Street Fighting Should Be Legal but Regulated by the IBJJF

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Lex

I think a lot of the problems in public discourse (in real-life and online) arise from the fact that people don’t have to back up their words with action. That’s why I am usually more comfortable talking to a guy who has been punched in the face, or especially lost a fight, many times in their life. There is a humble reality-check that comes with that. Reality-checks like that can come in many ways, but fighting is a potent one.

I think fighting on the street (or anywhere) to resolve a conflict, when both people agree to it, is a great way to learn about the consequences of words except for the fact that people can get seriously hurt (or die). So I propose that Congress pass a bill legalizing street fighting but that it be regulated by the International Street Fighting Federation (ISFF) that will be a branch of the IBJJF ;-) The goal is to make illegal any techniques that can cause permanent bodily harm. No ground and pound on a hard surface, no slams, etc. If you do any of those things, you’ll go to jail, otherwise if both people agree to it, the fight is completely legal. You might get banged up pretty bad, but you’ll be fine a week or two later.

Obviously, this idea (much like A Modest Proposal) is not a serious one (especially about the IBJJF), but I still am saddened when I’m confronted with people in our society who hide behind the veil of the “I’ll sue you” threat versus the much more basic human threat of fighting. I think most of us (including myself) would be a lot more careful in talking crap if we had to back it up through fighting.

Add Submission Grappling to the Olympics

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Lex

I still can’t quite believe that wrestling has been taken out of the Olympics. It seems to me that the “dream” of Olympic gold in the minds young wrestlers today has been silenced. But perhaps as one door closes another one opens…

The growing popularity of MMA throughout the world means that even the youngest wrestlers are becoming aware of wrestling’s next door neighbor: submission grappling. Guillotines, rear naked chokes, triangles, armbars, kneebars, toe holds, etc. are all lurking in the shadows. The counter-intuitive notion that you can dominate an opponent off your back is no longer so counter-intuitive.

Maybe taking wrestling out of the Olympics is the first step in the sport’s evolution. The second step would be to add submission grappling. The more I thought about it in the last couple days, the more the ADCC version of the event seemed like a very real possibility:

Jiu jitsu is a little too boring for spectators. MMA is a little too violent. No-gi is (in some ways) the perfect compromise.

The only concern I have is the very fact that any of these changes are happening. For 70 years (since 1936) no sport was removed from the Olympics. Why are these changes happening now. If it’s because of “money”, why does money all of a sudden gain the power to change something that was unchanged for decades? The Olympics needs to be a slow-moving organization. It takes 15-20 years for an Olympic athlete to achieve world-class level from an early age. Changing rules (or worse, changing sports) throws a wrench into that very delicate process.

The Best Judo of 2012

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Lex

The IJF released the updated ranking of judoka in the world in 2012. In this post, I’ll just look at the male side of the ranking, but of course I have to mention that our own Kayla Harrison not only won the Olympic gold, but also dominated for 2 years straight to get more points than any other female except Lucie Decosse of France who is another badass chick. Of course if Ronda Rousey was still competing in judo the Decosse vs Rousey match up would be great to see. Maybe they’ll meet in the octagon instead…

No One Country Dominates

At the bottom of this post I list the top 3 ranked male judoka in each weight class. In this list of 21 athletes, a total of 13 countries is represented, which is a great sign of vibrancy for an Olympic sport:

Russia: 4
Japan: 3
Uzbekistan: 2
Germany: 2
Korea: 2
Georgia
Mongolia
Azerbaijan
Greece
Cuba
Kazakhstan
France
Brazil

Are The New Rules Helping or Hurting?

The fact that Japan is not dominating the list above is a sign that the sport of judo has weathered the short-term effects of the rule changes made four years ago (about no leg grabs, etc). I am happy to see this, though I still am very much against the rule changes. But we should be careful to remember that the champions of today are the product of the rules and culture in place 10-20 years ago. The long term effects of the new rules may be felt many years from now in the number of people who choose not to train in judo but opt instead for another combat sport.

