Written by “BJJ needs to change now if it wants to stay relevant for MMA.”
Royce Gracie proved that BJJ is the most effective martial art by winning UFC 1 – or did he? Is BJJ nowadays the same thing that Royce trained, or did it change dramatically for the worse? Are there big problems in BJJ today that make it practically useless for MMA? And if so, can we fix it? I think the answer to all these questions is yes – let me explain why.
BJJ was the most effective martial art in the UFC
Royce Gracie, the ultimate representative of Brazilian jiu jitsu, won UFC 1 by submitting all of his (bigger) opponents. And to this day, many people start BJJ because of Royce’s story. They think that if they do BJJ, they’ll be able to beat stronger people. But is this still true?
Did BJJ change?
However, jiu jitsu changed a lot since the days of Royce Gracie. Most gyms nowadays focus on pure grappling only, mostly without takedowns. Jiu Jitsu has become a low stakes, low energy game, more so than a true combat sport.
We should remember that Royce Gracie, the poster boy of jiu jitsu, practiced some striking. Not a lot – but he could land enough strikes to stay alive and get the clinch. We don’t do that anymore in BJJ, and our effectiveness in MMA suffers because of it.
Who are you to judge BJJ’s effectiveness in MMA?
I’m Max, a BJJ brown belt that trains MMA occasionally. I’ve personally experienced that it’s hard for me to hold down strong MMA guys that are less experiences than me, even when I have much more grappling experience than them. That embarrassing experience is what leads me to write this article.
But you don’t have to take it from me. Take it from 3 experts in BJJ and MMA.
Witness #1: Ryan Hall (UFC Fighter and BJJ World Champion)
“If you try to grapple in MMA like we do in pure grappling, things will end very badly for you. I know.” – Ryan Hall
Ryan Hall is the main representative of BJJ in the UFC right now. He won many prestigious BJJ tournaments and many UFC fights. But on his instructionals he explains that he’s had to change his grappling style a lot to make it effective in MMA.
The biggest problem Ryan sees is that BJJ assumes that being on bottom is ok. And it’s not. But guard pulls are 8 times more common than takedowns in BJJ, and people don’t try to stand up when they’re on the bottom. Ryan says that it took him a very long time to change this fundamental mindset when transitioning to MMA.
Witness #2: John Danaher (coach of George St Pierre and Gordon Ryan)
John Danaher has repeated in many interviews that BJJ always had 3 weaknesses:
– Leg locks
– Takedown
– Keeping people down
Of course, Danaher and his team have since revolutionized the no gi grappling game, and leg locks are no longer a weakness.
However, the other 2 weaknesses are still with us. We as grapplers generally can’t take people down, and even when we do, we can’t keep them down.
This is obviously a catastrophe for the effectiveness of BJJ in MMA. If you can’t get and keep people down, you won’t have the chance to work your grappling magic on them. It pretty much renders all your grappling worthless.
Witness #3: Craig Jones (UFC grappling coach and BJJ competitor)
Craig’s very qualified to talk about this topic because he was the grappling coach of Volkanovski for his fight with Brian Ortega (and for that season of The Ultimate Fighter), and he helped Volk win that fight. And he trains with many wrestlers in his team (such as Nicky Rodriguez), who pose similar problems as MMA fighters.
Craig says that the biggest problem is that there’s an unwritten rule in BJJ that there’s a bottom guy and a top guy, and that’s how we play. Therefore, we’re shocked when wrestlers and MMA guys can just get up from under us, because we never practice how to keep explosive people down.
Is BJJ now adapting to MMA?
I have great hopes that BJJ is now changing again. Under the influence of ADCC, explosive wrestlers entering our sport, and Khabib Nurmagemedov’s recent grappling dominance in the UFC, I think we can turn the tide.
My hunch is that most BJJ schools aren’t changing yet, but some are. And more and more content is coming out on this topic, so it’ll become easier for instructors to teach grappling that’s effective for MMA.
Where can I learn BJJ that’s effective in MMA?
Craig Jones’ recent instructionals are all about fixing the main weakness of BJJ: how to take and keep athletic people down. My favorite Craig Jones instructional is Power Ride, which is a complete deconstruction of Khabib Nurmagemedov’s grappling techniques. It’s so interesting because all of Khabib’s leg rides and wrist rides are completely foreign to jiu jitsu, but they’re much more effective than traditional BJJ pins such as side control.
Other tips are Craig Jones’ Power Bottom, the Anti-Wrestling Equation and to a lesser extent Power Top. And another great tip is Ryan Hall’s The Modern Defensive Guard.
By Max van den Broek from BJJMore.com
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Images with thanks to Daniil Zanevskiy, Jonathan Borba, Timothy Eberly
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