 We all know the history of how the Gracie family created Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and made it the global powerhouse art that it is today, or do we? Today we have a very special guest with us. His name is Robert Drivesdale. He's a fourth degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and MMA champion and instructor of his own academy, Drivesdale Jiu-Jitsu located in Las Vegas. He's also a scholar of the art and that's the topic of today's video. Mr. Drivesdale's book, Opening Closed Guard, gives us a peek behind the scenes of his upcoming documentary that takes a second look at the history of BJJ as we know it. He's going to share his experience and research and perhaps give us a window at the scene the real origin of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. You have extensive experience with Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. You've competed in MMA and now you have written a book and are currently producing a documentary that questions the accepted narrative of the origin of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. For those of us who are not familiar with it, what is that current narrative? It's not so much that I'm questioning the narrative, it's more that there was more to the story than we had originally heard. It was a very simplistic story and I've always been somewhat sceptic of it. The official narrative went Maeda moved to Belinda Pará and Mitsui Maeda from the Kodokan in Japan and he brought his Judo over and it was a different Judo. It was the real Jiu-Jitsu that the Japanese were hiding from people but Carlos Gracie's father did a lot of favors for Maeda so Maeda in order to repay those favors he would teach his oldest son Carlos Gracie the real Jiu-Jitsu, the one that Judo was hiding. That narrative kind of stuck. Carlos went on to train his brother Helio and Helio became a huge name in the development of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and that became, the rest of his history, Horian Gracie brought over that style of what they considered to be real Jiu-Jitsu, the one that Judo was hiding, which was in fact just Judo. That's what they were doing, they just called the Jiu-Jitsu but it wasn't Jiu-Jitsu. The narrative stuck and it wasn't until recently when the Brazilian National Library digitized the files, all their newspapers from the early in the 20th century that we can actually go back and understand these characters better and it was no longer oral tradition that was coming down through one single source which was Carlos Gracie. Everything we knew about that period had come to us through Carlos Gracie, no one else, which is a very suspicious testimony not to question him but if you were to tell your story it would probably be a very positive one of yourself, very unlikely that you would tell us a complete story that gave a honest and complete picture of your life. People tend to self glorify this. That's almost like an instinct to do that. The job of the historian is to try to dig through that and find out what is it that this guy didn't tell us, what part of what he told us was true and what part of it was not true. Even though newspapers are not they have their limitations as well. They're definitely better than oral tradition because oral tradition suffers from bias first of all, a greater bias than journalists who doesn't train digits to wood for example but also because testimonies change over time. We learned this when we were interviewing some of these grandmasters and you can see narratives changing over the years. They say one thing 30 years ago, 20 years, something else, 10 years ago, something else and now they're saying something else like well what happened? The facts didn't change but there are narrative changes with time. We learned that and it was quite the experience but the narrative was very incomplete and we felt that it was time to do something about it. So what led you to question the origin to begin with? I thought it was too simple. I'm not a professional historian per se but I know enough about history and I've been breaking history books my whole life. It's one thing that's consistent is that people are never angels, they're never demons. It's never this or that. There's always nuance, there's always more to it and there's always like different perspectives and you're gonna get 10 people witnessing the same event and if you have asked them immediately after a report what they saw, you're gonna get 10 different testimonies, sometimes completely different from one another. So anyone who knows, you know, is used to reading history knows these things. So when I heard that like Maeda talk Carlos who taught Helio and he invented lever and the Japanese were hiding real jujitsu through Judo and like that makes any sense. Like it's just not adding up, like you know enough about human behavior and how people are and how history is and you go no I don't think that's what happened. So you start digging and like and turned out that you know the instincts were right and there was some work that was done you know like there's nothing really in terms of historical research. There's not much that we brought to the table a little bit here and there but I think that we mainly brought to light what was you know what wasn't there and people didn't know about. So how do you decide where to start your research to begin with? You said there was some work there. How did you pick that starting point? I Google it. I started looking for books on history of jujitsu and almost everything went back to Carlos Gracie. It was like a website you know or like Wikipedia which is all meaningless you know YouTube video, Wikipedia, websites it's all meaningless like you know enough about history you're gonna go like where are my primary sources? Where are my historians? Where are the professionals that know how to do research right? And I basically narrowed down to like three people. Two of them were Brazilian, José Toficados, he wrote a PhD dissertation on the history of jujitsu in Brazil and even though he wrote it in English he wrote it for I think he was like York University in Canada but he's Brazilian you know he would come from Judo and he wrote a very good PhD dissertation it's online it's available it's free and I loved it and there's this other Brazilian guy who writes in Portuguese who's not a professional historian. He's not an academic but he's an enthusiast and he did a lot of digging it. There's a lot of cool things that he had in his books. His name is Marcial Sejon but perhaps the book that most impacted our research or this documentary was Shaki by Roberto Pedreira who is an American academic who you know done some digging a lot of digging in fact in the history of martial arts in Japan and Brazil very professional very thorough very reasonable in his analysis you know very dry read it's not a doesn't read like a novel but his books are a huge influence and I saw what was being done there and I realized that that need to be put in with film format so that sort of led us to like okay so what can we do to put this money together put the documentary together. Yeah