Met up over the weekend with Elliott and Keith to watch the IBJJF London Open 2011 in Crystal Palace. We saw a couple of BJJ luminaries, e.g., Roger Gracie, Pippa Granger, Felipe de Souza, Dan Strauss (Raspberry Ape), etc., who came to support their school.
One of our fellow Filipino BJJ players, Diosa, (Escola de Jiu Jitsu under Leao Teixeira) came to compete at the Blue belt female featherweight category. She came in with her hubby, Jon (another blue belt), and lovely daughter, Jodi. My source tells me that although she tore through the comps when she was a white belt (she received her blue belt within a year of starting BJJ), this was her first comp as a blue belt. It was a tough fight and although she gained positional dominance several times during her match, she succumbed to an armbar late in the game. Well, her opponent went to win the Gold anyways, so no shame in losing there. And she got a Bronze for her effort. Also a t-shirt. ;)
Looking at the athletes – male and female, competing at this level, I noticed their physiques and saw how fit and muscled they are. Seeing pictures from the recent ADCC 2011, I noticed the same. A lot of these athletes supplement their BJJ training with a lot of cardiovascular training and weight-training to be able to compete at the highest levels of the sport.
This made me wonder:
Wasn’t Brazilian Jiu Jitsu developed to demonstrate how a smaller, relatively weaker person can beat a bigger and stronger opponent thru the use of technique and leverage? And wasn’t that the reason why the Gracie family chose Royce over Rickson to demonstrate this mantra?
Food for thought.
4 comments:
I'm not sure if BJJ was developed to help a smaller, weaker person beat somebody bigger and stronger. That's the picture that has since been painted, which may or may not have been true at the time. Either way, I'd say it is more about making good use of leverage and physics.
The fact is that pure technique is never going to beat technique plus strength. Royce could do it back in the day, because almost everybody he went up against had no idea what to do on the ground. As soon as people started to get a handle on grappling, pure BJJ was no longer enough: it became a component of MMA rather than a magic bullet.
Similarly, in BJJ competition, the highest levels already have plenty of technique. To win, they need an advantage. It is hard to get a significant technical advantage, so instead people have looked to maximise their physical attributes. So now most of the elite aren't just good at BJJ, they're ripped too.
Thanks, slidey for the comment. I remember seeing an old movie reel that was an advert for BJJ, involving a smaller, skinny man losing his lady friend to someone who was bigger and more muscled, then coming back to take his lady back after learning BJJ. Also, that advert (maybe for Judo) about a lady taking on a man.
It's true that it may have been marketed as such then, to get people turning up to try it, but nowadays, at that elite competition level, you need to get an edge somewhere to prevail.
I guess if people are thinking of competing eventually (like me), they would have to deal not only with BJJ skills but also athletic ability.
Yeah: that's an advert that pops up in various forms, and has a hefty dose of sexism behind it. More to do with male insecurity than the weak defeating the strong.
It essentially functions off the offensive implication that women will happily dump their partner if somebody more muscular comes along, then immediately dump the muscle man if previous boyfriend learns how to fight. Doesn't present a very flattering picture. ;)
It does, doesn't it? But then, it came during the time when there were very clear lines between men's and women's roles in soceity, which is very stereotypical and un-PC now. Also, remember those Atlas body building adverts on comic books then? These JiuJitsu adverts remind me of that.
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