A few days ago BJJEE ran an article on a BJJ instructor who pretended to be a BJJ black belt (exposed by the excellent BJJ Hour) when he was in fact just a Gracie University ‘Technical Blue belt’ (Received belt through the mail). The article provoked uproar in the worldwide BJJ community and the martial arts academy where he was employed terminated his program. The Gracie Academy (home of Gracie University) reacted swiftly and denounced him as a fraud.

Gracie Academy stated that they approved of the community chasing black belt frauds and that black belts from other martial arts wearing their black belts while teaching a Jiu-Jitsu class was a serious problem:

Black Belts Are NOT Transferable

With the explosive popularity of MMA and jiu-jitsu, many martial arts schools are offering multiple disciplines under one roof. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. If however, a black belt instructor of one discipline such as Tang Soo Do, decides that he will wear a black belt when teaching a jiu-jitsu class, even though he is not a black belt in jiu-jitsu, this is called “Black Belt Transferring” and this is a SERIOUS problem. There is a strict policy against Black Belt Transferring at all Gracie Academy Certified Training Centers, and even though Mr. McMahon is not certified to teach, and his school has no affiliation to the Gracie Academy, his actions are condemnable. As jiu-jitsu’s popularity continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, fraudulent black belts will continue to surface. It’s up to the community to continue reporting suspicious activity so that people are not mislead regarding the authenticity of their instructor’s rank or lineage. All frauds must fall.

BJJEE.com was contacted by a fan about another case of Gracie University blue belts teaching a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class with a BJJ black belt (black with red band and degrees):

Saw your article about the Gracie fraud and it is happening everywhere. Here is a group of girls in my area that are claiming to be Gracie instructors at the ages of 15 and 17. If you call they claim they are black belts and teach Gracie JJ to hide the fact they are not Gracie BB.

I love for a big site like yours for exposing these frauds.

This case is similar to the last one. Teenage sisters Emma and Maycee Barber run the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu training centre in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. According to the Gracie Academy list of training centres, they are both blue belts under the Gracie Academy and students of Gracie University. The sisters are also black belts in Karate.

From the pictures on their website and their Facebook page, the sisters teach Jiu-Jitsu classes wearing Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Gi and a BJJ black belt (Red bar with 2 degrees). This type of black belt with the red bar is specific to BJJ and not used in Karate.

Their website also doesn’t mention who are the instructors and their rank on their About Us page.

Their academy only teaches Gracie/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as seen here . So why aren’t they wearing their Jiu-Jitsu blue belts when teaching? This is misleading people who don’t know any better.

The town where they live, Fort Collins, has two other BJJ academies that are both run by black belts. One of them is run by a Royce Gracie black belt (also focused on self defense).

Here are some pictures of the girls (From their Facebook page) with Rener Gracie wearing their blue belts (June 2015). They wear their blue belts only when around Rener Gracie:

With no Rener Gracie around, they teach wearing a BJJ black belt and Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Gi, even a Helio Gracie centenial Gi:

As a result of this article, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Fort Collins issued a statement that the girls were only wearing their kartet black belt (which is actually a BJJ black belt since karate black belts do not have a red bar and white degrees) when teaching the Karate class. The only problem is not Karate is not mentioned in the schedule: