Syllabus in BJJ - Yea or nay?

That article is so true and it definitely holds true for a lot of other martial arts schools too.

It mentioned the schools where BJJ was an "add-on" and I had this experience last summer.

I was away on an extended vacation with my wife and daughter and I was going through withdrawal (yes I'm addicted) so I looked for some local schools.

I found one about twenty minutes away that said it taught BJJ and I called them up and they were really nice and said I could come down and train.

Again let me preface this and say everyone was really nice; however it turned out to be a karate school that was learning under an affiliate that was located about 4 hours away in a different state. The person teaching was a blue belt like myself (which there is nothing necessarily wrong with) but it was very different than what I was accustomed to.

Well to make a long story short, they did some basic drills and then we rolled for about 5 minutes and the teacher lined us up and bowed us out. I was so disappointed because I was honestly looking forward to rolling; however they said that was a pretty standard class.

I did convince a couple guys to stay after and roll though and I think it was eye opening for them too because they don't train outside their group.

 

I understand what your saying but why in gods name does i have to be so random? I mean in the span on 2 weeks i went from basic positions to advanced bottom gift wrapping and Kneebars from back mount and other stuff way out side my ability.

I mean i felt bad for my rolling partners because they spent more time teaching me basic positions and escapes and transitions then actual rolling. I was holding everyone back and it was clearly annoying.

There has to be a better way to do it.

 

If the teaching is chaotic and the syllabus unclear, it's ultimately more the school/instructor's doing than the art's. It's up to the former to have either a beginner's class or to split the students by rank, at least until the newbies get up to speed on their ABCs. That said, BJJ's lack of codification is still frustrating - and I was lucky enough to at least be familiar with the basics of it. I can imagine how confusing it must be for a new student with no previous experience. As for feeling like you're holding people back, I wouldn't worry about it. If many higher ranks give you attitude about it, then maybe I'd be looking at other schools with a better environment. But feeling this way is normal early on in your training unless you are fortunate to have a couple of other students starting around the same time you do that you can be paired with. That said, they won't be able to effectively correct you and help you improve where higher ranks will so it's good to train with everyone. Except the guy with too much ego who cranks every armbar like his life depended on it. Avoid that dude

 

Ha - I don't think that's ever going to happen, though I agree it's a bit irritating. I've tried to compile something here, though I haven't updated it in a while. People are coming up with new names for old techniques all the time, not to mention old names for entirely different techniques (e.g., 'smash pass' can refer to loads of quite disparate passes in BJJ).

But if that's part of the price for a laid-back vibe and getting away from the stiff formality of many other martial arts (I know some people enjoy all the bowing and honorifics, but I'm not one of them. To each their own), I'll pay it.

 

OT question: is BJJ what you call your actual style (like "karate"), or do you use a more specific name (like sub-sets of karate - Shotokan, Wado-ryu, etc)? I ask because I see some folks refer to "it" as BJJ, others as GJJ, others as just jiu-jitsu, and others still as something-something jiu-jitsu (usually some Brazilian bloke's name).

 

Most people use BJJ. GJJ is referred to specifically for clubs that cover the Gracie self defence/combatives stuff. You also have Dave Camerillos "Guerrilla jujuitsu" but that is basically BJJ with more judo.

 

In Brazil, it's always just been 'jiu jitsu' (specifically spelled that way, rather than 'ju jitsu', 'ju jutsu' or any of the other transliterations). Keep in mind that its origins do not lie with the Gracie family, or even just Mitsuyo Maeda. There were several sources, like Geo Omori, Soshihiro Satake, Takeo Iano, Kazuo Yoshida, etc. But outside of Brazil, Rorion Gracie managed to propagate the myth that his family was solely responsible, even more impressively managing to write out several of his uncles from that history (namely George, Oswaldo and Gastao Jr. George was actually the most important fighter of that generation, rated well above Helio).

The distinction between 'Brazilian jiu jitsu' and 'Gracie jiu jitsu' was down to marketing, AFAIK. After establishing himself in the US during his second visit in the late '70s, Rorion Gracie did a big marketing push from the late '80s onwards, using the term 'Gracie Jiu Jitsu'. He trademarked it, preventing other family members from officially describing what they taught as GJJ, which resulted in 'Renzo Gracie Jiu Jitsu', 'Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu', 'Rickson Gracie Jiu Jitsu' etc.

There was a legal tangle with his cousin Carley Gracie (who had been teaching for a few years longer in the States but has much less marketing and business savvy), the end result of which was - as far as I understand the court documents, I'm no lawyer - that the trademark on the name wasn't upheld but it was on the triangle logo.

Gradually 'Brazilian jiu jitsu' became a popular term, whereas 'Gracie jiu jitsu' tended to refer to schools associated with the Gracie Academy and the Helio side of the family in general, like Chadderz said.

 

So I've been in a class using a syllabus for a while now. I'm not just as keen on it as I initially was. As we work through it, I'm starting to see it's limitations. There are some really good guys in the class who have a judo or MMA background, who should clearly be a step on from where they are, but they don't know a specific move on the syllabus.

For example, one MMA guy is really good at armbars from the mount. However he struggles to do the armbar from the mount as described by the syllabus so it's holding him back

 

Is it holding him back because he's trying the new variation and not getting success, or something else?

 

The JJJ I used to do kind of did this, they would expect you to know and practise techniques that were awkward/unsuited where a valid alternative method of the same technique was more suitable.

In some TMA there can often be an attitude where the student is expected to mould to the art instead of moulding the art to the student. There are pros and cons either way but applying a blanket formula can cause issues like the arm bar example above.

 

I'm not sure it's a syllabus issue. For all the talks of BJJ being liberal and laid back, that doesn't mean that you can do [insert technique here] whichever way and think you got it in the bag. Many arts of their own version of [insert technique here] but they put emphases on different things meaning they execution can often be quite different. JJJ vs BJJ is a good example. Whatever techniques I already "knew" from JJJ, I had to relearn within the BJJ framework.