Jiu Jitsu Competition Quotes

If you want to be a lion, you must train with lions.

There is no losing in jiu jitsu. You either win or you learn.

Today's world is flooded with participation trophies. In an attempt to promote equality we have robbed our youth of the most growth-inducing aspect of competition, failing. If you want to be resurrected, you have to first be crucified. Everybody wants to be reborn, but no one is willing to die. Losing, in the context of whatever arena it may be, is a microcosmic death. When we learn from our failures and grow because of them, we are reborn.

We seek to understand Jiu Jitsu as a vehicle to understand ourselves. We have different explicit goals, from getting in shape, learning self-defense or competition, but tacitly we all seek mastery of ourselves.

When a martial art exists in two forms, the original self-defense form and a sport/competition form with rules for determining “winners,” the boundaries tend to blur, and effectiveness in self-defense can be sacrificed to effectiveness in scoring points in a rule governed contest.

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.

Jiu Jitsu Woman is a resource and community for women in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. We write articles, guides, and how-to's specifically so women don't have to feel alone in this male dominated sport. Our Women's Club is a subscription group for women who want to hear from the top ranking female BJJ athletes. Every month we have interviews with top ranking female athletes hearing their stories on gender dramas, frustrations, and tips on how they function in such a male dominated industry. We also ask practical questions on how women prepare for tournaments and competitions, and we even talk to men to find out the other sides perspective.

Carlos [Gracie Jr.] deserves much of the credit for creating sport Jiu Jitsu, but with it came a problem. it transformed our martial art and created a lot of paper tigers who would never step into the ring to carry the flag of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. My father didn't like the sport version because he thought it was watering down our martial art. Hélio [Gracie] used to say, "This is not my Jiu Jitsu, because competitive Jiu Jitsu is not a martial art. The Jiu Jitsu I created is a martial art so a person can defend themselves on the street without getting beaten up.

The whole sport Jiu-Jitsu movement has really confused things. It's really confused what people teach, because a lot of it is based around a competitor's presumed attributes. A competitor—the kind of person who becomes a competitor—is almost certain to be an athlete. He or she is almost certain to be someone who's got some innate athletic ability. Apart from that, they expect that they're going to be in peak physical condition in the tournament, when they're going to be executing these moves. That's the criteria that decides what moves get taught: whether an athlete in peak condition can perform these moves effectively against someone his or her own size. Which is fine—but it isn't most people, and it isn't the context that most people are interested in or concerned about.