My first 6 months of Gracie Combatives 2.0: an in-depth review
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- 6 months ago, as an (almost) complete beginner, I started learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I decided to do it through the Gracie Combatives™ program. This is a jiu jitsu course for adult beginners, with a strong focus on the 36 techniques considered most important for self-defence. For the first eight months, there is no free sparring allowed, ensuring that we focus on technique only until we reach a certain level of competency.
In this video, I describe what this experience has been like, and what I think the good, ok and bad aspects of the Gracie system are. Enjoy!
00:00 intro
00:56 about Gracie Combatives
02:35 GOOD: club culture
05:07 GOOD: focus on self-defence
08:04 GOOD: no sparring in the beginning
09:09 GOOD: clear, visible curriculum
11:17 GOOD: easier on the body
13:20 GOOD: Gracie University
14:55 OK: Reflex Development classes
18:19 BAD: no open mat
19:50 BAD: no focus on competing
20:30 conclusion
21:23 outro
Full video of my Combatives 2.0 test here:
• I passed the Gracie Co...
Thanks for watching!
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Just passed my combatives test and got my combatives belt. Have been in master cycle for 3 weeks now. Knowing positions and what they are and having an idea of what to do makes jumping into sparring much more tolerable.
Absolutely. I love the fact that sparring is optional in Master Cycle - if I'm tired or whatever I can just head off after technique class.
If I had not started sparring when I first started, I'm not sure I would have continued. It took an undeniable humbling for me to be intrigued.
I can totally understand that. I've done enough sparring in the past to already know that I suck 😂
During the 5 minute introduction for new students you positionally spar with the instructor in a very controlled manner. It is very humbling for almost everyone.
Hey Mate, Brissy fella here, thanks for your review, I am deciding between two different schools now, GJJ v BJJ. Good video, good production value, good editing, good work and good information.
This vid was informative and useful.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m just starting this channel so I’m glad to hear it’s useful to someone out there! I wish you well on your Jiu Jitsu journey - let me know what you end up deciding on!
Been at both a CTC/GG and at multiple "sport" schools.
CTC/GG all day.
Anyway - a bit of an explanation on rear grabs being absent from GC: R&R talk about keeping GC small for the sake of keeping things focused and managable. Rear grabs imply you've not kept someone dangerous (yet untrained) in front of you, which isn't an instinct a GC student should have the further you get through the curriculum.
It is covered in MC, but MC implies a trained opponent (someone dangerous who knows how to get behind you)...."jiujitsu vs. jiujitsu". Summary - although important, they think it simply doesn't "make the cut" (and that what's in GC makes rear hugs avoidable).
Thanks for your explanation - I knew there had to be a good reason. Incidentally, they posted this video in the last 24 hours:
ruclips.net/video/PId_nKcLOwM/видео.html&ab_channel=GracieBreakdown
I ruined my life in juijitsu. Or someone else did. Broke my neck. I’ve been wanting some type of training back. Now I have heart disease and the technique only, for a few months sounds like the right way to build my heart up. Thank you for this bc I have a Gracie combatives not 5 minutes away. I used to drive a hour at times. I feel like I was meant to see this. Thank you 🙏🏻.
Wow, amazing story...I'm sorry to hear about your injury. Anything involving a neck break is life-altering. I hope Gracie Jiu Jitsu can offer you a path to getting back in to what you love, and I wish you well with everything. If you decide to try it, let me know how it goes!
There-in lies the issue with free-sparring with random strangers. I really feel like a person should pick training partners as carefully as they do a sexual partner. Your health is on the line in both situations, though obviously in different ways. Not talking bad on you, am sorry to hear about your neck injury. I think it's a problem with how BJJ is taught in general. I think it probably chews more people up than it creates good fighters. That is the problem with informal teaching and no clear progression or curriculum. I've been to schools that barely teach anything in terms of fundamentals. Do you care to talk about your injury? How/when did it happen and to what extent was the damage? Have you recovered at all? Best of luck to you bud.
We are a Certified Training Center in the United States. We have an open mat training session every Friday. I know that there has been talk of adding open mat classes at HQ in the past. For us in Maryland, we only allow it for people that are presently students at our school for those insurance reasons, but it is often a very useful opportunity for those students indeed!
Hi from Melbourne! Thanks for your comment. I always enjoyed open mats on a Friday evening...after a week of work or study, it's nice to just roll around or practise some stuff in an unstructured way. Good to hear that other GTC's have open mat sessions.
Very eye opening. Thank you.
Thanks for your comment! Was there something in particular you found surprising?
Well, just the stark differences between it and every other BJJ school. I started Jiu-Jitsu 1999 under one of the Machado Brothers. I clearly told him that I wanted to learn what I saw Royce Gracie do at UFC 1. He blatantly lied to me and told me that because they were cousins they practiced the same thing, of course at that time being so new, I didn't know any better. 3 months after having started and learning de la Riva guard, and spider guard, always starting on the floor, I asked Carlos Machado when I was going to learn to defend against a simple punch, a simple kick, or just taking somebody down. He told me that that would come later in the training. 3 months after that, i posed the same question just to get the runaround again. At that time I moved to a chapter of the Lion's den and began to learn japanese catch wrestling, which I fell in love with, and I felt that I could actually use it to defend myself against a larger stronger opponent, by being as strong as fast, as endurant, and as explosive as I could be.
I was felt the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was what I was looking for as I walked in wanting to know how to defend myself. At that time Gracie Jiu-Jitsu something you had to go to Torrance California to get.
100% agree with this in-depth review. I got my combatives 2.0 belt and did 2 months of master cycle (from a CTC in US and continued in UK-- although 50 miles away from home) before moving to a sport gym closer to home as I wanted to train more. I absolutely love and miss the curriculum and progress plan from Gracie CTC. But fortunately love the culture of the new school. How was the transition to sport and sparring? The gap is HUGE coming out of combatives with limited sparring time compared to someone with 8 months sparring time. You do recognise the positions and can survive with your combatives techniques HOWEVER, the reaction speed and demand on your body adjustments are put to the test with faster more athletic younger partners (we use to do slower/flow-rolling in master cycle) from positional sparring. As I did go back to a white belt/0 stripes for my own development as there is a self-induced pressure to live up to your belt stripes and I didn't want this frustration to take over my training. The great thing about having graduated from combatives, is your ability to learn quickly, understand mechanics of techniques, comfortable being uncomfortable. I'm 54 and roll with 20/30-year olds, and the learning curve is actually much much faster with a combatives background-- you have an idea of what you're up against and what you're trying to do. The only thing I had to reconcile with myself moving from self-defence style to a sport style-- listened to loads of podcasts and concluded that you can still do self-defense in a sport BJJ school as it is a mind-set especially as it relates to keeping away from potential positions where punches are coming, and the energy depletion principle. I can say today, i have very good defence against a sport BJJ person, am able to conserve energy and outlast my opponent, but it will take a while on the points scoring side as the biggest difference I see between a given technique in Gracie self-defence BJJ and sport BJJ... is the intent
You shouldn’t have taken your strips off. No coach would tell you to do that. I know you feel you don’t deserve it but stripes are for your progression. It doesn’t matter if other people are better than you at a lower strip. It shows your dedication to the art.
The complete lack of structure in the BJJ classes I took was incredibly annoying to me. I paid to learn and basically what happened is I would be shown techniques that weren't truly fundamental. Like you said there was a new move of the day. I think I was taught one guard pass in 3 months in the last class that I took, and zero sweeps. The instructor and his little posse of favorite students were basically using class time to train for their own competitions rather than teach. "just roll to get better" they said. All those dudes had jacked up knees, missing teeth, bad elbows. Yeah sorry bro I need my body. I'm trying to learn martial arts here not become a cripple.
That does sound really annoying. Did you end up training under the Gracie system later?
@@Overlearner I torrented Gracie Combatives and now I practice on a grappling dummy and whoever else I can talk into learning with me lmao.
@@JustSomeGuy69420 lmao nice
Interesting review. I trained at a CTC for about 5 and half years before switching to a competition school 5 months ago. I left as a 4 stripe blue belt and I was the only person that competed. Overall I'd say your points are accurate.
I'm very interested to hear your experience and opinion of visiting your friend's open mat.
Thanks for your comment - I've visited my friend's open mat once. A really good experience! If you tell people you just want to roll light they adjust to your level. However I think you need to be disciplined and do some kind of warm up.....inevitably you end up rolling harder than you planned to 🤣🤣🤣 It was really good to get some pointers on guard retention from a friendly black belt who was also having a roll
Thank you for this honest review. One question: is it true if you want to be tested on a belt at any certified training center they charge you for a belt promotion? Thanks in advanced!
I didn't have to pay to get promoted, but the Combatives test takes place during a private lesson which you pay for - I think it was about $55 AUD for the 30 min test. Other certified Gracie centres might operate differently.
Apart from that, there were no extra costs involved. If you want to receive one on one instruction for specific techniques prior to the test, of course you can pay for extra lessons.
Video of my test (which I passed) coming soon!
@@Overlearner thank you for responding! Yes, more updates please 🙏🏻
I must admit they have probably the best t-shirts.
Branding is on point
The school where I trained white to blue belt included the Gracie Combatives as part of all training, it was not a separate class. Almost every class included training at least one technique from GC. To be promoted to blue belt required demonstrating a level of competency with the GC curriculum as well as the fundamental BJJ curriculum.
I miss this at my new school. There is one instructor who sometimes teaches from the GC, and there are MMA focused no-gi classes, but I would prefer more GC classes available.
It seems to me that the exact structure of classes etc varies a lot from school to school. Our school is run by one guy, the only black belt at the club, so it's quite an idiosyncratic weekly timetable.
Time for a little update in regards to competition and competing as a member of a Gracie Certified Training Centre, as I didn't really go into it in much detail in my video:
It IS possible to compete in tournaments, but as far as I know, there is only one person from my club who does this. There is no 'squad' as such, and no classes specifically geared towards competition or competition rules. If you want to compete, you certainly can, but you're on your own - you have to find the tournaments, read up on the rules, and register yourself.
I'm interested to hear if other CTC's around the world have a strong focus on competition. Let me know if so!
I did the free week two classes a day. The thought of waiting that long to do live rolling as a former college level wrestler was mind numbing. Honestly it is a great system for beginners, but it was not the experience I am looking for. Found a MMA/competition gym Fabio Santos Affiliate that I definitely gelled with much better!Did my first Competition at the 6 month mark and even though it was a 2 hour drive one of the professors showed up to coach me for the day which I didn’t expect.
@@rstlr01 That's great to hear. The Gracie system is definitely not for everyone. Are you competing in gi, no gi or both?
@@Overlearner I am a Gi guy because I did 16 plus years of Freestyle/Greco wrestling and honestly NoGi/Submission Wrestling was easy. The deep waters even purple belt Gi guys drag me into is an exciting puzzle to crack. So as of right now I will be competing in Gi for the foreseeable future.
@@rstlr01 It is a challenge to build a program that fits every student equally well. One school I trained at required every white belt to demonstrate competency in fundamental defensive techniques for every position before they were allowed to free roll. (worse position (face down on belly, turtle, seat-belt, mount, guard etc...)), which took most students 4 to 6 weeks to achieve. Everyone could participate in live positional or situational drilling.
A college level wrestler could probably fast-track through it doing two classes a day, maybe even in one week, or spend some $$ for a private lesson and evaluation.
It's an interesting review but in all honesty I don’t think you're experienced enough to accurately critique your school yet. It would interesting to see how your view changes if you continue training. Good luck on your journey.
This is quite possible, and I'm happy to hear where you disagree! At the end of the day these are just the views of one person (who's not very good yet at jui jitsu) at one particular training centre in one particular city.
I too am interested to see if my views change over time - I've been in Master Cycle for a few months now, and it's been really good so far. I'll probably make a 6 month review of that later this year.
Learning or indoctrination? Introduction or bait and switch?
Been there, done that, never again.
Our school has two open mats a week and nobody struggles with RD.
That's great to hear. I'm interested to know how other Gracie Centres do things.
@@Overlearner twice* a week
I feel like different ctc’s have different struggles. We are fortunate to have 5 black belts
18 USD for one vidéo man common😂😢😢
lol wut