense , hard contact stuff there is , and I am glad I did . I personally think that is very critical to do , but I no longer need that type of training . I also don't believe everybody needs it at all . For some people a "milder approach " is what they need or they'll just quit . Some training is better than no training . And sometimes all you are doing is teaching with very little training to imbed it but even that can be enough too. I have personal anecdotes of students with only a few lessons using it to defend themselves . I also would change some of they ways I train the more hardcore students too because I learned how hard it is to fix bad habits so I'd move the sparring to later . Thanks for the great breakdown! I've been curious about this system
@@Overlearner Started in Hapkido, then Kenpo , then a blended system similar to JKD that had elements of Silat, Kali, Wing Chun etc , and some cross training in Muay Thai and grappling . Plan to dive deeper into the grappling now , getting hit at my age is less fun than it used to be . I'm afraid something is going to break off like in the Mummy movies
Been at both a CTC/GG and at multiple "sport" schools. CTC/GG all day. Anyway - a bit of an explanation on rear grabs being absent from GC: R&R talk about keeping GC small for the sake of keeping things focused and managable. Rear grabs imply you've not kept someone dangerous (yet untrained) in front of you, which isn't an instinct a GC student should have the further you get through the curriculum. It is covered in MC, but MC implies a trained opponent (someone dangerous who knows how to get behind you)...."jiujitsu vs. jiujitsu". Summary - although important, they think it simply doesn't "make the cut" (and that what's in GC makes rear hugs avoidable).
Thanks for your explanation - I knew there had to be a good reason. Incidentally, they posted this video in the last 24 hours: th-cam.com/video/PId_nKcLOwM/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=GracieBreakdown
@@OverlearnerInteresting thoughts. I'm in the The Women Empowered program and that curriculum does include rear bear hug defenses and rear choke defenses. Maybe that type of attack is more common in women and therefore more important to them at the beginner stage?
If you only train the Gracie Combatives and go to an open mat at a different gym, it's not going to transfer over to that style of training. The Gracie Combatives is focusing on street defense and punching,
But if you continue into Master Cycle you learn everything the sports place could teach you, but in an organized way, PLUS on Fight Sim days you get to blend it with the street fight protection of Combatives by using gloves to punch (30-40% punches) anywhere in the round. If someone completes Combatives and sticks with Master Cycle for a year they will most likely be ahead of someone in a sports style for the same amount of time with the added bonus of less time missed due to injury.
The school where I trained white to blue belt included the Gracie Combatives as part of all training, it was not a separate class. Almost every class included training at least one technique from GC. To be promoted to blue belt required demonstrating a level of competency with the GC curriculum as well as the fundamental BJJ curriculum. I miss this at my new school. There is one instructor who sometimes teaches from the GC, and there are MMA focused no-gi classes, but I would prefer more GC classes available.
It seems to me that the exact structure of classes etc varies a lot from school to school. Our school is run by one guy, the only black belt at the club, so it's quite an idiosyncratic weekly timetable.
Why do people assume “sport” jiu jitsu isn’t self defense? You think they don’t know how to scrap ? If you put a Gracie blue belt up against a “sport” JJ guy with punches allowed. The Gracie student would get destroyed. I encourage any newly promoted blue belt Gjj student to test his/her skills at a “sport” JJ place and spar with a 3 stripe white belt they’ll STILL get destroyed. I say this because at Gracie they do not require their new students to warm up with calisthenics to build up strength and endurance as they move through the curriculum so that by blue belt they are in shape for this martial art. How does this prepare someone for a real fight?
The thing is, Gracie Combatives is designed to quickly teach an average person the core jiu jitsu techniques that will allow them to defeat an unarmed, untrained attacker. No one said that Gracie jiu jitsu practitioners would be better than sport jiu jitsu players at their own game, or would win against them in a cage match.
@@OverlearnerWe aren’t trying to attack you but damn, man, listen to yourself. You train how to fight by being incapable of dealing with an opponent who’s been training the same amount of time as you? What a sales pitch. What’s the plan if the deranged lunatic you’re up against did a year of high school wrestling? Well obviously the plan is to lose, you can’t expect to have any of this work under pressure against a trained opponent. 🙄
We are a Certified Training Center in the United States. We have an open mat training session every Friday. I know that there has been talk of adding open mat classes at HQ in the past. For us in Maryland, we only allow it for people that are presently students at our school for those insurance reasons, but it is often a very useful opportunity for those students indeed!