it's I mean I it's it's been a great journey but there's still a lot to know there's still a lot that we don't know it's not people want like a one fixed narrative right they want to know something so they can memorize it now like I got it I memorized it but really you know the people that are interested in understanding the present understanding have an idea of what the future is going to be like they have to have a good understanding of how the past has worked and the past is full of nuance it's full of perspectives it's full of there is this thing as objective reality but there's also such thing is there are different inputs different ways of looking at that same historical object right so really learn how to think history and I think that's what's that's what's missing a lot of people I mean most people don't care which is fine but what's so shocking to me is that the people who are making decisions about the future of jujitsu don't know a thing about its history or history in general so to me that's always like an alarm because anyone that should be like in the forefront of guiding the sport ought to understand where it comes from very well but that's completely missed by most people I think no this guy he's good at jujitsu he's good at armbars that's good enough that's all we need to know and to me that's always like oh man that's not that's not a good um I mean it's just not a good crisis you know it's one thing you know how to fight it's something else to be a good planner for the future of the sport right so all these things are going on and I think that the book and the documentary come into maybe add something to this you know and add something to the overall art of jujitsu and where it's come where it came from and perhaps point to a direction where it should be on so you say there's there's a lot of misconceptions that people have about bjj in its history in general that's pretty much all of it I mean there's very few things that people can say accurately you know I'll give you an example like mitzui mayeda is in the picture of mitzui mitzui mayeda is in almost every gym in the world right in jujitsu mitzui is the most exaggerated character in this whole story like I asked people what did mitzui do and they can't like oh he talked Carlos how did you get that from oh from Carlos Gracie that's not evidence I mean you can ask me something Rob like who killed JFK and I can go it was you I mean is that you know I mean you can see anything you want and but like people get stuck with these things because it's been repeated so far and I don't even try to convince people like about the facts right here you can understand them read them learn them or not I've done my part like I'm not going to be on a mission to try to convince people to understand reality in history because most people just don't don't care you're perfectly happy just going about and living like putting a picture of mitzui might as well put a picture of I don't know some other guy there some baseball players like what did my head actually do and when you take him as away from him because we have better we have better candidates to be to have been uh Carlos's greatest teacher we have much better candidates but they're not famous because Carlos didn't make them famous right so there's so your your your book and your documentary goes into some of these other candidates that kind of um bring to light what they have contributed absolutely so you know we bring one of them you know was a student in fact was my as best student his name is just simple and just seem to fair who was a very known athlete he was a an accomplished athlete and like a number of different you know not just fighting but other sports in fact he was famous there before might have had even come to uh um to brazil right and he became good friends with my dad and he I mean if anyone it's he is whatever evidence we have of Carlos even training in that period points to him being a student of just seem to fair or not my dad right so if you're gonna put a picture of someone up there should be a picture of just seem to fair you know the other ones you grow kind of never taught my head that's the other one everyone thinks you grow kind of was my best teacher who wasn't we know he wasn't but like people it's completely missed because there's people who make these associations off like they think it is it sounds like it should be someone else said it said it was so it must be true you know there's not a lot of like skepticism criticism it's more like a like article of like believe whatever people are saying if a lot of people believe something it must be true so that was um that's the other one the other the better candidate really I mean if you really need to create a link between what we now call Brazilian jiu-jitsu in Japan it's Jio Mori most people never even heard of is a much stronger candidate than my it is you know there's much better evidence for Jio Mori to have a talk Carlos you know but people you know they don't want to hear it you know but Jio Mori if if you really had to create a link between the Kotokon and Brazilian jiu-jitsu that would be Jio Mori you know and then if if not other Brazilians too do not appears as hey this is a great candidate to have and talk Carlos because both times he interacts with Carlos in jiu-jitsu he is interacting with Carlos Gracie as a superior as someone who is above him in the hierarchy so that's very instructive like why why is Carlos taking a back seat and letting this guy take the forefront right when they're interacting on the mats clearly this guy held some sort of ascendancy over Carlos right so he's another strong candidate but it is the weakest candidate but everyone's like you know going along with the narrative and there's nothing connected to other than just seem to fail you know there's there's there's nothing else so to this day you've put in considerable effort into this documentary with extensive research travel and interviewing relative players what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced on this project I think my my naivety again so naive and um you know um I think I understood the history better before I set out to do this I should have spent more time reading and thinking about it before I set out to produce this um the fact that my my documentary team does not have not come come through with their promises and agreements and they have like deadlines they never meet the deadlines and that's to do with me being so naive and patient and understanding and you know that quote nice guy just finished last it's true you know like sometimes you just got to put the hammer down and be the boss and be the leader and like stick to agreements and help hold people accountable for their word and promises and you're always like oh the guy's having a hard time this financially or something going on in his life he's having a baby he's moving always patient always patient always patient but people don't they take that for granted like a lot of times and like they're just yeah my team just didn't come through like they promised like it's been a bit of an issue but other than that um you know it's