The Top 3 in Each Weight Class

-60kg
SOBIROV Rishod (UZB)
GALSTYAN Arsen (RUS)
MUDRANOV Beslan (RUS)

-66kg
SHAVDATUASHVILI Lasha (GEO)
MORISHITA Jumpei (JPN)
KHASHBAATAR Tsagaanbaatar (MGL)

-73kg
NAKAYA Riki (JPN)
WANG Ki-Chun (KOR)
ISAEV Mansur (RUS)

-81kg
KIM Jae-Bum (KOR)
BISCHOF Ole (GER)
MAMMADLI Elnur (AZE)

-90kg
ILIADIS Ilias (GRE)
NISHIYAMA Masashi (JPN)
GONZALEZ Asley (CUB)

-100kg
RAKOV Maxim (KAZ)
SAYIDOV Ramziddin (UZB)
SAMOILOVICH Sergei (RUS)

+100kg
RINER Teddy (FRA)
SILVA Rafael (BRA)
TOELZER Andreas (GER)

New 2013 Judo Rules

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Lex

The International Judo Federation (IJF) released a new set of rules for 2013 through 2016 and beyond. Last time (4 years ago) they made a drastic change banning leg attacks, which stirred the ire of the judo community, but eventually people calmed down, though I personally think that the long term effect of that rule change will be bad for the growth of judo in relation to other martial arts. This time the rule changes are less controversial but still very interesting. Here’s a basic overview, ordered from most important to least important in my humble but very biased opinion:

No time limit on Golden score (aka overtime period). A match does not end until one of the contestants scores or gets a shido (penalty). This means that we could see some matches that take both guys into some deep waters.
Old school ippon: Give the ippon score only to throws that result in “real impact”. Meaning, bring back the old school ippon. This is not so much a rule but a guidance to the refs. So it’s unclear whether it will change anything, but one can hope.
No running from the pin or submission: Once the pin or “effective” submission starts inbounds and both contestant go out of bounds, the pin and submission attempt is allowed to continue! My judo instructor Ray will appreciate this one
Shidos don’t lead to points: It’s still 4 shidos for disqualification, but now getting 1, 2, or 3 shidos does not give your opponent points. Shidos are used only as tie breakers. They are now more like advantages in BJJ. So if you have 3 penalties against you but you threw your opponent for a yuko, you still win.
Shorter pin: Pin duration reduced from 25 seconds down to 20 seconds. (10 seconds for yuko, 15 seconds for waza-ari).
The Rhadi Ferguson rule: It sometimes feels like the IJF has a special committee on how to best annoy one of America’s most outspoken judoka, Dr. Rhadi Ferguson. Four years ago, the IJF banned his bread-and-butter throw morote gari. This time the IJF is penalizing the breaking of your opponent’s grip with two hands. This further reduces the grip fighting game, and in my opinion will make fighters more cautious in engaging and not less.

There are other rule changes, but these are the main ones as I see it. I’m a big fan of judo as a sport and in the bigger context of martial arts and combat in general. I don’t just want to see the sport of judo grow, but also want to see more effective judo on display in MMA. I think the sports of MMA, submission grappling, and wrestling have to be considered in developing the rules for the sport of judo. The rules should try not to discourage cross-training by banning techniques that are used effectively in other disciplines.

More Lessons from the IBJJF Chicago Summer Open

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Lex

I wrote last week about my experience at the IBJJF Chicago Summer Open and some of the “lessons” I took away from it. This post is just a continuation of that with a few more thoughts on the competing experience. By the way, here’s the “video blog” I put together for it.

Here we go, random and wordy, but hopefully useful to someone out there:

Open Class Excuses

My division was on at 9am in the morning and the absolute division didn’t start until 6pm at night. So there’s about a 7-8 hour wait between the two. That’s plenty of time for my body to start providing excuses for not doing the open class division. I was sore, mentally down due to losing my finals match, and also just mentally and physically tired as anyone would be after a hard training session. I went to Starbucks, relaxed and “forced” myself to not think about jiu jitsu or anything related to competing. I just read a little Camus on my Kindle, and enjoyed an excessive amount of fruit that I bought on sale at a supermarket across from the venue. There was a 5 lbs bag of apples on sale for $2.99. I couldn’t resist.

I went from not feeling like competing any more to being curious about how well I’ll do to wanting to kick some ass! My mind is a damn rollercoaster sometimes when it comes to stressful things like competition. I just try to ride out the lows, and capitalize on the highs. When I was feeling good, I went back to the venue and just watched jiu jitsu for a while. A couple of hours later they called my division, and I said “why the hell not”. I put on my cold wet gi, and went down to the mats with a stupid happy smile on my face.

I think Bill Cooper said in an interview somewhere that he brings two gi’s to a tournament so that he could put on a fresh gi after he fills the first one with the nervous sweat of the first several matches. I think that’s a great idea, and maybe one day I’ll actually be smart enough to go through with an idea like that.

