Reylson Gracie is a 9th degree red belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu, and one of the most respected representatives of the Gracie self defense style, being the son of Gracie jiu jitsu founder Carlos Gracie Sr.

He wrote an essay on social media where he called out how Jiu-Jitsu is being taught nowadays. For Reylson Gracie, the sport aspect of Jiu-Jitsu is a ‘mutilated’ version of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and instructors who are teaching this style are doing a disservice to their students….

Here’s what he wrote:

Warning from Grand Master Reylson Gracie to all Martial arts practitioners

For this centenary of the Gracie Family, It has come the time to make amends and to amplify your vision to what is happening in the world of martial arts. My mission in this life is very simple: to save the martial art style developed by my father Carlos Gracie and by my uncle Helio Gracie. I will go to any lengths, overcome any obstacle and destroy any barrier of reality to see that my idea is realized.

And which idea is this? The idea that martial arts should not be at all taught if it is not of high quality. The idea that any man holding students back for the motives of undue profit or to hide the true aspects of the art should be severely penalized for this practice. The idea that instructors and masters should be prepared to endure any hardship in life to become good enough for their students and that if it is otherwise, they do not deserve such title. The idea that martial arts, as any objectified and durable work by mankind, is bigger than life as it gives immortality to those that improve it (by remembrance) and to the important teachings left in the world to all that will come after you.

To preserve humanity’s remembrance of what we do now, it is necessary that we improve ourselves today.

My specialty is all kinds of Jiu-Jitsu. Those who do not deal with Jiu-Jitsu can still participate and shall learn on the same timeframe as the others. With my program, there is literally no need for familiarity with Jiu-Jitsu basics. Please, all of you must understand that there is no “Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu” (this is just a name to avoid copyright issues). There is only Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and it makes me very upset to see that nobody has been teaching it correctly for decades. It makes me even more upset to see people that come from Brazil on a low level belt and change it for a higher level one (most commonly a blue belt puts a black belt) when they arrive in the United States. By doing this, they‘ve been fooling the American people for too long, teaching a mutilated set of techniques which does not amount for even 30% of the whole. By spreading this “snake without head” Jiu-Jitsu, they are killing martial arts.

Being the champion of a tournament does not make anyone a good instructor. A master can be a fighter but a fighter cannot be a master. A general can be a soldier but a soldier can’t be a general. There are lots of people in this country that put students to do their jobs by erroneously using pairs of students as well as people teaching and giving instructor/master certification online. When an instructor puts a student to do their job playing the victim on a pair, for example, it breaks their correct automation for real life scenarios. Also, there are people who wear the badge of inefficiency with pride by providing students with slow learning regimens that trap them into near-endless half decade cycles in the same belt level, and for this they charge low but for more time, generating income while keeping students longer than necessary. In the bigger schools, they overload the number of students, forcing each instructor to take care of 20 or 30 pairs of students at a time, making it not only inefficient but ineffective teaching (and these are but a few of the worst).

This kind of behavior destroys any art, for it creates a “domino effect” that takes these mistakes from school to school, person to person, spreading around the art as something ineffective, inefficient, commonplace and mutilated. You and your students cannot have conviction and find meaning in your skills and philosophy if the first is sloppy and the second is a lie. And without meaning, my friend, you and your art will be forgotten. This forces me to understand a very sad reality: in most places, instructors and masters are extinct and what they teach resemble more a volleyball or basketball trainer rather than a real master.

For this reason, I invite you to see, through my techniques and wisdom, that everything in this letter is true. It has been 100 years since the art began being developed. I will not let it die now. Help me spread it the right way. You owe it to yourselves, to your students and to the whole of martial arts to see this through!

In good faith,

Reylson Gracie