Arrogance

[Please visit our sponsor:]

[Matt Banks]

Hi, after visiting and training at schools of Gracie jiujutsu viewing their web pages I have noticed many upsetting things. I have always been told never say your martial art is better than any other. Yet speaking to Gracie prationers they do the opposite. I bet what im saying comes out wrong but here we go. I went on to a website and there was a note there buy Rorion Gracie saying along the lines of ''95% of fights go to the ground so if you dont know how to grapple then your going to lose your pride or worse, therefore arts like Tae Khon Doe or Kung Fu are inaffective in a real fight''. My god how arrogant. This is from the words of a high up member of this martial art. Ill make a few points the gracies love that line ''95% of fights go to the ground'' that may be statistically true but what is the real truth. 95% of fights may go to the ground because 95% of people dont know how to fight. From a family of police officers I can tell you that most real fights dont occur 1 v. 1 but rather
1v 2or4. Therefore the fallacy that going to the ground is great, isnt neccesarily true, because as your locked up on the floor with one guy his other 4 mates are stabbing you or kicking you etc etc. Furthermore what about attackers who have weapons,knife sword,gun etc all of which I train with in yoshinkan aikido and im sure other styles of Aiki do aswell. Ive train in GJJ and they hardly touch on it. And on the official site theres a story where Rorion picks a fight with a guy until he realises hes got a block of wood then lefs it! People might say that now im being a hipocrit slagging GJJ off im not ill try to visit seminars regularly but I just object to there false claims for the pusuet of money. I believe the UFC is the main problem. Due to many non MA 'ists believing that if Royce wins in a padded ring of a supposed ''no holds barr'' match then the style most be unbeatable and the superlative martial art, because thats what the commentators say ''you cant beat the tecnique of Gjj''. Maybe not in that style of match in a ring but when they come out regularly with things like ''this proves it Gjj is the ultimate defence for a real fight'' i wonder how far Royce would have got if he was locked up to a guy for 28 minutes then the enemys mate wanted to help out get the picture. People dont realise that the reason Royce is so succesful is that he trains everyday specifically for this type of event. Plus there is rarely any talk abount zanshin, you cant use grappling tecniques if youve been stabbed in the back 16 times by someone now can you. You get the picture. I sory If somewhere in this post I got rude its just the way I feel. And I know many other ma'ists and instructors of gjj and bjj feel the same way! Im not bitter about the art. I try in train in it whenever I can to try and disprove my thoughts but yet so far no luck. There should never be conflict between arts but there definately should'nt be one art saying its better than the other.

sorry if ive offended anyone

Matt Banks

[Nick]

arrogance is untolerable, especially in the budo, simply because someone will ALWAYS know more than you... arrogance is like saying "I want to fight..." it pisses me off.

Nick

[Erik]

Bingo!

I've been thinking recently that the Gracies have done the world a great disservice and a great service. The service is to point out that many martial arts are flawed in that a grappler can beat them. Hell, wrestlers can beat many martial artists. So I think it's great that they opened everyone's eyes to this possibility.

The disservice is exactly what you pointed out. First off, where did they come up with that study? Did someone go out and study every single fight to see if the went to the ground? Where did sucker punches come in on this scale? Of course they are going to say this because it benefits their cause. It's like the Tae Kwon Do guy I was working with who told me his instructor said "never to catch kicks". Talk about self-fulfilling prophesies.

Plus, I do not want to go to the ground in a bar for instance but then again either the bouncers or the cops might save you there.

Another disservice, in my eyes, is the idea of NHB and no time limits. What the hell kind of fight goes on for longer than a few minutes? What the hell kind of fight goes on for a few minutes? The Gracies freely admit that they do this because they think they have an advantage the longer a fight goes. Like you said, they train for it.

So while I respect the Gracies, and understand that most of them would thump me pretty royally, I couldn't agree with you more.

[Nick]

Though no expert in this field, any actual (as in, not competition) fight that lasts even longer than 30 seconds is either:

1. One amazing fight with two amazing fighters.
2. A high school "push fight", where nobody really does anything... just throw some testosterone(sp?) until a teacher comes... something I've seen too often...

