What are the most prestigious Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournaments?

Have you ever met someone who said they were an "All-American" wrestling champion or some other sports hero in days gone by? Sometimes it's hard to know if these claims are true. It doesn't matter if it's just idle boasting, but if you are looking for a coach or teacher, it may be important to know if these claims are based on fact. Now it seems like BJJ is the newest competitive sport that generates dubious claims in bars and even on websites of martial arts schools, fight clubs, and instructors' biographies. For people not yet familiar to Brazilian jiu-jitsu and grappling, anybody that puts something like "extreme ngxx grappling intergalactic submission champ" can be convincing. Hopefully the following will help those just getting into the sport to more quickly cut through the BS.

There are two organizations that run the premiere/top level tournaments in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling. They are ADCC and IBJJF. There are two types of competitions that Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors train for. One is "no-gi" or submission grappling and the other is traditional Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the gi. Abu Dhabi Combat Club's no-gi submission grappling tournament is generally considered the top event for no-gi grappling. It is sponsored by the prince of Abu Dhabi and is a professional (money prize) competition held every other year. It has been around since 1998. Regulations stipulate that you must qualify through the many qualifying tournaments held around the world. Recently, ADCC has started an annual gi tournament with qualifiers. It has attracted top level guys but does not yet carry quite the same prestige as the nogi event.

The IBJJF is run by Carlos Gracie , a son of one of the Gracie jiu-jitsu founders and head of the ubiquitous Gracie Barra franchises. The world championships are held every summer. This is the event that attracts almost all the best competitors of every belt level. To win this event at the black belt level is considered by most to be the top goal of Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors. There have been only three USA-born champions (who do not have Brazilian family). One is the famous UFC champion BJ Penn in 1999. Rafael Lavoto Jr. has won the worlds more recently.  Alberto Crane shared a championship with a Brazilian teammate in 1997. Both of these competitors were pioneers who competed when the sport had far fewer participants overall. In IBJJF there are many weight classes, belt divisions and age divisions. One thing that be very misleading to many newcomers to the sport are claims of being a world champion when the person making the claim may have won at blue belt (second lowest skill level) in the senior 2 division (over 40 years old) to give an example. These divisons sometimes only have 2-3 competitors and the skill levels are NOWHERE NEAR THE SAME LEVEL as adult/open divison black belts. IBJJF also organizes a "No-gi World Championships." This is another top-tier event that attracts many of the best. Other IBJJF tournaments are noteworthy at the black belt level, especially the Pan-American and Pan-American nogi tournaments. Even lower belt divisions such as purple and brown belts can be very competitive at IBJJF tournaments.

NAGA, Grappler's Quest, USA Grappling, and other tournaments sometimes attract great competitors but titles here do not mean much in and of themselves because often events do not have many participants or at least high level ones. They are very "hit or miss" and are not as prestigious. Various Pro-Ams and other professional prize money tournaments have many great competitors but have not been around long enough for the titles themselves to be sought independently of the prize money the way IBJJF and ADCC titles are. Many events are not held regularly but are one-time events, or conversely in the case of NAGA and Grappler's Quest, they hold so many events that they are hard to keep track of even for die-hard fans.

Jiu-Jitsu Techniques and Position Outline

The amount of technique in jiu jitsu can be overwhelming especially when you are new to the activity. It helps to organize it into categories and names. The Japanese did this very well with Judo. Techniques are grouped into two general categories for example, ground and standing techniques. There are subgroups under this. Wrestling has not done as thorough of a job of naming and organizing techniques. Organization and naming is, in my opinion more important in the beginning learning stages of jiu jitsu. Because competitive rules and, hence, priorities in jiu jitsu and mixed martial arts are so different than Judo, and other techniques not used in Judo are involved, the following can serve as a guide to organizing jiu jitsu techniques. Another reason I believe that Judo names don’t suffice is that something is lost in using Japanese language words for English speakers. [1]

John Danaher, who is recognized as one of the world’s top jiu jitsu instructors by many people in the community, attempts to define the goal/purpose of jiu jitsu techniques as the science of winning a fight by control leading to submission of the adversary. This definition brings up the possibility of two groups of techniques; control techniques (including techniques that put the executor in a better position) and submission techniques. The following is an outline of these two groups with major subgroups listed.

