No Holds Barred: Rose Gracie, the 2013 Gracie Worlds, and the Rebirth of Jiu-Jitsu

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again speaks with Rose Gracie (http://twitter.com/rosegracie).

In one sense, Rose Gracie is considered sort of jiu-jitsu royalty, as the granddaughter of the legendary Helio Gracie and the daughter of UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie. But in another sense, she is sort of a rebel, insisting that the jiu-jitsu tournaments she organizes have matches that can only be won by submissions, with no points or judges.

This rule set she describes as "the real jiu-jitsu" which her grandfather did.

Her next tournament is the 2013 Gracie Worlds (http://gracietournaments.com/Worlds_2013.html).

This event is scheduled for June 29-30 at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, California 95054, and is being held in conjunction with The FitExpo - Santa Clara. The gi tournament will take place Saturday, June 29, followed by the no-gi tournament Sunday, June 30, with kids' and adults' divisions both days.

We spoke with Rose Gracie by phone Tuesday about the 2013 Gracie Worlds and what she is trying to accomplish.

It was certainly clear from our discussion that her motivations are quite different from most people who run combat sports events.

"You don't always have to do something to gain money from it," she said in this interview. "You gain a lot more by changing somebody's life than you would do by making the money. And when certain people understand how important that is, they change the way they think. It's a lot more rewarding to me to go feed the homeless and give homeless kids presents for Christmas than it is for me to get my own gift."

Teaching children "the right thing to do," protecting the athletes' health and safety, and eventually establishing a non-profit Rose Gracie Foundation are also among the goals of her approach to jiu-jitsu.

We also discussed why she believes that a "rebirth of jiu-jitsu" is needed, how this submission-only format produces matches which are both exciting and easy to understand, the real relation of jiu-jitsu and MMA, the special need to train women and children in jiu-jitsu, and much more in this lengthy discussion.

You can play or download No Holds Barred at http://nhbnews.podomatic.com/entry/2013-04-14T09_16_50-07_00 and http://archive.org/details/NoHoldsBarredRoseGracieTheGracieWorldsAndTheRebirthOfJiu-jitsu. If one link does not work, please try another.

No Holds Barred is also available on mobile phones and iPads through Stitcher (http://landing.stitcher.com/?vurl=noholdsbarred).

Also, No Holds Barred is available through iTunes at http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=150801513&s=143441.

The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer by Ian Snow(http://magicpumpkinstudios.com).

No Holds Barred is free to listen to and is sponsored by:

ONE Fighting Championship (http://onefc.com). ONE FC is Asia's largest and most prestigious mixed martial arts event. ONE FC features the best Asian fighters and has initiated the ONE Asia Partnership Network, which includes most of the major MMA promotions and MMA gyms in Asia. For more information, go to their web site, at ONEFC.com(http://onefc.com).

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American Top Team (http://americantopteam.com). Whether you're a beginner or a champion, train with the champions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, wrestling, grappling, and mixed martial arts at American Top Team. Check out their web site at http://americantopteam.com.

Thanks, Eddie Goldman http://eddiegoldman.com