been the filming was a pleasure like putting it together reading writing the book all of it you know being able to better understand the origins of the jiu-jitsu that's been great like that I have nothing to um I have no regrets there no uh but the history itself I think based on what we know based on the evidence available it's pretty straightforward I mean the best history book out there on this is shocking I hope that's for the data I don't think it's my book per se but it's a very heavy and dry read so people that want to read like a watered down interpretation that I think you know my my book does a good job of that you know it's it's a pretty much much some would say even I mean it's funny because my book got called pro-gracy and it got called anti-gracy so which tells me I'm like somewhere on the right track I think um but in some ways I think that some things have done wrong uh in terms of right I would have been slightly different and I plan on correcting in the second edition so one of them was this is interesting like about a few months ago Raleigh Gracie Horry on Son he called me out of the blue like hey I heard you wrote a book on the history of jiu-jitsu I'm like yeah can you send me a copy I'm sure so I sent him a copy a couple months later he gets back to me and goes I liked your book I felt I thought you were very fair except that you were not very fair with my dad with Horry on and I go you know what you're right that was the first criticism I heard to quote about my book and went like you know what that was spot on I was not fair with Horry on and I changed my mind after I read another book called the worth defending it was like basically an autobiography of Richard Bressel which was Horry on Gracie's first student in California it was interesting very first student right in 1981 whatever it was and so he talks about like Horry on handing out flyers and parking lots trying to convince people who thought Bruce Lee was the greatest fighter in history to go into a garage to roll around with Brazilians and Geese pretty difficult proposition in the 1980s right but this guy was doing that so Richard was like observing all this this this growth of jiu-jitsu that way because of Horry on and his efforts and after reading all that and Horry on thinking the UFC and putting the UFC together he kind of didn't get enough credit for it when you think about it I think that might have to do with his personality like he has a very I don't know I think he he wanted to get the credit and he wanted it so bad that I think he didn't deal well with you know how how um as the sport grew he could have dealt with things better perhaps but Horry is a very undervalued character there's no doubt about it I plan on fixing that in the second edition also giving Geo Mori more credit I think that I didn't give Geo Mori his due credit in terms of arguably being the you know I mean if you really need to create a founding father for brazilian jiu-jitsu and a link between japan Geo Mori is is the better candidate now not Maeda Maeda to me it's a mystery why he's such a I have to put my head on a pedestal and what did he actually do no one can answer that question like they say all our tall cars where show me where did you get that from it can't show you anything but they don't have it interesting and it's interesting that you brought up the book because writing the book about the making of a documentary during the making of the documentary and then releasing the book first is a little bit on orthodox coming from a video production background myself I personally enjoyed reading not only about the research you put in but the material you're uncovering but also the production challenges you were facing as well so what actually prompted you to write and release this book well we had a deadline to release the documentary september 2020 right we originally won the pandemic came out like we're gonna release it during the pandemics perfect time there are no tournaments people are gonna want to so let's sink our teeth in so I was a promise that it would be done in the summer of 2020 that was the promise and then the summer that extended to the last day of summer very last day of summer right try to extend that and so meanwhile while there I'm thinking they're finishing the film I'm gonna write a book I wrote a whole book and that during a pandemic and they were still weren't done with something that had been working on for almost three years right and then in 2020 september 2020 of course they weren't done and but my book was done so I'm like well I got a book here I don't have a film well let's change a few words here on the on the on the conclusion explaining why the film was already because it's not my fault and let's just go with it like I'm gonna release the book and the book is gonna be out and at least the interviews are out and the people get a little background in the history of jujitsu and honestly I thought that the book I'm like I'll be lucky if I sell like two three hundred copies over the course of the book's life and I think we sold something like 500 copies in two days you know so it was it was the book has been far more successful than I expected it to be we were ranked number one on amazon for brazilian history number one on amazon we were ranked number three on amazon for martial arts we were behind art of war and bruce lee's biography so we were number three on amazon for a minute there so I was like I couldn't even believe it like this is a stout I mean I expected maybe sell 300 copies and we sold 500 in like two days so you take great care and the way you address your gracy family like you keep this level of objectivity about them and you try to keep your place in history what is your place in history and how did you go about maintaining that objectivity I think you should have people get caught up with this like I call it the buy it had a binary I use that word all the time right your anti-grace your progress like it's it comes from maybe from politics maybe it comes from religion good and evil it's just there's no nuance there's no gray and when it comes to people it's all gray there's no black and white who's a liar who I could how can you say someone is a liar or that someone is honest you can't even say these things because everyone is honest sometimes and sometimes we're dishonest everyone sometimes lies and sometimes you tell the truth there's no such thing that a person only tells the truth or only lies you know but we get caught up in these issues of language and we got up this this mindset it's like it's this or that and I've always made an effort to get rid of that like I shouldn't think that way like get rid of those boundaries like what is actually happening interpret the information head on straight down the middle free of you know ideological constraints free of you know emotional biases what is the information what are the facts what did this person actually do objectively go right and when you look at things objectively and you get rid of all that you start seeing things a little bit clearer and you're going to go wait a second what did Carlos Gracie actually do and you see that he was extremely important but it was primarily because he was so good at marketing like Carlos like for example I said this in an interview and I love it you don't cause got mad the first judo guys love me right because I'm basically saying that we don't do Brazilian jiu-jitsu we do Brazilian judo which is true there's no such thing as Brazilian jiu-jitsu we call it that but we do Brazilian judo that's what we do so they love me and then I said something like the extent of like Giorgio Cano's genius said nothing to do with fighting Giorgio Cano's genius was political oh no they didn't like me because he was supposed to be this incredible fighter but he wasn't he never fought but that we know of he wasn't a great fighter I mean I'm not even sure he was a great coach either because he was always busy worried thinking about like the you know how do you struggle which is an extremely important job you needed that guy but his genius was political more than in the realm of fighting you know that's that's where he comes in and Carlos's real genius was marketing Carlos is the kind of guy that if you were alive today you know he'd be managing Jake Paul he'd have five million followers on Twitter like that's that was Carlos he was brilliant he would have been an influencer for that that was the kind of guy he was the kinds constantly trying to get his name on the press me me me like it's like he was that guy right and he was extremely good at it he was very good at promoting his brothers but the truth of the matter he had one fight one professional fight and he lost so he's not he was never his fighting was never a strong suit you know and but his brothers were better George Gracie was like George Gracie was the first hero of the family and the whole and the family itself kind of neglected him you know it's just something I always remind people of when they want to tell me that the documentary the book is like anti-racial like well I think I've done more to bring back George Gracie's memory alive than any other person other than the historians I mentioned you know like I think I've been quite the effort I mentioned has been costly in interviews just to give the guys due credit he's arguably the founding father of MMA which is really volatile there's no such thing as MMA the word of MMA is like it's an invention of the American crowd in recent years the correct terminology is volatile that's what it's called and George Gracie is arguably one of its founding fathers if not it's found by the first volatile fight arguably was George Gracie versus Chief of Soledad I don't want to remember that but that's an important piece of history right there right for MMA fans too and then what did Helio do? Was Helio's genius fighting? I don't think it was I don't think his genius had anything to do with fighting I don't think he was bad but I don't think he was nearly as good as people made him sound they made him sound like he invented all these things I'm like what did he actually invent like what are what in technical terms what is it that he's doing it's not in every Judo Miwaza book there's nothing there right but he was important like why was he important because Judo made mistakes in terms of neglecting the ground now why they did that now that's a different discussion we can like why for a variety of reasons right but the reality is you know Judo was in order to become accepted by the ministry of education they became they lost a lot of the martial aspects of Judo like the combat the fighting and you know a lot of that was kept alive by Brazilians they had a more martial approach to the Judo right they didn't call it Judo because they couldn't call it Judo because they want to create something separate the issues of for reasons of vanity and and you know narcissism or whatever the case but they wanted to create something separate from Judo and they did that and Helio's personality to me was one of the most important ingredients of this whole story because you have to remember what was Judo in the 1950s 60s 70s it's a steamroller of a martial art that's what everyone wants to practice he has government support it has support from the private sector it's in the olympics right so all these things are happening in the 1970s and um and so 50s 60s 70s so what's jiu-jitsu learning but in brazil people don't care like no one cared about what their races were but Helio was that figure that kind of kept together and I think a lot of it happened with this personality he was like a very strong stubborn leader and I think what we now call brazilian jiu-jitsu needed someone like him and I think that was his big contribution to jiu-jitsu and nothing to do with technique or creating right had crafting great students I mean from what we know about him like I'm not even convinced he was a good coach either I mean I have my doubts I don't it's I think Carlson was the man you want to talk about fighting what about fighting make people tap take them down fight beat them up any challenge anytime anywhere I mean I think George Gracie deserves a higher place than Helio if anything as in terms of fighting at least he fought tougher opponents he fought more didn't pick and choose rule sets didn't pick and choose gi short gi no sleeve long sleeve fight anyone anytime anywhere and then you have Carlson Carlson's demand when it comes to fighting Carlson was the man when it comes to coaching Carlson was the man and then you get holes Gracie very important for what we now call sport of jiu-jitsu or competitive jiu-jitsu he was that guy that had that vision to you know him and Carlson those two so in terms of like you know the the the things that we value the most about the technique or technical development I think calls Carlson and holes were far more important than Helio Helio was important in terms of keeping it together at a time where judo was huge and for the sport that we now call Brazilian jiu-jitsu exists and it's someone to help it survive and not be absorbed by judo because I mean think about it like you know there's not a lot of there are no styles that blew up you know the way Brazilian jiu-jitsu did Brazilian jiu-jitsu blew up because it was less technical it was more the fact that they created that they kept alive a martial culture martial aspect of jiu-jitsu and and I think that for that survival for that to exist today two things are key and we don't like these things but they're very important one was marking right and the other one was like that strong personality Helio had that's where Carlson can Helio come in you know but in terms of fighting like I don't think Carlson and fighting and teaching I think that Carlson is probably more deserving than his uncle Helio for example you know if you really want to get down to the guy that this was the guy that you know made jiu-jitsu applicable for fighting you know that was that was Carlson more than anyone else in the family what has been the greatest pushback that you've received from this project so far I did not get as much flack from the Gracie campus I thought I would I was ready to pick a fight if I had to um not what I why I wanted to do this you know