Hi from Melbourne! Thanks for your comment. I always enjoyed open mats on a Friday evening...after a week of work or study, it's nice to just roll around or practise some stuff in an unstructured way. Good to hear that other GTC's have open mat sessions.
Interesting review. I trained at a CTC for about 5 and half years before switching to a competition school 5 months ago. I left as a 4 stripe blue belt and I was the only person that competed. Overall I'd say your points are accurate. I'm very interested to hear your experience and opinion of visiting your friend's open mat.
Thanks for your comment - I've visited my friend's open mat once. A really good experience! If you tell people you just want to roll light they adjust to your level. However I think you need to be disciplined and do some kind of warm up.....inevitably you end up rolling harder than you planned to 🤣🤣🤣 It was really good to get some pointers on guard retention from a friendly black belt who was also having a roll
The idea of not sparring six months in is beyond bizarre from my perspective. When I joined my first gym I rolled first day and was hooked on grappling, it was tremendous. If I took a rookie grappler and just had him go to open mats for 90 days, zero instruction, he would absolutely wreck you if you’ve never sparred. You’re over here talking about self defense and you’ve never tried to block punches while you’re in guard during a live match. If you’re doing all this stuff and not sparring you are basically role playing as a martial artist. Honestly it’s kind of disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of regular moms, old men, middle schoolers, and disabled people who actually have the guts to show up and learn jiujitsu the old fashioned way - by doing jiujitsu. This isn’t personal, the GC program has a poor reputation in the community because it brings a fake “you don’t have to spar” ethic when what makes jiujitsu so special is having to prove that things work in real life and not just in your mind. You have no timing and no base when you don’t spar. If you don’t spar it means that most seventh grade wrestlers could pin you to the ground indefinitely. You must spar to become tough, conditioned, and sharp. That edge from regular sparring is the most dangerous thing you can bring to bear on your hypothetical attacker in self defense. Removing live sparring is malpractice if the goal is to prepare people to defend themselves.
But there IS sparring, and a lot of it, and with punches - just not in the beginning. You could argue that they wait a bit too long (8 months) to start sparring. Fair point. But I still think that sparring in the beginning without knowing the basics is a bad idea for most people, most of the time. Every person needs to decide what works for them, this is just my opinion based on my own background and preferences. Passing the Combatives course is just the beginning - like you say it takes a lot of continued training and sparring to really become proficient. If anyone thinks 'I've passed the Combatives course, now I'm ready for a street fight!' they're making a big mistake. Appreciate the comment!
@@OverlearnerMy overall point is that at the end of 6 months, the GC student is starting from scratch with a bunch of rehearsed cooperative moves and the normal student is tough, conditioned, strong, and their abdomen and neck muscles are developed from live grappling. If we knew for sure you were going to lose against a student who followed the normal program, why would we want to do what you are doing? We don’t want to lose. Refusing to spar is a direct path to losing. I have seen countless people change their bodies, lives and minds through this art. They didn’t achieve those things by pretending. The did it by getting scrapes and bruises, being sore, by being dominated and having to overcome their fear on the mat. The personal growth from this martial art is caused by the sparring, it’s forged in the crucible of the difficulty of it. If the attitude of GC was that it allowed severely injured or elderly people to have a jiujitsu adjacent activity, that’s great. But these people are insisting they are part of our martial arts community but they refuse to spar for six months to a year. It’s not to be taken seriously from them any more than an Aikido guru or the kung fu nerd with the giant beer belly who’s techniques are too deadly to prove that they work. I had an old coach who said “In order for something to have value it has to be true.” Brazilian Jiu Jitsu actually works. And you know what? I can prove it, with my body and mind. Live sparring against a fully resisting opponent is that proof.
