After a short hiatus, The Verbal Grappling Podcast (a collaboration between Jiu Jitsu Times and The BJJ Hour Podcast) will be back, airing its fourth episode this Sunday, 11/1/2015 at 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific.

Our third episode featured special guest Rener Gracie, and we discussed the merits of his Gracie Combatives program. We decided for this next episode to bring on not one but two special guests. The theme of the episode will be competitions, rule sets and the future of Jiu Jitsu as a sport.

Here is the link for the upcoming episode:

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Our special guests are both noteworthy Ralph Gracie black belts held in high regard by the jiu jitsu community. The guests are: Dan Camarillo and Kurt Osiander. If you don’t know who these two legends of the sport are, chances are you ****** up a long time ago…

On the episode you may see the following points to be made in favor of the current points systems:

1. The sport and art of jiu jitsu are growing fast; clearly the status quo has been good thus far.

2. The rule set has encouraged innovations such as Berimbolo, 50/50 and the various guards of Keenan Cornelius. A different rule set might stunt that growth.

3. There are subtle nuances to competition oriented jiu jitsu that may be missed if we try to change it.

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4. The current IBJJF rule set doesn’t have to exist by itself; other organizations can make their own rule sets.

5. Competition jiu jitsu is a game, learn the rules and have superior technique and you’ll win.

The arguments against the current points systems will be interesting to hear as well

1. Foot locks are important and have been neglected our sport for too long. There’s no reason upper ranks shouldn’t be able to do whatever leg locks they want.

2. The point systems available today encourage stalling

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3. Submission only is the only way to truly demonstrate one’s jiu jitsu skills. Athleticism becomes far more important when time limits and points are involved.

4. Competition oriented jiu jitsu has potential to “soften” jiujiteiros. There aren’t many current MMA champs who are pure jiu jitsu fighters. Just look at what happened to Roger Gracie when he was in the UFC.

5. Competition organizations around today are by and large corrupt. They charge a lot of money and don’t give much back to the top level athletes.

Both of these gentlemen that we will be featuring are upper echelon athletes. Both have competed and won in many tournaments, and both are highly respected. This may not necessarily be as clear cut of a debate as other episodes and may feature nuanced arguments both for and against the current point systems. We will also be picking their brains about what they think would need to happen to produce a superior point structure that more jiujiteiros can get behind. Tune in on Sunday!