but I think that you know facts matter and if that if they upset people if I say something that's true and you don't like it the truth doesn't have a problem you have a problem right that's to me that's obvious but some people all you offended me so you said something that's not okay and I'm upset and I'm offended and you hurt my feelings you shouldn't say it like well the truth does not care about how you feel like you have these things and and so I was expecting a lot of and a lot of people have this emotional attachment to that narrative right interestingly most of them are not even Gracie's they're just students of the Gracie's I think they're more Gracie's than the Gracie's themselves a lot of the Gracie's like even Raleigh's like no I liked your book I thought you were fair I think Hensel Gracie posted reposted something on his page about an interview I gave once talking about his father so there's been actually you know the guys from IBJJF like Carlos Gracie Jr like he was congratulating me when I saw him when he saw me congratulations and all the success of your book you know that's that's Carlos Gracie Jr like president of IBJJF founder of Gracie Baja so I actually got a lot more support from these guys than I it was like it was like it was like 90% positive maybe maybe even more than that and every now and then you get people that either didn't read the book or don't know how to read I remember one guy wrote me on my Instagram you're a liar you're a scumbag how dare you tell the denigrate the Gracie family you should have interviewed Hobson Gracie and Jean-Bert Barreto now he actually goes on this rant talking about you should have interviewed like this I should have interviewed I did interview Hobson we talked about I did interview Jean-Bert Barreto and then I realized this guy never read the book well he's like he goes on this rant about how awful my book was but he never read it so I messaged him did you read the book and he goes no and I'm not going to read it because it's full of lies and blah and that's what you're dealing with I'm like why am I even responding to this idiot and then the other one was the other common criticism that I can't take seriously was oh I failed in my mission to take credit from the Gracie's like who said that was my mission to begin with you created that mission in your head I never said that but they go along with it because if they keep repeating because once again they're stuck with that binary view if this guy's saying something and disagrees with the official narrative clearly he hates the Gracie family right that's their simplistic easy simple mind going I'm going why on earth am I even speaking to these people right but I'm patient I'm trying to like explain and at some point I kind of gave up right at some point like people are using arguments that I make in the book right to defend the Gracie family or give credit to them they use it against me acting as if I had not had used that same argument in the book so to me you either didn't read it or you're being dishonest or you don't know how to read one of the three right so that was but that's the minority I'm giving you guys I'm giving you like the exceptions like the vast majority feedback was very positive what was the most unexpected thing you discovered during your research or during production I think how underplayed men like George Geo Mori and Carlson were those three how undervalued how much more important they are in this story and how Carlos Carlos and Helio got all the credit those three and guys like Geo Mori George Gracie and Carlson Gracie kind of got like Carlson got the only reason Carlson Gracie is remembered by the way is because he left an enormous legacy of students other than that his name would have been buried just like George Gracie just like Geo Mori because they were not on board with Carlson Helio anymore especially Helio and Carlson didn't get along or during the second half of their lives so Carlson would have been erased he wasn't erased because of his students kept his memory alive and because he created like you know the biggest MMA camps in history a lot of guys came out of his camp so that's why he's remembered but these guys are very undervalued that was came somewhat of a shock to me you know even like members of the Gracie family were being buried you know for political reasons or the reasons of jealousy and family disputes and but again like if it's you know these things shouldn't matter what should matter is what role do these guys play you know what did they actually do for our sport to exist and yeah I think it's these three Geo Mori George and Carlson Gracie did not get their due credit now with the experience and insight that you have with BJJ and the martial arts what are the most important aspects that you feel people should focus on I think people are really really hyper focused on learning trendy techniques and they become like the equivalent of like fashion victims like you know it's like it's like it's funny how this how Jiu Jitsu works and it's no longer guided by objective reality right there are no statistics in Jiu Jitsu so we don't know but it's more it's it's if you see something right and you see it over and over and over you take it for granted that thing has happened all the time but if you see something that is really cool and it seems like that is perhaps aesthetically pleasing right or it's being done by someone with large influence that thing right there takes precedence over everything else right so to me my criteria has always been it comes to training you should never look at it rather something is old and new so I never cared about that discussion I think it's an idiotic discussion between old school and new school we're like it chokes pre-old you know it doesn't mean it doesn't work right it's the number one submission so like what is old school then like what and then people getting this idea that new is better than old or old is better than new and the question I always ask is does it work right that's that's the criteria that's the measurement that's the metric right there is does what I am teaching or learning work is it efficient right and what's the center if it is efficient what's the center what are the most efficient techniques that recovers on jiu-jitsu and then we're going to have the margins and it's fine to have margins but we shouldn't be focusing on the margins we should be focused on the center right and that's what I've always tried to focus on for myself and my students but the center is not fashionable so they're focused on the margins which you can do but there's going to be a lot of efficiency that comes with that right what are the things I think that there's a lot of in terms of training methodology jiu-jitsu and MMA are very very behind other sports like shockingly behind and it's like almost like in MMA there's no excuse and jiu-jitsu it's a family oriented model you can only give them like x amount of hours per day no very few people are professionals but in MMA it's shocking how unprofessional they are I want to think of and they have money guys with a lot of money and they they're basically