The Founding Principles of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu
- Gracie Guideline : Street Applicability Focus only on practicing techniques that are fully street applicable. Practicing techniques that are not punch proof will cause you to develop a false sense of security. By practicing techniques that keep you safe from strikes, you will develop the most important reflexes and avoid habits that could lead to injury in a real fight. If you modify a technique, you must verify that the new variation keeps you safe from all potentially dangerous strikes.
- Gracie Guideline : Energy Efficiency Any technique that relies on speed and power rather than leverage and timing is not energy efficient. In a real fight there is no time limit, so you must learn to save your energy. The only reliable way for you to defeat a larger, more athletic opponent is to utilize techniques that cause your opponent to exhaust energy while simultaneously preserving your own. Before adding any technique to your arsenal, you must verify that it is more reliant on leverage and proper timing than on your athletic capabilities. Do not trust techniques based on strength or speed as they are unlikely to work against a larger, stronger attacker.
- Gracie Guideline : Natural Body Movements Any technique that requires you to move your body unnaturally is likely to fail in the heat of battle. Natural body movement is the best foundation on which to build the instinctive reflexes needed in a real fight.
- Violations of Guideline #1 Thousands of self-proclaimed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructors have opened schools around the world and are creating or modifying techniques at an unprecedented rate. Any technique that is designed to work exclusively in a controlled competition with all of their associated rules, weight classes, time limits, safety considerations, and point systems, will give the practitioner a false sense of security since these circumstances are totally non-existent in a real fight.
- Violations of Guidelines #2 and #3 This occurs when fast, strong and/or flexible instructors modify the techniques. Nearly all of the individuals who are making the adaptations are impressive, competitive athletes, and many of their solutions to rely on their superior physical attributes. In contrast, it was the Grand Masters lack of athleticism that forced him to develop techniques that relied almost exclusively on leverage making them reliable for anybody regardless of their size and athletic ability.
The Three Fundamental Questions
- Can I apply this technique in a real fight against a striking opponent?
- Is this technique energy efficient enough to be applied against a larger opponent?
- Is this technique based on movements that are natural for my body?
This text is an excerpt from Gracie University website. Original text and for further reading:
http://www.gracieuniversity.com/LC/info_view.aspx?c=63QJ4TGT7X&n=28