Tired is Good for Learning, Fun, and Winning

I’d hate to make prophetic generalizations, but based on my experience, some of my most fun and educational matches have been when I was tired from having already fought 4-6 matches earlier on in the day. I stop caring about stupid stuff, and just step on the mat relaxed and confident. The first several matches release the nervous energy that I still bottle up as a relative beginner.

One of the things that I notice mentally is that I stop caring about winning or losing, but care more about executing my techniques to the best of my ability, and working towards a submission. It seems like an obviously desirable state of mind to go to, but it’s not easy for me to achieve on cue without first getting a few matches in.

Big Competition Teams

I’m just a blue belt, and my opponents are just blue belts, but especially for the finals, some guys have roaming armies of loud supportive teammates. It’s cool to see a sea of Alliance, Gracie Barra, CheckMat, Atos, or Lloyd Irvin shirts all really excited if their guy is winning, and all really pissed off (usually at the ref) if their guy is losing. I like going against guys with a big cheering section, because I feel like it gives me an opportunity to earn their respect as a good clean competitor with solid fundamental jiu jitsu.

It’s cool to have friends and teammates there, but to me it’s not essential for the actual match. What is important is that a coach is there or at least gets to break down the video with me after the tournament. Josh has helped me tremendously by breaking down most of the matches I lost in recent tournaments and specifying the things I need to fix. I view tournaments as learning experiences, and that’s why analyzing video of tournament matches is pretty much one of the most important things you can do as part of that experience.

Reffing Ain’t Easy

As a quick closing note, let me mention that I had a conversation with one of the IBJJF refs after my division was done, and he was saying that after attending many of the ref courses IBJJF offers before the tournaments, he still feels like he has a lot to learn about the game of sport jiu jitsu. It made me realize that people who complain about the rules often don’t understand the intricate details of those rules.

It’s important to learn the rules! You don’t have to, of course, but then you better be dominating your opponents on points, or better yet, submitting everyone.

Change the Mentality Not the Rules

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Lex

I heard an interview with Saulo Ribeiro on the Inside BJJ podcast and Saulo got me thinking…

The interviewers asked him if he thinks that the submission-only rules of the upcoming Gracie Worlds tournament will help prevent overly cautious point-centric jiu-jitsu that has been widely observed in recent IBJJF tournaments. People want to win, and sometimes that means not taking any risks.

Saulo didn’t think so. He believes that changing the rules will not ultimately solve the problem. If black belts want to, they will find strategies to play the rules for minimizing risk, while still getting the W in the end. What he believes can solve the problem is changing the mentality of the competitors and the academies where they train. The eternal optimist, Saulo believes in the warrior ideal, and if only everyone can embrace it, then tournaments will have more exciting battles that end in submissions.

The idea is simple. Disgrace the person who wins by an advantage and honor the person who wins via submission. I know that this idea is embraced widely in the BJJ community. However, months after the tournament, when the fighting is all done and almost forgotten, it’s the competitor who walked away with the gold that gets the public recognition. Too often, the brave risk-takers that didn’t quite make it are quickly forgotten. The pragmatic incentive of going for the submission are not there.

So what Saulo explains is near and dear to my heart, and it’s the way I strive to train and compete, but it’s also an ideal that perhaps cannot come to be in a tournament scene where winning is everything, and the competition is tougher and cleverer than ever.

My Experience at the 2012 US Grappling Diamond State Games

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Lex

I competed at the US Grappling Diamond State Games today. Won gold in both my weight division and the absolute division. Overall, the tournament was run very well, as usual. There was a good amount of white and blue belts, but what was cool is there was a ton of purple and brown belts as well.

Also, the free shirt you get when you pre-register was great this time. It was black with simple white and red text. Simple is best, when it comes to shirts, in my view.

Some Quick Self Analysis

I got tired in my very last match, and was mad at myself for stopping hunting for a submission with 2 minutes left. I was up by 3 points, and was on my opponents back, able to go for a bow and arrow, and literally thought: “Lex, you write many glorious blogs about always working to finish, and here you are, no matches left for the day, only 2 minutes left on the clock, clear opening for a submission, and you’re holding the position just because you want to wind down the clock a bit.” There was no excuse to not go all out for the submission.

When you are winning by 3 points and are on top, it’s actually a great place to be, because you can open up, take risks, and if you get swept, you are still winning. I knew all that, but I was literally too tired. I ended up going for the submission with 30 seconds left, and almost getting it, but I already failed myself at the goal of never quitting.

