Another Reason I Hate the Gracies

[Vuk]

I am subscribed to the Gracie Insider newsletter that they send out about every week and I have been noticing a disturbing trend. They seem to be more and more using tragedy to sell their (bogus) product.
Take this one from a week ago for example:

Free Women's Self Defense Seminar in July
Space is Limited - RSVP Today!

A few months ago, a girl from San Gabriel Valley was kidnapped and raped. According to detectives, the suspect came up behind the victim, grabbed her, and forced her into an older, black four-door Mercedes that was parked behind a business. For more information on the assault click here.

6 Techniques Can Save Your Life!
The Gracie Academy is offering a free women's self-defense seminar in July, at the Torrance academy. The special 2-hour seminar is designed for first-time self-defense students and will address six critical techniques to address the following threat scenarios:

•How to break free from an attacker who grabs you without warning.
•How to avoid being taken to the ground by a determined attacker.
•How to escape from underneath an attacker who has you pinned to the ground.
Save Your Spot Today
The seminar is free but space is very limited, so you must RSVP in advance. Absolutely no experience is necessary to participate, and the seminar is open to women ages 13 and up (Note: Anyone under 18 must be accompanied by an adult). If you or someone you love would like to participate in the special 2-hour seminar, contact us using the information below and we'll save your spot today. Also, feel free to forward this information to any of your friends who might be interested in attending.

Torrance Self-defense Seminar
Date: Saturday, July 13 from 2:30pm to 4:30pm
Location: 3515 Artesia Blvd, Torrance, CA 90504
Attire: Casual workout attire.
RSVP: Call (310) 353-4100 or send an email to Jackie@gracieacademy.com

The techniques taught in the special 2-hour seminar are derived from the Gracie Women Empowered program. To learn more about this program or to watch some free Women Empowered instructional videos, click here.

Really guys? Just like that, huh? Just gonna coldly drop a link to a horrible tragedy like that and use it for advertisement? And let's be clear, this is just advertising a product. This free self-defense seminar is nothing but an introductory class so people can see if they like it and then sign up. It is not intended to enable people to save their lives in an attack, and will not. One martial arts class will not improve you chances nearly at all. That comes with lots of training.
What they are doing is just using a horrific event to bring more people into the Gracie money making trap.

I emailed them a WTF letter, and shared it with my friends who did the same. A lot of people on different forums were pretty mad about it. The next newsletter that uses a victim's ordeal to sell their product is at least set up a bit to look like they are just trying to help and not be disrespectful. It is a lot classier than the first one and they offered to train the victim for free. I will give them credit for that, but that is probably only because people made such a stink about the first one. Still though, the second video is just a viral sharing scheme where they basically say "If you want this woman to not have nightmares for the rest of her life and to be able to defend her children, and if you want this bad guy caught, you have to help us advertise! BTW, aren't we great caring people?"


Darned Gracies are just a bunch of classless, greedy, dishonest, conmen, and crap like this really does not make them look any better.

[Vuk]

We Caught Him!N.J. Home Invader Arrested by FBI

Last week we put out a Special Gracie Breakdown regarding the brutal assault by a New Jersey home invader. Exactly one week after the assault took place, the FBI arrested the suspect, Shawn Custis, in New York City. Thanks to everyone who shared the video which identified the suspect, the power of the internet is truly mind boggling!

To watch the news report regarding the suspect's arrest, click here.


New Video: Suspect Arrested in Attack on Mom Caught on Nanny Cam

Funny, I didn't here about the Gracie's great help on the news.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Darned Gracies are just a bunch of classless, greedy, dishonest, conmen, and crap like this really does not make them look any better.

They are not a homogeneous blob.

I am subscribed to the Gracie Insider newsletter

...Why?

Also, you're complaining about the Gracies and not Lloyd Irvin, the rapist?

CR

[Vuk]

They are not a homogeneous blob.



...Why?

Also, you're complaining about the Gracies and not Lloyd Irvin, the rapist?

