We are the only Rickson Gracie Jiu Jitsu Global Federation certified academy in the New Braunfels area. What that means is that our Jiu Jitsu aligns with strategies and perspective that Rickson Gracie developed for Jiu Jitsu. Now, if you’re new to Jiu Jitsu you may not know who Rickson Gracie is. When the Gracie family was bringing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to America, Rickson Gracie was the absolute champion of the family. At 185 pounds, he was able to win a great many matches undefeated in no rules fighting, against fighters 30 to 50 pounds heavier than him with no rules, and that’s really what put Jiu Jitsu on the map.
In truth Rickson Gracie was not allowed to compete in UFC One. His family didn’t want him to compete in UFC One just because he was such a dominant fighter that they wanted to pick one of the other Gracie’s. They picked Royce Gracie because he was smaller. They’re actually about the same weight, he’s only about 180, Rickson’s 185. They picked Royce though, because he doesn’t look particularly powerful, whereas Rickson always looked kind of powerful, just to look at him, to look in his eyes, and his physique. He looks like a powerful person, and his ability to do Jiu Jitsu, even as fast as Royce put everybody away in UFC One, Rickson would have put them away faster. That’s pretty much just a fact there.
Now, what does it mean to embrace Rickson Gracie’s style of Jiu Jitsu? Well, we also have yoga in our program, and we embrace all of the meditation and the breathing, which is stuff that Rickson did, and the other Gracie’s didn’t do.
We also teach Rickson style of weight distribution, which is twofold. One, we teach you how to become incredibly heavy when you’re on top of someone else, and Rickson was known for tapping world champions just due to the weight that he could put on them, even though he’s not a very big guy. But also, we teach you how to deal with heavy weight on top of you and that’s something also that Rickson is known for.
So, we teach a lot of the additional materials that are related to that style of Jiu Jitsu.
Much of our curriculum comes from SBG member Henry Akins. Henry Akins is Rickson Gracie’s fastest black belt, and he has a lot of great materials online and they can be a little pricey. Well, don’t worry because we’ve purchased them, and you just get to run the curriculum when you come into our gym.
So, we’re running through his white to blue belt program in our combat athlete program, so we’re very much focused.
Lastly, one of the things that really put Rickson on the map and what keeps him on the map in terms of Jiu Jitsu is, he is not only a champion in sport Jiu Jitsu, but he was a champion in no rules fighting. That’s something that makes that style of Jitsu really unique, in that we are focused on Jiu Jitsu that will help you survive a street fight.
It will help you survive an MMA fight, and it’s also going to still serve you really well when you go out to do sport Jiu Jitsu.
We have lots of competitors at our gym, we have people that win gold. It’s not even that we focus a lot on being able to defend ourselves in real fights, we also find that those skills carry over perfectly well into sport Jiu Jitsu as well, where there is no striking allowed.
Just good fundamentals are good fundamentals
So, that’s really what it means for us to be a Rickson Gracie JJGF certified academy.
How does that make us different from, you may see Gracie University? Well, how it makes us different from Gracie University is, Gracie University is Ryron and Rener Gracie. They are the sons of Rorion Gracie, Rorion Gracie was the brother of Rickson and there’s really no doubt that Rickson was better than Rorion. There’s simply no doubt about this. Rorion is more known for being a law student and he’s a great Jiu Jitsu pioneer but there’s just simply levels to things. Rickson Gracie is the Michael Jordan of Jiu Jitsu, Rorion Gracie is not. His sons have great Jiu Jitsu, they have a great program, but it’s simply not on the same level, and I don’t think they can credit as much fundamental success in all areas. Also, they have a bit of an issue with expanding their program too rapidly. Gracie University makes it look like, when you look on their videos that are on their websites, that you’re going to train with Ryron and Rener. When, in truth, you’re training with someone who’s maybe and most likely never really met them, may never have trained with a black belt, and may have trained predominantly by correspondence at our academy you are training with me.
I’m a black belt, I got all my belts from John Frankl and John Frankl got his blue belt from Rickson, so we’re very close to that source. He got his black belt from Roberto Maia as well, out in Boston.
So, I know what it’s like to train with a black belt. I have experienced John Frankl, and I have experience training with Henry Akins, and I know the difference between a correspondence learning and learning from real masters, in real time.
Come down to our gym and check it out. I think that you won’t be disappointed, we have an amazing community of people. They’re very welcoming, we’re very beginner friendly. You don’t need to come in with any kind of background in combat or any sort of athletics. You can be really in any shape and we’re going to get you in shape. We’re going to get you into a place where you’ll be able to defend yourself successfully against a great many people.