More and more, I’m starting to see losing and winning as meaningless, and the more important goal of never quitting as the real thing I want to work towards as a competitor.

This is a whole lot of whining, but I wanted to share my inner experience. I really do think that you grow most as a person in overcoming the moments when you want to quit, and don’t. Go to your limit, no matter what that is, and push beyond it.

I’m doing two more tournaments before Worlds, with the goal of pushing the pace, and never quitting the hunt for submission after establishing a dominant position.

Some U.S. Grappling Rules to Remember

As a side note, the refs and organizers did a great job of running the tournament efficiently, but it was clear that some coaches, spectators, and competitors (including myself) did not know the rules as well as they might. So here are two rules where I saw some mistakes on the part of competitors:

1. For gi division, kneebars, toe holds, and bicep/calf slicers are legal for brown and black belts only. For no-gi division, however, kneebars are okay for everyone.

2. If you do a big judo throw, but end up on bottom, that’s 2 points for the other guy. I’m still not 100% clear on the details of this rule, but it seems that if you want to get 2 points, you better end up on top (and show control for 3 seconds).

As always, I have to thank Andrew Smith, Chrissy Linzy, and many others for running a good tournament. Also, thanks to Eric Silverman and Steve Bowers for coaching me, and Jimmy Cerra for solid ref’ing and a good sense of humor about it.

2012 Will Be a Big Year for the IBJJF

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Lex

The International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) is the biggest game in town for top notch gi and no-gi jiu-jitsu competition. Grapplers Quest, NAGA, US Grappling and others often attract big names, but only the IBJJF can bring out all the big names and produce stacked divisions of the world’s best grapplers from white belt to black belt.

(PS: I know that WPJJC has been growing like crazy, but I feel like they still haven’t gotten their stuff together, with missing trials dates and chaos in the registration process. Maybe 2013 will be their year.)

Anyway, there are two reasons I’m excited about IBJJF enough to write this blog post at 3am at night. The first is the release of the first edition of their rule book. It’s more thorough and visually clear than any rule book I’ve ever read. It makes me excited for the sport since they are taking every little aspect seriously. This is the kind of progress that’s required for IBJJF to become not just an American and Brazilian success, but an international success.

The second reason I’m excited is that they’ve added a lot of new tournaments to the calendar:

European Open (Jan 26)
Houston Open (Feb 11)
San Fran Open (Feb 25)
Chicago Open (Mar 3)
Pans (Mar 29)
NY Open (April 21)
Worlds (Jun 1)
Asian Open (Oct 13)

See you on the mat!

IBJJF is Going Down the Path of Olympic Judo

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Lex

One of the new rules in 2012 for the IBJJF is that black belts are required to bring a blue gi and a white gi to distinguish the competitors from each other. This has been also the practice in major judo competition for a few decades now.

When this new rule change (among a few others) is brought up among my fellow cross-training judoka, they are worried that international BJJ competition is going the way of judo, that is towards more and more restrictions.

I personally think that this new gi requirement, while a pain in the ass, is a great idea for the spectators and referees. However, I share the concern that the rule change was probably made by a small group of people that may or may not be representative of the BJJ community.

Last year, leg grabs (double legs, fireman’s carry, etc) were made illegal in judo. This is widely considered to be an outrageous decision by fans of the sport. But more importantly it goes against the spirit of judo as a martial art: a fighting and grappling system. I hope IBJJF will not embrace some of the same flawed restrictions, perhaps in the pursuit of being included in the Olympics.

Ariel Zeevi Te Guruma

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Lex

I still find the application of the new leg grab rule a bit questionable. In particular, what gets called a legitimate counter often doesn’t look like a counter to me. Here’s an example of Ariel Zeevi (one of my favorite judoka) winning one of his many matches at the 2010 Tokyo Grand Slam with a Te Guruma.

I’m assuming the refs allowed the leg attack because they considered it as a counter or saw Blue’s cross grip as over-the-back (which is what’s required for a leg grab to be legal).

I get tired every time I have to write, talk, or think about these nuances (since I believe all throws should be legal, unless they severely endanger either player). But it’s important for me (a guy who values pickups) to understand when I can and can’t do them. As a practitioner of both BJJ and Judo, the ability to practice and successfully execute leg attacks is essential for me. I have many judo tournaments coming up, and I fully intend to use te guruma according to the rules. Hopefully the refs will allow me to do just that.

Lex's BJJ and Judo Blog

A blog about trying to be healthy, keeping my ego in check, overcoming challenges on and off the mat.

Tag Archives: rules