Death of the Gi

This is going to be a controversial take, so buckle up. The movement of American Jiu Jitsu and trend towards no gi is a product of ineptitude and incompetence. The truth is the United States is really bad in the gi and they are not as terrible in no gi. Statistically, no matter what the clothing Brazil dominates submission grappling with a ground focus. The United States isn’t even relevant in Judo. We are good freestyle wrestlers, but Greco is terrible and neither of those are submission based. Since 2000, when BJ Penn became the first non-Brazilian IBJJF black belt world champion there have been only 4 more male black belt adult world champions from the US with no ties to Brazil. Women’s world championship brackets have been far more diversified, and we have seen the emergence of successful European male competitors in recent years. It is not a matter of bias against non-Brazilians as so many claim, and even if it is, you can’t sit upon the mountain top of the free world disregarding privilege and at the same time complain about not getting a fair shake in a silly game. Americans like no gi because they don’t have to work as hard to do as well, people want to move to the American Jiu Jitsu nomenclature because they’re butt hurt about perceived slights. If as a country we were really all we claim to be then none of this would matter, we would just go out and win, because it’s possible, people have done it. Also, if only training no gi is the best path to success in our sport, why do we not have a plethora of ADCC champions coming from strictly no gi backgrounds? Why is 10th planet not setting the world on fire in MMA and Submission Grappling? Statistically the claims being made currently are baseless and are also not new, so I’ll be interested to see if anything changes.