Two of the biggest & most successful competition gyms Alliance Jiujitsu and Gracie Barra both don’t allow sparring from day one. Gracie Barra you need two stripes (4-6ths) Aliiance you need a blue belt. Alliance you do beginner classes which are fundamentals and self defence for stripe one and two. Then you do intermediate classes with positional sparring for white belt stripe three and four then are allowed to take blue belt test. Then can spar in the advance class. No sparring day one isn’t a bad thing. Positional sparring is a great way to introduce beginners to sparring
Thank you for this honest review. One question: is it true if you want to be tested on a belt at any certified training center they charge you for a belt promotion? Thanks in advanced!
I didn't have to pay to get promoted, but the Combatives test takes place during a private lesson which you pay for - I think it was about $55 AUD for the 30 min test. Other certified Gracie centres might operate differently. Apart from that, there were no extra costs involved. If you want to receive one on one instruction for specific techniques prior to the test, of course you can pay for extra lessons. Video of my test (which I passed) coming soon!
It's an interesting review but in all honesty I don’t think you're experienced enough to accurately critique your school yet. It would interesting to see how your view changes if you continue training. Good luck on your journey.
This is quite possible, and I'm happy to hear where you disagree! At the end of the day these are just the views of one person (who's not very good yet at jui jitsu) at one particular training centre in one particular city. I too am interested to see if my views change over time - I've been in Master Cycle for a few months now, and it's been really good so far. I'll probably make a 6 month review of that later this year.
Very good and fair review. I shared it on my school's page (Gracie CTC). So many people (famous martial arts reviewers) just guess at what Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is, especially vs Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and never try it for any real length of time. THIS is how reviews are supposed to go: try it for 6-8mo before giving a review. Just to address your experience with RD: that might be a school choice where they string lots of techniques together. At our school, we focus on a position, give additional details to make the technique even more effective, then put techniques together to the level of the RD participants: First RD class, try to put 3-5 techniques together (talk it through first so you know what to expect); 12th RD class you should be aiming to put together just about as many as you need. We also do just freestyle nights and street clothes nights (cause workboots mess with any techniques where you have to fit a foot in (punch block stage 4, Block and shoot, giant killer triangle etc.) amd jeans dont flex like gi pants or no gi spats 😂 Great job sir!
Thanks a lot! I was watching the clock the other night at RD class and we only had 4 minutes on average for 2 people to practise a sequence of 5-8 techniques. It's just not enough time. We were lucky if we did it once each properly
Time for a little update in regards to competition and competing as a member of a Gracie Certified Training Centre, as I didn't really go into it in much detail in my video: It IS possible to compete in tournaments, but as far as I know, there is only one person from my club who does this. There is no 'squad' as such, and no classes specifically geared towards competition or competition rules. If you want to compete, you certainly can, but you're on your own - you have to find the tournaments, read up on the rules, and register yourself. I'm interested to hear if other CTC's around the world have a strong focus on competition. Let me know if so!
I did the free week two classes a day. The thought of waiting that long to do live rolling as a former college level wrestler was mind numbing. Honestly it is a great system for beginners, but it was not the experience I am looking for. Found a MMA/competition gym Fabio Santos Affiliate that I definitely gelled with much better!Did my first Competition at the 6 month mark and even though it was a 2 hour drive one of the professors showed up to coach me for the day which I didn’t expect.
@@Overlearner I am a Gi guy because I did 16 plus years of Freestyle/Greco wrestling and honestly NoGi/Submission Wrestling was easy. The deep waters even purple belt Gi guys drag me into is an exciting puzzle to crack. So as of right now I will be competing in Gi for the foreseeable future.
@@rstlr01 It is a challenge to build a program that fits every student equally well. One school I trained at required every white belt to demonstrate competency in fundamental defensive techniques for every position before they were allowed to free roll. (worse position (face down on belly, turtle, seat-belt, mount, guard etc...)), which took most students 4 to 6 weeks to achieve. Everyone could participate in live positional or situational drilling. A college level wrestler could probably fast-track through it doing two classes a day, maybe even in one week, or spend some $$ for a private lesson and evaluation.
