Originally Posted by
Arman Fathi
Initially, I subscribed to the theory that 'any jiu jitsu is good jiu jitsu.' This still holds mainly true. It doesn't matter where you acquire that mat time, so much as you get it. Gi, no gi, a lot of it is identical in regards to the body movements and reflexes. The whole gripping thing is blown way out of proportion. If you're an expert grappler, gi or no gi, you'll have the natural propensity and knowledge to understand where you'd need to make modifications when necessary if you're practicing the other art. Doing gi will not make you worse at no gi. It will undoubtedly make you a stronger grappler, and more wise to concepts such as base, elbow positioning, leverage, and certain submissions that cross the barriers.
Now to say that every instructor will be who you'd ultimately want to align with is another story entirely. I've trained with instructors that I'm not particularly fond of, knowing that it's not a long term thing and understanding that they may still possibly have some knowledge to offer. But gone are the days where there's no other source of knowledge than your instructor. Like you said, you're using this website to get by. Seeing techniques over and over and over and executing them over and over and over is more important than being comfortable in your garb, in my humble opinion. It's making those on-the-fly adjustments that require the reflexes of an experienced practitioner. If I may say with respect; Eddie received his black belt from a hardcore gi practitioner and even himself trained 11 years in the gi, where he undoubtedly developed a lot of the reflexes he utilizes today. So if I were left with the choice to either not grapple or to train mainly gi, I'd choose gi 100% of the time. Not because it's better or worse in anyway than no-gi, but because at least I'm learning the art of jiu jitsu.
Very good insight and I agree. This instructor for this school is a TKD primarily and the BJJ is a side thing after all the TKD is done. He is a legit purple belt, I've rolled with him and watched him, I trust his abilities. I am glad he is humble enough to acknowledge he is not a black belt and has not right to charge more than what he does (50 bucks a month with 5 days of rolling). He has shown some half guard knowledge but I believe its the old style of half guard. His mind set on half guard is that it is not a primary choice, its a last resort if grabbing full guard fails or they break full guard and are beginning to pass. He has told me that he would try to "break my habbit" of pulling or trying to pull half guard. He thinks he is showing me how useless it is when he smashes all my attempts to obtain it. I think if I stick with it and sharpen up my skills, it will come. Hopefully by that time I will have moved on to a different school. Thanks for the reply
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Ive been trying to find some instructionals on that, like a warm up drill because I get in that position quite a bit. Very pumped to be back in, probably watching a bit too much overloading my brain.
