Tag Archives: united states

Not Many Americans in the Top 100 BJJ Competitors

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The IBJJF released the list of the top 100 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitors. The first thing you notice is that the top 100 really put the “Brazilian” in “Brazilian Jiu Jitsu”. There are many names I don’t know, but I can only count the “American” competitors I know on one hand: JT Torres, Rafael Lovato Jr, Zak Maxwell, and … that’s all I know.

Of course, the Brazilian / American line fades slowly as many of the top coaches and competitors all live, train, and teach in the United States anyway. Many of them have become, or soon will become, American citizens. Still, one thing is clear, if you placed at an IBJJF tournament in the black belt adult division, you are 20 times more likely to have been born in Brazil than any other country. Jiu jitsu is spreading all of the world, but that has not yet made a dramatic impact at the Worlds in the black belt division.

Here is the full 100 list with some links. Note that I shorten the first 20 names to what they are more commonly referred to as vs their full birth name.

  1. Rodolfo Vieira
  2. Bernardo Faria
  3. Marcus Almeida (aka “Buchecha”)
  4. Bruno Malfacine
  5. Leo Nogueira
  6. Rafael Mendes
  7. Caio Terra
  8. Guilherme Mendes
  9. Otavio de Sousa
  10. Leandro Lo
  11. Romulo Barral
  12. Claudio Calasans
  13. Nivaldo de Oliveira Lima
  14. Sergio Moraes
  15. Antônio Carlos Junior
  16. Antonio Braga Neto
  17. Michael Langhi
  18. Bruno Frazatto
  19. Samir Chantre
  20. Lucas Lepri
  21. Alexander Trans
  22. JT Torres
  23. Rafael Monteiro Barbosa
  24. Rodrigo Henrique Cavaca
  25. Ary de Melo Farias
  26. Bruno Augusto Togni Antunes
  27. Augusto Lopes Mendes
  28. Lucas Joas Gomes Leite
  29. Alexandro Ceconi de Souza
  30. Roberto de Abreu Filho
  31. Marcelo Garcia Vespúcio
  32. Rubens Charles Maciel
  33. Rodrigo Fajardo
  34. Victor de Oliveira Estima
  35. Gilbert Alexander Pontes Burns
  36. Gustavo Ramos Campos
  37. Laercio Fernandes
  38. Vitor Henrique Silva Oliveira
  39. Roger Gracie
  40. Pablo da Silva Santos
  41. Gustavo dos Santos Pires
  42. Rafael  Freitas
  43. Kayron Gracie
  44. Carlos Vieira Holanda
  45. Philipe Cançado Della Monica
  46. Rafael Lovato Jr.
  47. Igor Silva
  48. Oliver Leys Geddes
  49. Tarsis Carvalho Humphreys
  50. Daniel Beleza G. de Andrade
  51. Roberto Satoshi de Souza
  52. Michael George Wilson
  53. José Tiago da Silva Barros
  54. Lucio Furtado Rodrigues
  55. Felipe P. da Costa e Silva
  56. Leonardo Fernandes Saggioro
  57. Bruno Bastos Cruz
  58. Murilo Silva Ferreira de Santana
  59. Koji Shibamoto
  60. Eduardo Ramos da Silva
  61. Diogo Sampaio Araujo
  62. Ricardo Ferreira Evangelista
  63. Andre Luiz Leite Galvão
  64. David Juliano Lemes
  65. Antonio Carlos Alexandre Peinado
  66. Vinícius Tavares Marinho
  67. Igor Rodrigues dos Santos
  68. Thiago Gaia Taciano de Oliveira
  69. Renan Borges
  70. Francielio Fernandes da Costa
  71. Pedro Régis da Cunha Mello
  72. Vitor Fabio Martins Toledo
  73. Antonio Antonioli
  74. Clark Gracie
  75. Mario Sergio Names Reis
  76. Marco Antonio Giudice Machado
  77. Yuri Costa Simões M. da Silva
  78. Roberto Camargo de Alencar
  79. Bruno Almeida Alves
  80. Zachary Lantz Maxwell
  81. Leandro Martins da Silva
  82. Leonardo Gergis F. Leite
  83. Kron Gracie
  84. Carlos Diego Ferreira Neves
  85. Braulio de Oliveira Estima
  86. Jonatas Novaes do Nascimento
  87. Osvaldo Augusto H. Moizinho
  88. Raphael B. Carneiro Fischetti
  89. Renato Guimaraes Cardoso
  90. Fabbio Passos de Alencar
  91. Stephen Vincent Hall
  92. Paulo Tarcisio  Pessoa Jardim
  93. Thiago Reinaldo de Souza
  94. Bruno Matias Soares
  95. Rodrigo Leite de Medeiros
  96. Denilson de Carvalho Pimenta
  97. Alexandre Couceiro Ribeiro
  98. Gabriel Rodrigues A. Goulart
  99. Gustavo Ernesto Carpio Caceres
  100. Leandro Luiz da Silva