Well, just the stark differences between it and every other BJJ school. I started Jiu-Jitsu 1999 under one of the Machado Brothers. I clearly told him that I wanted to learn what I saw Royce Gracie do at UFC 1. He blatantly lied to me and told me that because they were cousins they practiced the same thing, of course at that time being so new, I didn't know any better. 3 months after having started and learning de la Riva guard, and spider guard, always starting on the floor, I asked Carlos Machado when I was going to learn to defend against a simple punch, a simple kick, or just taking somebody down. He told me that that would come later in the training. 3 months after that, i posed the same question just to get the runaround again. At that time I moved to a chapter of the Lion's den and began to learn japanese catch wrestling, which I fell in love with, and I felt that I could actually use it to defend myself against a larger stronger opponent, by being as strong as fast, as endurant, and as explosive as I could be. I was felt the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was what I was looking for as I walked in wanting to know how to defend myself. At that time Gracie Jiu-Jitsu something you had to go to Torrance California to get.
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
Just passed my combatives test and got my combatives belt. Have been in master cycle for 3 weeks now. Knowing positions and what they are and having an idea of what to do makes jumping into sparring much more tolerable.
Absolutely. I love the fact that sparring is optional in Master Cycle - if I'm tired or whatever I can just head off after technique class.
What was your score? I'm working on my tests too
I ruined my life in juijitsu. Or someone else did. Broke my neck. I’ve been wanting some type of training back. Now I have heart disease and the technique only, for a few months sounds like the right way to build my heart up. Thank you for this bc I have a Gracie combatives not 5 minutes away. I used to drive a hour at times. I feel like I was meant to see this. Thank you 🙏🏻.
Wow, amazing story...I'm sorry to hear about your injury. Anything involving a neck break is life-altering. I hope Gracie Jiu Jitsu can offer you a path to getting back in to what you love, and I wish you well with everything. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!
There-in lies the issue with free-sparring with random strangers. I really feel like a person should pick training partners as carefully as they do a sexual partner. Your health is on the line in both situations, though obviously in different ways. Not talking bad on you, am sorry to hear about your neck injury. I think it's a problem with how BJJ is taught in general. I think it probably chews more people up than it creates good fighters. That is the problem with informal teaching and no clear progression or curriculum. I've been to schools that barely teach anything in terms of fundamentals. Do you care to talk about your injury? How/when did it happen and to what extent was the damage? Have you recovered at all? Best of luck to you bud.
Don’t give up I’ve had two heart attacks four stents I couldn’t see my life without exercise I tried ju jitsu once hurt my neck tumbling and after the session realized injury is part of the game rolling and decided to also look into the Gracie program to minimize injury and still learn tools heart disease is tricky look into sugar just as much as saturated fats and if you feel like trash and forget stuff it is probably the statins
Learning or indoctrination? Introduction or bait and switch?
Been there, done that, never again.
Great breakdown of Gracie Combatives. I train BJJ at a local school, but I lead a Gracie Garage on the side. I also Teach a system of Taiho Jutsu (MPC).
Nice! I'm open to the idea of running a garage one day. Need to get good first tho lol
If I had not started sparring when I first started, I'm not sure I would have continued. It took an undeniable humbling for me to be intrigued.
I can totally understand that. I've done enough sparring in the past to already know that I suck 😂
During the 5 minute introduction for new students you positionally spar with the instructor in a very controlled manner. It is very humbling for almost everyone.
@@Overlearnerhaving been in both (and now a CTC owner) I'll bet if you did MC for a few months and then went back to a sports place to open grapple (minus the injury risk) you would do tons better.
My first BJJ class I at least learned closed guard so I had a positional control as my first lesson. Of course that's all I did for months cause it was all I knew.
Many places the first lesson is some submission (usually coming from some counter to a counter of techniques you never heard of let alone know). It makes no sense and your ability to remember it is extremely low.
One of my early classes in BJJ was some 'Darce to Whizzer' submission. I was shown it 3 or 4 times. Never learned how we got into that position, nor the technique it was countering... Nor did I ever see it again. I still don't remember what exactly it was...
Hey Mate, Brissy fella here, thanks for your review, I am deciding between two different schools now, GJJ v BJJ. Good video, good production value, good editing, good work and good information.
This vid was informative and useful.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m just starting this channel so I’m glad to hear it’s useful to someone out there! I wish you well on your Jiu Jitsu journey - let me know what you end up deciding on!