complete amateurs when it comes to their training I'm just watching I'm going like I mean yeah you win you're incredibly talented you hit hard you're a beast of an athlete you got a good work ethic but when it comes to methodology and preparation and the environment and what makes you know like the way someone would run like an NBA team or the way someone would run an Olympic team and then you go to MMA and you're still incredibly amateur there jiu-jitsu has a lot of that too in terms of how teams should be organized it's it's very very inadequate in my opinion I think in terms of psychological aspects of jiu-jitsu or like fighting in general there's very very undervalued I think that how we teach jiu-jitsu is incorrect I think we teach with an eye on keeping the student happy versus actually teaching them what they need because what they want and what they need is not always the same thing and the coach should be in a position to do that but the coach is not the boss you think the coach is the boss who's the real boss in the gym the paint student you understand there's a conflict of dynamics there where like the higher views aren't really set who's the boss and that's a huge problem because if a coach is modeling his training around making his student happy well then he can't do what's best for his student because what the student wants and what the student needs are rarely the same thing you know because yeah because this is interesting that you're saying this because bjj and MMA are often held as the gold standard for competitive martial arts and people always compare everything else to MMA so this is actually a very interesting perspective no they're incredibly amateur I mean I can't speak for karate and taekwondo like I don't know okay now I know that for example collegiate wrestling or like an olympic training center judo they have a better dynamic because there is authority and it's top down coach is the boss and in MMA you know who the boss is the wife the wife oh yeah the wife tells the fighter who the fighter is going to hold pads with you know why because she wants to buy a new couch she wants a new car so she's got to save money and if this guy's holding pads for free that's the best coach because the guy will hold pads for free because he wants to get on tv and get free rebound gear or venom gear you see what's happening here like you get all these influences like wait a second this thing should not be factors in this discussion but there's huge factors manager bossing around coach the fighter has like eight different coaches all seeing eight different things sometimes the coaches don't even meet until fight day okay the fighter is running camp the fighter runs the camp not the coach the coach follows the orders you know why because the fighter pays the coach so who's the boss commercialism yeah so it's basically the commercialism saturated it it's the same thing in brazilian jiu-jitsu if the parents are complaining about something you have to change the program because if you leave 20 kids you can't pay rent so the the the the instructor the coach is unable to do his job due to this dynamic so he has to accommodate change and assimilate to the wishes of the person that he should be training so commercialism yes it throws a monkey wrench in the conversation this is why collegiate wrestling is better in that regard or like olympic training centers or even professional sports like the nfl the idea that the player is going to tell the coach how to run the show is laughable in those environments like oh bro you're going to go with the collegiate again collegiate wrestling and the guy says hey my girlfriend is disagreeing with your coach on how you're running the program i mean the coach would probably shit his pants laughing you know like i don't know get off my team then you know but if you're running a gym or if you're like a coach maybe because you can't like you are you take a back so you're not you're not in the driver's seat put it like that the whoever people in the fighters personal life right and it happens a lot if you ask people name a mayoral and and they listen what i'm saying they're gonna agree with they're not gonna say anything because they're like this is how i get paid i don't like it but i like those checks that i get so i i want to remain where i'm at and keep my social status and not lose this position right if i want to remain where i'm standing and not i have to what abide by the game gotta play the game and i think that i think i tried to change it like i've tried it's something possible because the culture they look at you like you're crazy because you're swimming against the current because you're doing something different like i'm telling them if you're fighting you know you should not be training with random coaches and random people and they look at that oh you're trying to control me it's like listen let go ahead if you played for the Raiders do you think the Patriots are gonna let you watch them train absolutely not right like that's unthinkable in professional sports maybe it happens every day and i'm not making this up you get random people walking in recording and no one says a thing like are you people stupid i don't know how else to say this i'm sorry but like but they allow it and if you try they have to go to five different gyms and they're sparring with people they're gonna be fighting next year or they're sparring with people who their friends in this gym are gonna be sparring right and that all that is happening people get injured you know what they do they call their friend that's gonna be fighting that guy they just saw the guy get injured in practice and they called him he blew his left knee i'm not making this up this is it i'm not going to mention name but this is a real story of big names in their may the guy gets a phone call 15 minutes later telling him he just blew his left knee in practice and the guy kicks his left knee the whole fight wins the fight that way and this has happened all the time and no this is why kabebe is smart kabebe is the best because he's smart not just because he's good they block it off when he goes we have seen i know watch this practice they don't let anyone train with them they don't let anyone watch only their coaches and only their friends boom they keep the system they had in dagistan whatever works there is going to work here they never changed it genius i mean it's not genius it's obvious you know but it's unusual because very few teams are doing that and the same thing happens in video game same thing so i think in a lot of ways it's they're just because they're winning doesn't mean they're doing things right you know people get these things someone's gonna have to win i mean you can do have the worst methodology in the world everywhere someone's gonna win it doesn't mean they're doing it well you know so do you hope that this project um impacts the future of the competitive mma or bjj as all uh i don't think it will i don't think i have any hopes i think that it's out there for people though i mean the here's the thing here's the reality of this man how many people are reading history