Darragh

​I listened to a podcast the other day with Irish BJJ pioneer Darragh O’Connaill and it’s nice to hear from people like he and Dan Lukehart about what it’s like to be a satellite gringo working to coach at a high level. One of the things he talked about is how no Gi is the cool thing. As I’ve said before no Gi is popular because foreigners are more successful. Across major tournaments non-Brazilians have significantly more success in no Gi. I benefitted from coming up in the best local scene for ibjjf preparation that I can find. Arizona has the benefit of a tournament circuit that functions almost exactly the same as the IBJJF. If every state followed the lead of Gustavo Dantas and the AZBJJF, athletes and coaches would be better prepared and more competitive at major tournaments. Coaches are failing, athletes are failing and it contributes to the feeling that Gi is dead. Much like futebol, we gave up and will probably continue to fall behind for a while. To be taken seriously as a sport we have to have an anchor organization with consistent enforcement of rules and quality. That is not ADCC, it’s not CJI, it is the ibjjf.