At the inception of the UFC, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu dominated the landscape. It shows that between fighting disciplines, it had more answers for the available questions than any other at the time. In the modern era, a shift has occurred and things have changed. In today’s era there are very few legitimate specialists, and among them, few that are dominant at the highest level.

There’s a common issue that we’ve seen with the likes Mackenzie Dern, Kron Gracie, Demian Maia, and Brian Ortega in the UFC. These fighters have spent all their lives training Jiu-Jitsu, courageously entering the UFC, and ultimately falling short due one glaring hole. Our inability to take people down at will and keeping them there.

Wrestling on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have this issue. They boast the likes of Matt Hughes, Randy Couture, Tyron Woodley, Henry Cejudo, and Khabib Nurmagomedov just to name a few who have transitioned from grappling to MMA with both past and recent championship success.

After seeing this and giving it some thought, these are some of the things that we as a community have to do to have that kind of success again.

Eliminate Guard Pulling

As a sport, we need to eliminate guard pulling all together. This one is going to ruffle some feathers, but I’m fine with it. I myself have primarily pulled guard in competition, so I’m not immune to this criticism, but guard pulling has two major side effects on the sport.

One, people don’t have to learn how to take their opponent down. Ultimately, it’s a lazy loophole that competitors take advantage of, so they don’t have to develop integral part of their game.

Two, it robs the takedown oriented grappling the opportunity to utilize this skill set. Some of us might initially think, so, what’s wrong with that? The big picture is that there’s no incentive for someone to spend time on this segment of the sport, that in the end, won’t be utilized very often if at all. Why would like minded grapplers bother developing that part of their game if all their opponent has to do is sit down on their butt to negate it?

We HAVE to learn how to take people down. Guard pulling in an MMA situation is a poor strategy and not an effective tool at the highest level.

Cross Training

Jiu-Jitsu has this long-standing negative view of what cross training might mean to a school, it’s selfish and short sighted. Most Jiu-Jitsu specific schools, do not have a quality Wrestling or Judo instructor. While we might have some of the same techniques in our programs, it’s not the same as having a collegiate wrestler showing you how to chain attacks together in order to bring the fight to where you want it.

With this in mind, we need to put an end to the politics within the sport, humble our egos, and embrace a student’s healthy curiosity. We need to allow our students to cross train at other gyms. In the end it’s only going to enrich the school and the art as a whole.

Restructure Jiu-Jitsu Classes

Currently, the structure of most Jiu-Jitsu classes is a warm-up, instruction, time to drill, more instruction, more drilling, and possibly another segment of instruction and drilling. The instructor will allow everyone to get water, then begin sparring. This isn’t a bad thing necessarily; the issue is that you’re not spending any legitimate length of time live training in the technique that you just learned. The instructor is leaving it up to two things.

One, the chance that the student will find themselves in that positions to even attempt the maneuver, let alone execute it effectively.

Two, entrusting the students to be diligent enough to force themselves to even use that technique.

Neither are all that realistic, most students will rely on what they know because that’s what they find most comfortable and effective. There needs to be more live drilling for that specific scenario during each class.

Develope Grappling for Striking

Some schools have this, most don’t. By no means should this be the core of someone’s training, but it should probably be done regularly. Sport Jiu-Jitsu is beautiful and can get extremely intricate, but if you want to be effective in either a self-defense or in MMA, your game will have to be adaptable to those scenarios. People wont know what those scenarios are until they see it for themselves. Having gloves and providing some contact can help with this.

Thoughts?

I would love to hear what you guys think. If there was anything that you would improve about the gentle art, what would it be?

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