books to learn about american history or anything versus how many people are listening to podcasts youtube videos and we keep you to learn i mean it's it's screaming different like you can write a paper on the founding fathers right full of sources you spend 10 years of your life writing an astounding paper on thomas jefferson and you get four people reading all right that's the truth and you make a dumb video you're loud and you scream say words like patriotism and freedom and treason and you say something like that and everyone's like yeah it must be true you know and it's gonna get a million views and that's the nature of thing i don't think that i think the more serious and better quality things are the less inclined people are to read it the more inconsistent the more flawed the more deceiving the more dishonest the more people are likely to applaud it it's very strange but it seems to be the dynamic when it comes to knowledge right we're all looking for knowledge in the wrong places and i mean i had a student of mine i wrote this in the book this is a true story the guy was like rob why do you like to read like he's quite he's looked like i'm crazy for reading i'm like why don't just google it that's what he told me he was and then i got one argument you're trying to tell me that you don't need to read books anymore because all you have to do is google things and this is coming from not from an eight-year-old this is coming from a 22-year-old all right with early 20s whatever it was and i'm going and he was serious too like he held this ground like he thought i was nuts and i'm like this guy does and i'm like i'm not i'm not i'm not gonna waste my breath and that's like you know me writing the book the fact that it's sold the way it's sold is almost like it does give you a little bit of hope okay so maybe it's not all that but i feel that the people who are reading and you know maybe enjoy the book are people from my generation of older i don't think there's a lot of 22-year-olds reading and appreciate and maybe they'll change when they're old i don't know but i think that tendency we're watching and there's a that the internet has changed something and how people learn and you know critical thinking skepticism these things are even like basic understanding of how science works these people don't have that because i think schooling system failed in teaching them that there's been a failure there so they breach adulthood and they're not really they don't know how to process information they just believe what they like to believe so if they train with the gray seat my book is shit if their instructor happens to hate the gray seat then my book is great and then that's kind of like the criteria that people are using you know so because of that i don't know if i can you know if there actually is going to be an impact for the documentary of the book but in some ways i think it's some things have changed in some in good ways like when i first started this out of curiosity i went on e-tepedia just to see what the articles read right like what was there and it was like so incorrect i was one of the things that pushed me to want to do this like this is so wrong for people that's because i know that's where people are getting their information from so i want to see what people are seeing i did the same thing about six months to a year ago and it was very different it had changed some of the names that i mentioned today were on there giro mori jacinto ferro you see you're starting to hear about these names so maybe there's going to be some change i don't think that you could ever you know you know one's going to take down those pictures of carlos and helio maya and not that that's what we were trying to do i think but i think that you know if people better understand their history but i think jiu-jitsu has a better chance of surviving in the future that's what i would really like you know it was more about what can we what can we learn about the past so we make the future better right that's what history is for as i see it but i think the way the culture in jiu-jitsu is going it's not going well i think it's going to go it's going the opposite direction it should be going it should be following what judo did there's a reason why judo was so successful it's been around for 140 years you know brazilian jiu-jitsu is going the opposite direction and i don't think there's cohesion there i don't think there's a purpose there i think brazilian jiu-jitsu is going it is guided by people who want to make money and when you have that as your north you're not you're not really thinking long term you're thinking about yourself it's like thinking about me with jiu-jitsu as a vehicle versus doing what is sacrificing my efforts for jiu-jitsu so you are the vehicle for jiu-jitsu right in that way but what's happening is jiu-jitsu is the vehicle for me you see the difference so and because we we've created a culture they call it american jiu-jitsu and at first i was like american jiu-jitsu is the dumbest thing ever this is like resentment this is there's no other way to put this these are people who couldn't win tournaments and now they're trying to create another separate world because they can't stand the fact that brazilians are winning like let's leave nationalism aside right i forget about that for a second brazilians are dominant in grappling they've always happened right talk about innovation like almost everything we know right came from jiu-jitsu in brazil in the 90s and early 2000s right like that's the foundation of of the the technical revolution even though japanese had done it first what we know did not come from the the kosen judo it came from judo kodokan judo you know traditional and then brazilians like really like blew it up in the 90s in terms of technical innovation right but now it's like you know three things are invented over in the united states like oh it's no longer brazil it's not it's american and at first i was like this is this is resentment this is you guys not doing well in tournaments right and blaming brazilians for it oh i lost a match brazilian fault blame the brazilians everything i mean brazilians are this brazilians are that like look at ibgf most organized event in in all of jiu-jitsu by far as ibgf they put on events with 7 000 people you know but some people don't like that why because they're making money how dare these people already make money so that creates all that that's why this american jiu-jitsu comes from that's where it comes from but in some ways it has become american because it has so much um it's changed the culture so much it's changed the guiding north of what we used to do was like what is best for jiu-jitsu now it's going how do i make money right and that's been that is the priority of the sport and ticket sales as long as we sell tickets as long as we get followers and views that's then we're winning that's what success is and the worst part is you have to listen to people telling that they'll bring in more ice to the sport like man you're you're it's ludicrous believe that the people watching these shows are people that are well within the