Posted by: Prizewriter
Gracie Garage/Gracie University? - 03/06/11 10:25 AM
Hi Folks
Recently I was invited to a "Gracie Garage". The Gracie academy in Torrance, California, has launched an online training program (its been going several years) known as Gracie University. In a nutshell the Gracie University teaches Gracie Jiu Jitsu online. They have material from white belt to blue belt, and have most of the material online for blue belt to purple belt up online now too. Plans are to put the purple to brown and brown to black material online too. The emphasis of the traning is self protection, rather than winning comps.
A Gracie Garage is a persons garage (or basement or whatever) where people get together and train the online material from Gracie University. The Gracie Academy tests people for rank by getting them to submit videos of themselves demonstrating all the material from Gracie University. The Gracies approve each Gracie Garage, and part of the rules of being a Gracie Garage means you can't charge people to train with you.
So far, here are the pros and cons as far as I can see:
PROS
+ Free training
+ The online tutorials are top quality (probably the best BJJ tutorials I've ever seen actually)
+ Everything is presented in a structured logical order
+ So far the techniques are universal as far as grappling goes, by which I mean you they work with or without a gi.
+ It makes an attempt to demonstrate how to use BJJ against different sorts of energy e.g. against punches, stick attacks etc...
CONS
- Online gradings suck. Belts by correspondence suck.
- There are some weird requirements made. One example is a person has to buy into the Gracie Diet. Not just know about it, but undertake it too. A person will be quizzed about this on their black belt test if they ever get that far
- Only the Gracie family in the Gracie Academy can promote you. Even if you earn a black belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu from the Academy, you can't promote people to blue or purple or brown. This is unlikely most other BJJ schools where black belts can promote people to blue/purple/brown.
Anyone any experience thoughts about this? As you can tell from the above, I have mixed feelings!
Recently I was invited to a "Gracie Garage". The Gracie academy in Torrance, California, has launched an online training program (its been going several years) known as Gracie University. In a nutshell the Gracie University teaches Gracie Jiu Jitsu online. They have material from white belt to blue belt, and have most of the material online for blue belt to purple belt up online now too. Plans are to put the purple to brown and brown to black material online too. The emphasis of the traning is self protection, rather than winning comps.
A Gracie Garage is a persons garage (or basement or whatever) where people get together and train the online material from Gracie University. The Gracie Academy tests people for rank by getting them to submit videos of themselves demonstrating all the material from Gracie University. The Gracies approve each Gracie Garage, and part of the rules of being a Gracie Garage means you can't charge people to train with you.
So far, here are the pros and cons as far as I can see:
PROS
+ Free training
+ The online tutorials are top quality (probably the best BJJ tutorials I've ever seen actually)
+ Everything is presented in a structured logical order
+ So far the techniques are universal as far as grappling goes, by which I mean you they work with or without a gi.
+ It makes an attempt to demonstrate how to use BJJ against different sorts of energy e.g. against punches, stick attacks etc...
CONS
- Online gradings suck. Belts by correspondence suck.
- There are some weird requirements made. One example is a person has to buy into the Gracie Diet. Not just know about it, but undertake it too. A person will be quizzed about this on their black belt test if they ever get that far
- Only the Gracie family in the Gracie Academy can promote you. Even if you earn a black belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu from the Academy, you can't promote people to blue or purple or brown. This is unlikely most other BJJ schools where black belts can promote people to blue/purple/brown.
Anyone any experience thoughts about this? As you can tell from the above, I have mixed feelings!