100% agree with this in-depth review. I got my combatives 2.0 belt and did 2 months of master cycle (from a CTC in US and continued in UK-- although 50 miles away from home) before moving to a sport gym closer to home as I wanted to train more. I absolutely love and miss the curriculum and progress plan from Gracie CTC. But fortunately love the culture of the new school. How was the transition to sport and sparring? The gap is HUGE coming out of combatives with limited sparring time compared to someone with 8 months sparring time. You do recognise the positions and can survive with your combatives techniques HOWEVER, the reaction speed and demand on your body adjustments are put to the test with faster more athletic younger partners (we use to do slower/flow-rolling in master cycle) from positional sparring. As I did go back to a white belt/0 stripes for my own development as there is a self-induced pressure to live up to your belt stripes and I didn't want this frustration to take over my training. The great thing about having graduated from combatives, is your ability to learn quickly, understand mechanics of techniques, comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm 54 and roll with 20/30-year olds, and the learning curve is actually much much faster with a combatives background-- you have an idea of what you're up against and what you're trying to do. The only thing I had to reconcile with myself moving from self-defence style to a sport style-- listened to loads of podcasts and concluded that you can still do self-defense in a sport BJJ school as it is a mind-set especially as it relates to keeping away from potential positions where punches are coming, and the energy depletion principle. I can say today, i have very good defence against a sport BJJ person, am able to conserve energy and outlast my opponent, but it will take a while on the points scoring side as the biggest difference I see between a given technique in Gracie self-defence BJJ and sport BJJ... is the intent
You shouldn’t have taken your strips off. No coach would tell you to do that. I know you feel you don’t deserve it but stripes are for your progression. It doesn’t matter if other people are better than you at a lower strip. It shows your dedication to the art.
I'm 58 , got a few permanent injuries I have to watch out for now, but I started training back in the 80's . I've done pretty much all types of super intense , hard contact stuff there is , and I am glad I did . I personally think that is very critical to do , but I no longer need that type of training . I also don't believe everybody needs it at all . For some people a "milder approach " is what they need or they'll just quit . Some training is better than no training . And sometimes all you are doing is teaching with very little training to imbed it but even that can be enough too. I have personal anecdotes of students with only a few lessons using it to defend themselves . I also would change some of they ways I train the more hardcore students too because I learned how hard it is to fix bad habits so I'd move the sparring to later . Thanks for the great breakdown! I've been curious about this system
No worries. Training since the 80s is a fair effort! Which martial arts did you train in?
@@Overlearner Started in Hapkido, then Kenpo , then a blended system similar to JKD that had elements of Silat, Kali, Wing Chun etc , and some cross training in Muay Thai and grappling . Plan to dive deeper into the grappling now , getting hit at my age is less fun than it used to be . I'm afraid something is going to break off like in the Mummy movies
Been at both a CTC/GG and at multiple "sport" schools.
CTC/GG all day.
Anyway - a bit of an explanation on rear grabs being absent from GC: R&R talk about keeping GC small for the sake of keeping things focused and managable. Rear grabs imply you've not kept someone dangerous (yet untrained) in front of you, which isn't an instinct a GC student should have the further you get through the curriculum.
It is covered in MC, but MC implies a trained opponent (someone dangerous who knows how to get behind you)...."jiujitsu vs. jiujitsu". Summary - although important, they think it simply doesn't "make the cut" (and that what's in GC makes rear hugs avoidable).
Thanks for your explanation - I knew there had to be a good reason. Incidentally, they posted this video in the last 24 hours:
th-cam.com/video/PId_nKcLOwM/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=GracieBreakdown
@@OverlearnerInteresting thoughts. I'm in the The Women Empowered program and that curriculum does include rear bear hug defenses and rear choke defenses. Maybe that type of attack is more common in women and therefore more important to them at the beginner stage?
@@stevensdefenseacademyllc7898 yeah I noticed that too, not sure why that is
HEy! Great video -- thanks for taking the time. I have just started looking into Combatives and your take was really insightful.
Appreciate the comment! Let me know if you end up doing it!
If you only train the Gracie Combatives and go to an open mat at a different gym, it's not going to transfer over to that style of training. The Gracie Combatives is focusing on street defense and punching,
@@jessehernandez3384 that’s exactly why I would go to an open mat - to learn something new
But if you continue into Master Cycle you learn everything the sports place could teach you, but in an organized way, PLUS on Fight Sim days you get to blend it with the street fight protection of Combatives by using gloves to punch (30-40% punches) anywhere in the round.
If someone completes Combatives and sticks with Master Cycle for a year they will most likely be ahead of someone in a sports style for the same amount of time with the added bonus of less time missed due to injury.
Been in master cycle for 2 months
How are you finding it?
What a great video. Thank you
The school where I trained white to blue belt included the Gracie Combatives as part of all training, it was not a separate class. Almost every class included training at least one technique from GC. To be promoted to blue belt required demonstrating a level of competency with the GC curriculum as well as the fundamental BJJ curriculum.
I miss this at my new school. There is one instructor who sometimes teaches from the GC, and there are MMA focused no-gi classes, but I would prefer more GC classes available.
It seems to me that the exact structure of classes etc varies a lot from school to school. Our school is run by one guy, the only black belt at the club, so it's quite an idiosyncratic weekly timetable.
Why do people assume “sport” jiu jitsu isn’t self defense? You think they don’t know how to scrap ? If you put a Gracie blue belt up against a “sport” JJ guy with punches allowed.
The Gracie student would get destroyed. I encourage any newly promoted blue belt Gjj student to test his/her skills at a “sport” JJ place and spar with a 3 stripe white belt they’ll STILL get destroyed. I say this because at Gracie they do not require their new students to warm up with calisthenics to build up strength and endurance as they move through the curriculum so that by blue belt they are in shape for this martial art. How does this prepare someone for a real fight?
The thing is, Gracie Combatives is designed to quickly teach an average person the core jiu jitsu techniques that will allow them to defeat an unarmed, untrained attacker. No one said that Gracie jiu jitsu practitioners would be better than sport jiu jitsu players at their own game, or would win against them in a cage match.
@@OverlearnerWe aren’t trying to attack you but damn, man, listen to yourself.
You train how to fight by being incapable of dealing with an opponent who’s been training the same amount of time as you? What a sales pitch. What’s the plan if the deranged lunatic you’re up against did a year of high school wrestling? Well obviously the plan is to lose, you can’t expect to have any of this work under pressure against a trained opponent. 🙄
We are a Certified Training Center in the United States. We have an open mat training session every Friday. I know that there has been talk of adding open mat classes at HQ in the past. For us in Maryland, we only allow it for people that are presently students at our school for those insurance reasons, but it is often a very useful opportunity for those students indeed!
Hi from Melbourne! Thanks for your comment. I always enjoyed open mats on a Friday evening...after a week of work or study, it's nice to just roll around or practise some stuff in an unstructured way. Good to hear that other GTC's have open mat sessions.
Interesting review. I trained at a CTC for about 5 and half years before switching to a competition school 5 months ago. I left as a 4 stripe blue belt and I was the only person that competed. Overall I'd say your points are accurate.
I'm very interested to hear your experience and opinion of visiting your friend's open mat.
Thanks for your comment - I've visited my friend's open mat once. A really good experience! If you tell people you just want to roll light they adjust to your level. However I think you need to be disciplined and do some kind of warm up.....inevitably you end up rolling harder than you planned to 🤣🤣🤣 It was really good to get some pointers on guard retention from a friendly black belt who was also having a roll
Thx for your clear video. It helps a lot!
Thanks, I'm glad it was useful!
The idea of not sparring six months in is beyond bizarre from my perspective. When I joined my first gym I rolled first day and was hooked on grappling, it was tremendous.
If I took a rookie grappler and just had him go to open mats for 90 days, zero instruction, he would absolutely wreck you if you’ve never sparred. You’re over here talking about self defense and you’ve never tried to block punches while you’re in guard during a live match.
If you’re doing all this stuff and not sparring you are basically role playing as a martial artist. Honestly it’s kind of disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of regular moms, old men, middle schoolers, and disabled people who actually have the guts to show up and learn jiujitsu the old fashioned way - by doing jiujitsu.
