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Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Quotes

Browse 9 quotes about Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Quotes

“Have a clear-cut plan on what you wish to improve, and seek opportunities to improve it. The more conscious and honest we can be about our shortcomings, the more strength we will have to improve them. We are going to train hard anyway, we are not going to sweat any more or less. It is simply imperative that the sweat is properly directed.”

“If you are called to roll with a jiu-jitsu instructor, rolling means rolling. He may toy with you. He may decline to tap you. But he expects you to do your best to defend yourself and to attack him. When an instructor’s body can no longer do what his mind tells it to, then he does not roll with students in this way, but provides wisdom and leadership appropriate to his rank and age. Students also adjust their intensity level appropriately to the training context. It is not inconceivable that a strong young blue belt could tap Helio Gracie out in 1999. He would pay a high and painful price for the glory of doing it however. There is a reason for age, weight, belt, and gender categories in competitions.”

“Think about a big, strong white belt on his first day of class. What's it like rolling with him? You probably catch him, but up until that point it's kind of crazy, kind of wild and unpredictable. It's different from rolling with a blue belt who may be good and fast but who's mostly doing moves that are recognizable as Jiu-Jitsu. But the thing is, the average guy you fight out in the street is going to be a lot more like the white belt. When you get mounted on a guy like that, you can't rush into things. You have to focus on weathering the storm.”

“Rorion did for a generation of Brazilians what 30 years previously Brian Epstein did for a generation of English pop musicians, stimulating seemingly limitless demand for a product where none had existed before (Gould, 2007). But Rorion did it to an even greater degree, conceding that his system was basically judo. Helio felt the same way. In one of his last interviews, with Ana Missa on Sensei SporTV in 2009 (February 14), he explained that because he wasn’t physically suited for judo, he “modified jiu-jitsu so that a weak citizen like himself could fight” [pelo meu porte físico eu não podia ser judoka, então eu adaptei o jiu-jitsu para que até um cidadão fraco como eu pudesse lutar]. So there we have it. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is pre-Olympic judo, taught by Helio’s method, whatever that is, and modified so that weak citizens can fight (apparently Helio felt that judo required too much strength, which is odd, because many of his promotional pictures and demonstrations involved judo throws). That doesn’t mean Gracie products and services aren’t worth what they cost. If judo people were teaching this material, people wouldn’t be paying Brazilians to do it. Rorion didn’t invent anything. What he did was to make it valuable.”