Control Techniques

1. Takedowns

a. Throws

b. Leg attacks

c. Trips and foot sweeps

d. Sacrifice takedowns

e. Pulling opponent to your guard

f. Snapdowns and head control pulldowns

g. Go behinds

h. joint pressure and submission attempts that solicit reaction

2. Sweeps/reversals

a. Hip rolls

b. Hook sweeps

c. Rolling/”berimbolo sweeps”

d. Spider guard sweeps

e. Leg attack sweeps

f. Arm and head crank sweeps

g. Drags

h. Hip bumps

i. Cross corner control or “flower sweeps”

j. Go behinds

3. Pins

a. Side control

b. Knee on stomach

c. Headlock

d. Mount

e. Back control

The Basic submission categories are:

1. Chokes

a. Strangles

b. Blood chokes

c. Windpipe crushes

2. Armlocks

a. Elbow locks

b. Wrist locks

c. Shoulder cranks

3. Leglocks

a. Knee bars

b. Straight footlocks

c. Twisting leglocks

4. Neck and Spinal attacks

a. Neck cranks

b. Facelocks

c. Spine attacks

5. Crushes

a. Muscle crushes

b. Tendon and bone crushes

c. Joint openers

6. Other submissions that can be important but are either not specifically a technique or are not relevant to grappling are Fatigue, Strikes, and pressure to soft tissues such as eyes.

Another way jiu jitsu techniques are organized is by positions. This organizational outline coincides with the point system of Brazilian jiu jitsu . It is simpler. It stresses starting positions and groups techniques by the positions they are initiated from.

1. Takedowns

2. Guard

a. Halfguard

b. Fullguard

c. Open guard

3. Side Mount

4. Knee on stomach

5. Turtle

6. Back Control

These positional categories are important for competitions. They are also very good for beginners to orient themselves while training. Under this organizational outline there is a clear hierarchy that allows a practitioner to know if he/she is gaining or losing the battle for control.

The postions are listed below in order from best to worst.

1. Back control

2. Mount (top)

3. Side control (top)

4. Guard (top and bottom) and also, both people standing on the feet are considered even positions but it is rare that one person does not have an advantage based on skill or size/athleticism.

5. Half guard

6. Side Control (bottom) and Turtle (bottom)

7. Mount (bottom)

At Renzo Gracie Pittsburgh our fundamentals program is built around the positional organizational outline. Focus is primarily on understanding these positions and how to move from one to the other. A secondary focus is on some of the basic submission categories from an offensive and defensive perspective particularly armbar techniques, chokes from the back, cross chokes, "kimura" lock, and triangle choke. Before Students move to blue belt level they should have an understanding of all of these positions and be able to move from one to another against resistance. At blue belt students should start to be able to use at least a couple of techniques from each of the three Control headings above against resistance. Blue belts should also be able to attack and defend Armlocks and Chokes. We work on basic leglocks particularly straight footlock in the bluebelt program as well as giulotines, and armtriangles without-gi.

After people get a basic understanding of positions some will focus on a few techniques and master them. For example armdrags can be applied as takedowns and sweeps. Someone could get very good at armdrags and not know any throws (under the general heading of Takedowns) or spider guard sweeps (under the general heading of reversals). If this armdrag expert was able to impose the opportunity to armdrag on opponents, then he may defeat an opponent with a more broad set of skills. Another way to illustrate this idea is by the following example: someone could learn a triangle choke from the guard, an armbar from side control, a single leg from the standing position, or, as an alternative, someone could learn how to apply a triangle from all three positions. Of course eventually, when someone has been learning jiu jitsu long enough these two paths merge. The issue is which one best serves beginners. I think the answer to this is very complex. It is also subjective for each individual depending on their goals and learning styles. At RGA Pittsburgh we emphasize the broad positional learning at the beginner level and introduce delving deep into one technique (to apply it to multiple positions) to some degree in our blue belt program. Lloyd Irving for example seems to focus on a few techniques in-depth and applied to many positions for his beginner competition team members. They have good success with this method usually in a relatively short amount of training time.

Another feature of our teaching system is that beginners focus on ground techniques and guard position in particular. After students get three stripes they are expected to start to learn takedowns and techniques applied from the standing position. There are several reasons for this that could be subject for another post. Hopefully the positional outline helps organize your thoughts on Jiu Jitsu technique. Please post comments and questions.

-Warren

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[1] Studying Judo terminology can be very interesting. A great resource is the book “Best Judo” by Inokuma and Sato