CR

Yeah, I am generalizing about them, but based on whom they have chosen to represent themselves.
And the reason I posted about them is because while everyone recognized that rapists are reprehensible, many people have a very good opinion of the Gracies.

The Gracies refined a fantastic fighting style. How they've chosen to subsequently sell-out after becoming famous seems irrelevant.

Unless Vuk is one of those crazies who thinks grappling skills are overrated.

It is not irrelevant. They con people out of millions of dollars and endanger people's lives by misrepresenting their product. Seem like an outrageous claim? Let me expand.
First of all, their system is very poorly suited to self-defense and to the military, as it only works well if dealing with one attacker. Most times people are not so lucky. Also, BJJ is less well suited to self-defense or the military than many forms of traditional JJJ, as it was designed specifically for tournaments and challenge fights, and not real, life and death fights.
Even in tournaments wrestling and boxing/kickboxing generally are far more important in securing victory, even amongst great BJJ practitioners like GSP, but that is another matter.
In order to promote their art so that they could get more money, the conned our military into heavily basing its new combatives on GJJ. It is true that our old combatives were too kill oriented and did not have enough restraint techniques, but adopting BJJ and adding a few palm strikes was not the answer to changing combat needs. Hand-to-hand combat is rare in modern conflicts, but happens. Being trained correctly could mean the difference between life and death. You think the Gracies cared that they were endangering people by selling GJJ to the military? Of course not, it was good publicity.

GJJ is ill-suited for civilian life-saving measures for the save reasons as the military. It is far too limited and ground-fighting gets you killed when there are multiple attackers. The Gracies still try to sell their style as well suited for self-defense, and particularly for small men and women.

The truth is that the average violent criminal is a man. Women are on average a lot smaller and less physically capable than men. The average man needs to learn a lot less to defend himself against the average man than the average woman would. As such, a class specifically designed for women should be far more intense as an average woman needs to train harder than an average man to defend against the same opponent.

So what is the Gracie Women Empowered Course? A watered-down version of their main course that targets men. True, women can join a school and learn the same as men, but they market the WE courses as ideal for women and most women will enroll in them instead. Why? If you are going to have something specifically targeting women, it should be far more intense, not the opposite!

So why lie to women and make them think they would have a better chance of surviving by taking an inferior course? Why, because they think it will bring in greater volumes of people, and even though they will send them all away no better off than when they started, they will make more money from them.

They are just a bunch of conmen who make profit from deceiving women and our military.

And no, I don't think grappling skills are overrated. I think ground fighting is overrated. A good counter-grappler can keep from going to the ground most times, even against the best grapplers. Why do you think it is that most times you have a battle or two great grapplers in the UFC the stand up and strike? Because they know it would just be a waste of effort to try to take each other down, and that to achieve a take down would take much more time than they have.
The best fighters are good counter-grapplers who stay on their feet and take their opponents out with strikes. Even Randy Couture (best UFC fighter in the history of the show IMHO) who I honestly think wrestled way too much still mostly knocked his opponents out.

[Strike For The South]

These are the best threads

[Vuk]

Sounds like you misunderstand the Army's combatives program. BJJ is just a small part of it. The earlier levels of the combatives program are there to teach unexperienced fighters how to quickly master a few good moves that can keep them alive in a grapple.

There is no reliable or easily taught method to fend off multiple attackers at once. If that's your standard, I'd love to know what kind of martial arts background you think is the "best."

Remember the UFC is not fighting. They are not trying to kill eachother, kick eachother in the balls, gouge each other's eyes out, and so forth. It is a sport. That's no comparison, and that's why grappling is important.

I have a copy of the Army Combatives manual (FM 3-25.150 (FM 21-150)), and it has 9 chapters, 6 of which deal with the techniques of the program and the other 3 history and training protocol. The first chapter dealing with the program is Basic Ground fighting (BJJ), the second is Advanced Ground fighting (GJJ), and the third is Takedowns and throws (GJJ).
Chapter six (the fourth dealing with the techniques of the program) is on striking, and says in the beginning in italics

Strikes are an inefficient method of ending a fight. However, they are a significant part of most fights, and a soldier must have an understanding of fighting at striking range. It is important to note that while at striking range, you are open to being struck. For this reason, it is often better to avoid striking range.

