Blog

Today in the our Rickson Interview Series Rickson describes us what is wrong with the current tournament rules for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

{youtube}DiK6ta1jQVI{/youtube}

BJJ Legends: Interviewer: So lets talk about the rules then a little bit because this is obviously something that is a concern to you and you feel it’s at the heart of what the problem is currently at least in jujitsu, where the division lies and an element of the artistic aspect. The rules as they exist now, do you feel that they facilitate or promote stalling?

Rickson: Definitely, I feel like the rules are a big problem for us today. Because the intention of the rules are the best, but people start to use the rules in their favor to become more confident to get the medal. So they start to develop, within the rule, situations to be legal and still be able to keep the pace under control. I feel like this is completely against the actual progressive aspect of the fight. So the rules, I mean, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, so the classic points will stay.

The advantage has to go, because the advantage is a very gray area which now they are being used by the top fighters as a point. It’s like imagine basketball game where the ball in the rim counts or a soccer game where the ball on the post counts. So people are not going to be paying attention more to making the basket. They will, if anything, touch the ring, okay, it’s a point, so they start to play with this kind of advantage as a solid point. And sometimes, you see a ten-minute fight be decided by one advantage. So that kind of downgrades our expectations in terms of action. So by taking that advantage off, keeping the points, the real points on and also penalizing stalling by warning, minus a point, minus two points and DQ, we completely give the athlete the compromise to move, to act, instead of just waiting in a holding position which has no purpose in real life. We develop, we push him to keep moving and if he’s in a bad position, make sure to get out of there. If in a good position, make sure you escalate, but you cannot just stall and just jeopardizing the sport, the patience of the audience and so on. So the sport has to be a continuous dynamic action. So I feel like that adjustment in the rules, you create a different, progressive, dynamic fight, which is better for everyone.