This isn’t personal, the GC program has a poor reputation in the community because it brings a fake “you don’t have to spar” ethic when what makes jiujitsu so special is having to prove that things work in real life and not just in your mind. You have no timing and no base when you don’t spar. If you don’t spar it means that most seventh grade wrestlers could pin you to the ground indefinitely.
You must spar to become tough, conditioned, and sharp. That edge from regular sparring is the most dangerous thing you can bring to bear on your hypothetical attacker in self defense. Removing live sparring is malpractice if the goal is to prepare people to defend themselves.
But there IS sparring, and a lot of it, and with punches - just not in the beginning.
You could argue that they wait a bit too long (8 months) to start sparring. Fair point. But I still think that sparring in the beginning without knowing the basics is a bad idea for most people, most of the time. Every person needs to decide what works for them, this is just my opinion based on my own background and preferences.
Passing the Combatives course is just the beginning - like you say it takes a lot of continued training and sparring to really become proficient. If anyone thinks 'I've passed the Combatives course, now I'm ready for a street fight!' they're making a big mistake.
Appreciate the comment!
@@OverlearnerMy overall point is that at the end of 6 months, the GC student is starting from scratch with a bunch of rehearsed cooperative moves and the normal student is tough, conditioned, strong, and their abdomen and neck muscles are developed from live grappling. If we knew for sure you were going to lose against a student who followed the normal program, why would we want to do what you are doing? We don’t want to lose. Refusing to spar is a direct path to losing.
I have seen countless people change their bodies, lives and minds through this art. They didn’t achieve those things by pretending. The did it by getting scrapes and bruises, being sore, by being dominated and having to overcome their fear on the mat. The personal growth from this martial art is caused by the sparring, it’s forged in the crucible of the difficulty of it.
If the attitude of GC was that it allowed severely injured or elderly people to have a jiujitsu adjacent activity, that’s great. But these people are insisting they are part of our martial arts community but they refuse to spar for six months to a year. It’s not to be taken seriously from them any more than an Aikido guru or the kung fu nerd with the giant beer belly who’s techniques are too deadly to prove that they work.
I had an old coach who said “In order for something to have value it has to be true.” Brazilian Jiu Jitsu actually works. And you know what? I can prove it, with my body and mind. Live sparring against a fully resisting opponent is that proof.
Two of the biggest & most successful competition gyms Alliance Jiujitsu and Gracie Barra both don’t allow sparring from day one. Gracie Barra you need two stripes (4-6ths) Aliiance you need a blue belt. Alliance you do beginner classes which are fundamentals and self defence for stripe one and two. Then you do intermediate classes with positional sparring for white belt stripe three and four then are allowed to take blue belt test. Then can spar in the advance class.
No sparring day one isn’t a bad thing. Positional sparring is a great way to introduce beginners to sparring
Thank you for this honest review. One question: is it true if you want to be tested on a belt at any certified training center they charge you for a belt promotion? Thanks in advanced!
I didn't have to pay to get promoted, but the Combatives test takes place during a private lesson which you pay for - I think it was about $55 AUD for the 30 min test. Other certified Gracie centres might operate differently.
Apart from that, there were no extra costs involved. If you want to receive one on one instruction for specific techniques prior to the test, of course you can pay for extra lessons.
Video of my test (which I passed) coming soon!
@@Overlearner thank you for responding! Yes, more updates please 🙏🏻
Our school has two open mats a week and nobody struggles with RD.
That's great to hear. I'm interested to know how other Gracie Centres do things.
@@Overlearner twice* a week
I feel like different ctc’s have different struggles. We are fortunate to have 5 black belts
The reflex development class is a way to tell if you’re ready for the combative test
I must admit they have probably the best t-shirts.
Branding is on point
It's an interesting review but in all honesty I don’t think you're experienced enough to accurately critique your school yet. It would interesting to see how your view changes if you continue training. Good luck on your journey.
This is quite possible, and I'm happy to hear where you disagree! At the end of the day these are just the views of one person (who's not very good yet at jui jitsu) at one particular training centre in one particular city.
I too am interested to see if my views change over time - I've been in Master Cycle for a few months now, and it's been really good so far. I'll probably make a 6 month review of that later this year.