The chapter then goes on to say that you should never strike with a closed fist because you will hurt yourself, and that striking should only be used to distract someone (if at all) so that distance can be closed and you can go to the ground with them. Their entire philosophy on striking is a GJJ philosophy! The first 4 of 6 chapters so far are nearly entirely GJJ.
The fifth chapter deals with handheld weapons and is the only chapter so far that is no GJJ dominated.
The sixth chapter, Standing Defense is again, mostly all GJJ.
So out of 6 chapters dealing with techniques, 5 are nearly pure GJJ, and all unarmed techniques and philosophy are derived from GJJ.

Now I realize this is only entry level material, but it says clear as day that anything but GJJ will get you killed, so the only way the advanced stuff could be any different is if it tells soldiers that what they initially learned wasn't right.

Also, from what I have heard from people who have served in the Army and Guard, most people don't go beyond the most basic "here is how you get out of this hold, and here is how you get out of this choke" because they are not required to. That means that everything else in the combatives program is basically irrelevant. (just as everything above tan belt is in MCMAP, as most Marines don't progress past that point)

I've had the opportunity to talk to multiple soldiers in my martial arts classes when I was attending Uni, and with one exception all they were taught was the BS GJJ shite.

When you have such little time to teach a soldier how to survive, it should not be wasted on groundfighting and grappling that will just get people killed.

You are right, there is no reliable or easily taught method to fend off multiple attackers at once. You are always at a disadvantage in such a situation, and often if can come down to just surviving till your friends get involved. You will not survive long on your back. The best thing to do is to stay on your feet, and to even the odds by quickly dispatching foes if possible. If you can even take out one guy with strikes before you are entangled by the rest, it still gives you a better chance of surviving till help arrives. Or in the best case scenario, you can stay on your feet and dispatch them one at a time.
Strikes can take people out of a fight fast, grappling can't. Defense against multiple people relies on you taking your enemies out as fast as possible. It also relies on you staying on your feet.
What do I think would be better? What they replaced. The Fairbairn system, or if they would actually give their men more time to train hand-to-hand fighting (which I believe they should devote more time to it), the LINE system.
Both deal with dispatching foes as quickly as possible, while staying on your feet.

And yes, I am aware that the UFC is not real fighting. Heck, I argued that in earlier thread when certain people were telling me that if something didn't work in the UFC it wouldn't work in real life.

[Andres]

I usually sing to scare attackers away. Works like a charm every time. Which shows that singing moves are vastly underrated in combat training.

But singing is nothing compared to ballet. Who wouldn't run away when threatened by a superior ballet dancer in a pink tutu?

[HopAlongBunny]

Andres is right. A superior ballet dancer has the body knowledge and fitness to dance on your grave.

[Vuk]

I guess my point is that I can't think of a better alternative. Remember that a Soldier is training to fight in body armor, wearing all kinds of gear, possibly with weapons near at hand. A few basic "Holy crap don't kill me" moves is all you need unless you want to make a hobby out of unarmed combat.

We used to spend a little more time and teach people more practical hand-to-hand combat/survival skills. Our guys learned enough to be effective and trained in combat gear.
Certain troops need to know more than others, but even the least trained should know at least basic h2h survival skills. The BJJ/GJJ "Holy crap don't kill me" moves you were talking about are counter-productive and will get people killed.

Even if not against our current enemies, in larger wars h2h fighting always becomes more important, and neutering our military's h2h combat tradition will make it much harder and more costly to adapt when we are faced with larger conflicts.

The fact is that the Gracies lied about their system and convinced our military to base their combatives on it, even though they had to know it could lead to people dying. And all so they could make more $$$$.

The Gracies are just trash.

[johnhughthom]

What about Anderson Silva at the weekend? Just desserts? Always bound to happen sooner or later?