Pure Technique vs Pure Guts

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Most of my formative years (high school, college) have been in the United States. It’s in the U.S. that I was introduced to wrestling. For better or for worse, wrestling coaches (at least in my experience) are warrior philosophers. There is a definite aura of introspection, wisdom, and insight about them. Every sentence they put together, no matter how cliche and it’s usually cliche as hell, somehow always rings true in a way that nothing else does (at least for me).

And what school of philosophy do wrestling coaches hail from? It’s the school of Animal Farm’s horse Boxer, whose motto in all matters of life was “I will work harder”. It’s the Gable ideal. Americans romanticize the athlete who often takes himself to the limit and pushes beyond it. One way to view that is “toughness”. I think another way to view it is passion. And in my mind a passion for a goal doesn’t have to channel itself into toughness. It can be channeled into an obsession with perfect technique, an obsession with drilling the crap out of a set of moves until all you are is that set of moves. That system is your identity. It’s what you eat, sleep, think about.

I understand this kind of existence, and hold it as an ideal, not for sports, but for my academic life. But it very much influences the way I approach grappling. It’s important to be real tough, but you don’t have to be the toughest dude out there. It all depends on your personality, and where you’re best at channeling your passion for a goal.

So, it boils down once again to a question for the wrestling coaches: are you a Cael Sanderson or are you a Dan Gable?

Ann Marie DeMars

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America’s first world champion in judo, Ann Marie DeMars also holds the title of being the author of the most informative and entertaining blog on judo on the internet.

A post of hers I particularly like is one on how not to get in the way as an instructor.

She is also Ronda Rousey‘s mom, who in my personal opinion, is the most exciting female judoka to watch. Ronda’s loss to Edith Bosch in 2008 Olympics frustrates me to this day, but I need about 5 posts to describe how I feel about the defensive, yuko-hunting judo that Bosch is so effective with, so I’ll leave that for another day.

Anyway, check out Ann Marie DeMars blog. We don’t have too many judo “personalities” in the United States that help promote the sport, and she is definitely a prominent example.

Mike Swain and Pro Judo

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I came across The Judo Podcast a few months back and finally got a chance to listen to an episode. This one was an interview with Mike Swain. He is a great judoka and has evolved into a successful entrepreneur.

Guys that make a career from judo (or anything else) often tend to oversell judo, putting the sport in the best possible light and sweeping some of the issues under the rug. Mike Swain surprised me with a candor and modest pragmatism in his discussion of judo in the United States. Some of the things mentioned were:

  • There are only 50,000 active judoka in America (which is very little).
  • The three American judo organizations need to merge. They all have good ideas, but building a judo “brand” is essential especially given such a small base of participants.
  • Running a judo tournament needs to become easier. Two suggestions he quickly mentioned were:
    • Make the mat requirements looser (allow for smaller mat spaces, thereby being able to fit more mats in)
    • Make the ref requirements looser (allow for just one ref)
  • Consider using a point system (4 for ippon, 2 for wazari, 1 for yuko) and a set of rules that are easier for spectators new to the sport to understand. Just to grasp the scoring you need to know three japanese words: ippon, wazari, yuko. That shouldn’t be necessary.
  • Briefly mentioned was an interesting suggestion of removing wazari. There are a lot of controversial calls made about ippon / wazari. It might seem absurd but I could see a system where a big throw on the back is 3 points and a throw on the side is 1 point. It’s much simpler to watch and to ref.
  • Longer newaza time with penalties for stalling in turtle. He mentioned a 3 second rule for turtling kind of like you have for gripping on the feet.

They also talked about bringing judo to TV and Swain’s attempt to do so with something called “Pro Judo” which was something that ran for a single episode a while ago on ESPN2. I can’t find any footage of it online, but some people claim to have it on VHS. The point system for Pro Judo is similar to Freestyle Judo.

Swain mentioned that given such a small judo participant base in America, everyone should promote large judo training centers as opposed to creating many small dojos. There are just not enough high level players training together. Or really, there are just not enough bodies on the mat when the judo community is fractured amongst many dojos.

Here’s a video of another interview with him: