Friday, June 13, 2014

Return of the Son of #EndPointJiuJitsuNow*

*at least for black belts

Eddie Bravo, a believer: (6:00 minutes in)
When it comes to entertainment value, hands down, submission only is the way to go. ... Who cares if there's a winner? Is that all you care about? The only thing people should care about is if it is entertaining ... If somebody wins a world championship by one advantage, I don't care. I'm not going to watch that again.
Again, I think points are fine for brown belts. Good for purple belts. Great for blue belts. Essential for white belts. But once you get to black belt, I think jiu-jitsu has an opportunity to set a sporting standard that few others can match. In the same way jiu-jitsu teaches us to be indomitable, why not shape our sport to match what is most essential about our art?


Ralph Gracie, arguably more king than philosopher, famously told one of his students who was defeated by points in a local tournament that as long as the student didn't get submitted, who cared how many "points" they "gave" the guy. That's another attitude from the old school that's probably worth reconsidering, if not recovering.