Every sport has a goal outside of winning. But absent that goal, winning becomes impossible. The goal in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is the constant improvement of the position of your body relative to the position of your opponent’s body. BJJ is not merely a system of playing possum and catching your opponent in a submission hold. It is a system of constantly striving to out position your opponent which can result in desperation on the part of your opponent and victory for you.  This requires a knowledge of physics, timing ,agility, flexibility, strength, mental awareness, and the ability to read your opponent’s intentions before he puts them into action.  This type of skill set only manifests itself through concentrated effort and the knowledge of fundamentals not only with respect to technique but with respect to strategy and tactics.  At Rio Jiu Jitsu our goal is not to churn out one trick ponies, but well-rounded grapplers with the self awareness to execute techniques and game plans that are appropriate for the stressful nature of competition and self defense.  The problem with peoples perception of BJJ is that they see it as an art aimed at catching your opponent in submissions based solely on trickery.  The reality is that sound knowledge of the basic objectives of BJJ is not always about trickery and deception but rather attaining higher levels of positional dominance.

For example, a seemingly simple move has limitless applications which we are well aware of at Rio JJ.   These simple ideas that all practitioners are well aware of become systems of offense and defense at Rio JJ.  No move is trivialized as a simple submission, sweep, takedown, guard pass, etc… but rather each simple body movement is built upon until the simple becomes complex to all but those who learned it fundamentally.  Our theme is to make the most simple technique become advanced while making the most advanced technique become simple.

Forget about the mysticism associated with achieving a black belt.  Everyone who has the desire and work ethic is capable of achieving a BJJ black belt.  The rest is up to you.