ibgf circuit and if they did if and if you didn't exist they'd still be competing and training because those people are already in jiu-jitsu your grandma's not watching jiu-jitsu the people that are watching these shows these events professional events are all within the ibgf sphere but they keep repeating that we're bringing ice to jiu-jitsu by acting obnoxiously by being disrespectful by self-promotion and then you're teaching all this to a younger generation and you think the sport has longevity when you're teaching kids that it doesn't so i i don't think jiu-jitsu has the future man i think it's a sinking ship in a lot of ways because they've created awful culture and everyone's applauding like it's a great idea and i'm like okay i'm not saying i'm perfect i'm no angel but i i know a thing or two about the history of martial arts and i've seen this movie before it's not the first time we've seen this what is what is happening now has happened before you know and we know what happened so here we are you know i i think that i mean some of my attempt might i guess like the back of my my mind like idealistically i wanted you know do something for jiu-jitsu that was me when last thing it's like helping like kind of steer the sport in a better direction but i don't think it's going to accomplish that maybe that was too ambitious but it did make it clear to me that as is right now jiu-jitsu is going in a very strange direction and i don't care how many tickets they sell at the next age you see ticket sales are not a good metric i'm sorry you can put hasbulaf fight kim kardashian in MMA and you're going to sell more tickets than kabib in my grigger you say you can have celebs if justin beaver fought tom cruise that would have sold more more pay-per-views than any other MMA fighting history but is that what we want in the sport like mudfest it's not mud i mean that's what i mean you can you can put hot girls in bikini fighting in the may or a topless and how much how many how much is that going to sell so ticket sales is not a good metric because it's short-lived short-sighted it has no longevity there's no purpose there's no direction and that's kind of what's happening to jiu-jitsu but the sort of uh culture of self-promotion and that the korean i don't i don't think that's good long term you know but i you know the book is out the history is out there this moment where living has been it has existed before it's not so it's not identical but it's had a lot of similarities and hopefully you know jiu-jitsu sticks around it continues to change lives and makes people's lives better because that's what its ultimate goal always has been you know it's improved i know it's changed my life it made me a better person i think you know i think that's why we like it it gives us a second family for that we have to incorporate it with keep it good culture you know not allow it to become something negative nice assistant well if people walk away from this this interview and in your book and all your efforts with just one message what do you want that message to be keep training man keep training find a good place you know stay around good people um remember that you know when you teach or when you're learning you carry a responsibility to help others you know like like sometimes like i see the cultural change i'm talking about giving example when i was a purple boat if someone asked me to teach a white belt i felt flattered that i had the opportunity to help someone like oh my god ask me wow i must know something right i feel happy to help but now the purple boats are like i'm not getting paid like it's it's changed like it's it's changed but like be happy to help be happy to teach the white boats you know be happy you should be you should be excited about that you put a smile on your face you get to share this you know like man i get to teach this to someone else has done me good maybe it's gonna do someone else good and maybe that is you know it'll give you some it'll be fulfilling in some way right like it feels good like if you can do something like if you brought your mom and dad over to jidson your little brother that was like struggling with confidence and now you see your little brother walking with his back straight and got his head up and looks you in the eye when he says hi you know he's no longer walking with his shoulders down he's not so that right there meant to me is the best jidson has to offer man it really is you know i think that as long as we don't lose that like everything else that happens is okay like that right there we gotta keep you know and and i think that we should we should struggle and fight hard to make sure that that right there stays that way fantastic well i just wanted to thank you so much for your efforts in this project in this book i found it fascinating to read i highly recommend anyone watching this definitely go pick up your copy we'll have a link in the description below but it really opened up my eyes a lot because i i kind of you know grew up with the same general narrative that you talked about you know the general understanding and reading this book it was like wow there's so many more layers here that we didn't understand and i just i definitely encourage anyone who has not read this to read this book because there's a lot a lot like you actually have to read it a few times to get all the information that's in there so i just want to thank you for putting your effort in your time into making this project and bringing it to you know and make it accessible to everyone no uh and if you guys those of you who are interested um and like digging deeper i'll recommend shocking by hobart peddler volume one two and three and there's another series i'll call craze also by hobart pedder one two and three highly highly highly recommended if you want to understand the history of martial arts highly recommend okay there's a fourth one coming out soon but the first three are out there on amazon i cannot recommend these books more for people that are really into history so perfect excellent thank you so much sir for your time thank you man see you next time now that's a lot of information to chew on and i'm sure that the comment section is about to light on fire with a whole variety of opinions now if you have any doubts or you want to learn more about what he found and i highly recommend picking up his book this is not a sponsored video or a paid endorsement i read this book as a personal curiosity and i can honestly say it surprised me and it presents some pretty credible discussions i can't recommend it enough so you can find a link to it in the description down below and i cannot wait to see this documentary when it comes out so a great big thank you to mr drysdale for sharing your time with us and for the investment and effort into trying to preserve the legacy that brazilian jujitsu deserves and quite honestly this is why we continue to do this channel to learn even more about the martial arts even if it goes against what we may have learned previously let us know what you think down in the comments below please keep it respectable and thank you so much for watching