Very good and fair review. I shared it on my school's page (Gracie CTC). So many people (famous martial arts reviewers) just guess at what Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is, especially vs Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and never try it for any real length of time.
THIS is how reviews are supposed to go: try it for 6-8mo before giving a review.
Just to address your experience with RD: that might be a school choice where they string lots of techniques together. At our school, we focus on a position, give additional details to make the technique even more effective, then put techniques together to the level of the RD participants: First RD class, try to put 3-5 techniques together (talk it through first so you know what to expect); 12th RD class you should be aiming to put together just about as many as you need. We also do just freestyle nights and street clothes nights (cause workboots mess with any techniques where you have to fit a foot in (punch block stage 4, Block and shoot, giant killer triangle etc.) amd jeans dont flex like gi pants or no gi spats 😂
Great job sir!
Thanks a lot! I was watching the clock the other night at RD class and we only had 4 minutes on average for 2 people to practise a sequence of 5-8 techniques. It's just not enough time. We were lucky if we did it once each properly
Do self defense situations where you live only involve one person?
😐
Thanks. This was helpful
Thanks, exactly what I needed to know!
I'm glad it was useful!
18 USD for one vidéo man common😂😢😢
lol wut
Time for a little update in regards to competition and competing as a member of a Gracie Certified Training Centre, as I didn't really go into it in much detail in my video:
It IS possible to compete in tournaments, but as far as I know, there is only one person from my club who does this. There is no 'squad' as such, and no classes specifically geared towards competition or competition rules. If you want to compete, you certainly can, but you're on your own - you have to find the tournaments, read up on the rules, and register yourself.
I'm interested to hear if other CTC's around the world have a strong focus on competition. Let me know if so!
I did the free week two classes a day. The thought of waiting that long to do live rolling as a former college level wrestler was mind numbing. Honestly it is a great system for beginners, but it was not the experience I am looking for. Found a MMA/competition gym Fabio Santos Affiliate that I definitely gelled with much better!Did my first Competition at the 6 month mark and even though it was a 2 hour drive one of the professors showed up to coach me for the day which I didn’t expect.
@@rstlr01 That's great to hear. The Gracie system is definitely not for everyone. Are you competing in gi, no gi or both?
@@Overlearner I am a Gi guy because I did 16 plus years of Freestyle/Greco wrestling and honestly NoGi/Submission Wrestling was easy. The deep waters even purple belt Gi guys drag me into is an exciting puzzle to crack. So as of right now I will be competing in Gi for the foreseeable future.
@@rstlr01 It is a challenge to build a program that fits every student equally well. One school I trained at required every white belt to demonstrate competency in fundamental defensive techniques for every position before they were allowed to free roll. (worse position (face down on belly, turtle, seat-belt, mount, guard etc...)), which took most students 4 to 6 weeks to achieve. Everyone could participate in live positional or situational drilling.
A college level wrestler could probably fast-track through it doing two classes a day, maybe even in one week, or spend some $$ for a private lesson and evaluation.
Gracie Barra = Competition, medals, trophies, accolades.
Gracie University = self defense, health, lifestyle, lifetime
Very eye opening. Thank you.
Thanks for your comment! Was there something in particular you found surprising?
Well, just the stark differences between it and every other BJJ school. I started Jiu-Jitsu 1999 under one of the Machado Brothers. I clearly told him that I wanted to learn what I saw Royce Gracie do at UFC 1. He blatantly lied to me and told me that because they were cousins they practiced the same thing, of course at that time being so new, I didn't know any better. 3 months after having started and learning de la Riva guard, and spider guard, always starting on the floor, I asked Carlos Machado when I was going to learn to defend against a simple punch, a simple kick, or just taking somebody down. He told me that that would come later in the training. 3 months after that, i posed the same question just to get the runaround again. At that time I moved to a chapter of the Lion's den and began to learn japanese catch wrestling, which I fell in love with, and I felt that I could actually use it to defend myself against a larger stronger opponent, by being as strong as fast, as endurant, and as explosive as I could be.
I was felt the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was what I was looking for as I walked in wanting to know how to defend myself. At that time Gracie Jiu-Jitsu something you had to go to Torrance California to get.