BTW, eventually their arrogance will come back to bite them in the... you get the idea.

Nick

[sceptoor]

yes, I agree with all of you.

This was one thing that turned me off entirely to Judo/jujitsu. The attitude of the Gracies. I don't remember where I saw it, but I think it was on A&E a couple of years ago where one of the Gracie brothers was acting really arrogant saying that "their" martial art was just the best, hands down. I have seen some of those UFC tapes, and I wasn't impressed. And what was so funny, was that same thought ran through my head, "that's super and stuff, but what if there is more than one attacker?".

Again, I must clarify that Aikido is the only MA I train in, and I don't think that I could compete against a trained judoka,(at least not yet) but where does this clown get off by claiming that BJJ is the most, better yet, the ONLY effective MA??

[ian]

Ah, each to their own.

Like most of you, I don't do Aikido just to defend myself; its more of a way of life.

One thing an aggresive attitude produces is stress - in and out of the dojo.

I wouldn't worry about people bragging about their own martial arts. Its always good to know what other people can do; but I do Aikido 'cos it suits me (I enjoy it, it works and it integrates into my personal philosophies very easily).

I definately think there is no such 'better or worse' martial art - It isn't that they are each as good, just that each situation is different. It's how you deal with the right now.

Ian

[Guest5678]

Ah yes! The BJJ mentality. One must also consider the source here. I would not try to take anything from that family, they have a lot of MA talent and skill. However, their idea of a fight is probably much different than mine, and for that matter, many others that I know. If you're on the ground where I come from it's because you're lights got put out, or you're dead. I don't think they view a fight like that.........

Dan P. - Mongo

[chrisinbrasil]

Must we remind people that a certain Maurice Smith, from Seattle (an avid Muay Thai practitioner) whooped some royal butt in NHB competition? And what about REAL ground fights... where I shove my fingers so far into your eye I can remove your chicken sandwich from your stomach? In stand up fights, the eye is a rather hard target to hit, in a clinch, however, if it´s within arms reach, the guy is toast. Has anyone seen that happen in a submission tournament lately? I wonder why none of them are blind yet. Good? Sure, great even! The best? There is none, period.

[Mike Collins]

While meaning no disrespect, I have seen my fair share of arrogance within the Aikido community as well, huh?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm probably as arrogant as most people as far as whether my Aikido works, and more so than many. Arrogance tends to exist when one has a vested interest in believing in something. And years of training tend to create a vested interest.

I find that my only opportunity to let go some of that arrogance is to talk to other folks, and admit to myself that I'm not too different from the ones who piss me off so much.

How many times have any of us forced a technique (after we got caught screwing it up, usually) on someone just so we wouldn't have to see that we got a long way to go.

I find myself saying to other folks (therefor I can be pretty sure it's good for me to hear) pretty regularly: Have a look on the wall. Do you see your picture there? No? Well then keep training, cause when we get it perfect, we better stop training (before we screw it up).

I've never spoken with Helio Gracie, but I wonder if he is as arrogant as the "up and comers"? And didn't Osensei have a bit of the superlative about his art? It is only arrogant if you can't do it.

It isn't the art, it's the artist.

[Nick]

But if the artist teaching the art is arrogant, perhaps the art itself would gain an "aura" (for lack of a better word) of arrogance?

Nick

[Matt]

There are a couple of things that I think are important about the ufc's: they are not no holds barred and they are still a competition. The following are my thoughts on all this "my art is better" stuff.
My frosh year in university I had this huge roommate. Im no small guy, but he had me by 5" and fifty pounds. He was the heavyweight on the wrestling team. We used to wrestle around in the room and he would maul me, I hadnt started aikido and the room was too small to move much. In the end though I came out on top because when a he had me all tierd up and smothered I kept my head and I would find, invariably, something to gouge, twist or crush. Be it a finger, eye, toe, or...other parts. The point of this story is that I won because I was willing to go the farthest to win. So when somebody picks a fight with you in a bar, be you aikidoka, jukoka or whatever else, the real question isnt whos MA is better but who is truely "no holds barred"

[Erik]

This might add some food for thought.

http://www.aikidojournal.com/articles/interviews/Gracie.htm