No Holds Barred: Rose Gracie on Gracie Worlds 2014 and State of Jiu-Jitsu

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with Rose Gracie.

We started by discussing the Gracie Worlds 2014.

This jiu-jitsu event takes place Saturday, September 20, and Sunday, September 21, at the Cox Pavilion, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154. On Saturday, there will be the kids' gi and no-gi divisions, with special rules for the kids, and the teens' and adults' gi-only divisions. On Sunday, there will be the no-gi tournaments for teens and adults. For teens and adults, you can only win by submission, with no points or judges.

We spoke with Rose Gracie by phone Thursday.

"It's kind of crazy, because there's a lot of people running events that are submission-only right now, which I'm really, really, really happy about," she said.

"The goal was ultimately was to be able to give an option to the competitors to a different type of jiu-jitsu and a different type of view of the art. And I think I'm pretty much accomplishing that. So we're right on track where I would like to be right now, and I'm really happy to be able to travel a little bit, too, and take the tournament to other areas."

We also discussed why these submission-only events change the way people train, the special rules for kids, why submission-only rules are based on "common sense", the problems with adding judges, why these will become popular spectator events, the appeal of style vs. style matches, how real jiu-jitsu includes both striking and grappling, why sport jiu-jitsu is not sufficient for self-defense training, why she is "very disgusted" with much of jiu-jitsu today, how promoting these submission-only events is a "family honor mission" as a member of the legendary Gracie family, the possibility of jiu-jitsu eventually getting into the Olympics, injuries in jiu-jitsu and other combat sports, memory loss and head trauma, plans for combat jiu-jitsu events which include open-hand striking, plans for future Gracie Worlds events, and much more.

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Thanks, Eddie Goldman
EddieGoldman.com