BJJ Lineage - who I got my belts from

How important is bjj lineage to you?  Is it at all?  I think maintaining a record of bjj lineage, like we already do, is crucial in order to maintain sport integrity.  One of the biggest fears in the bjj world is that our fighting sport will follow in the footsteps of karate and taekwondo and soon we will see 18th degree red belts opening schools in the mall.  After that, any belt you’ve earned will basically be meaningless.  Kind of like when you tell someone you have a blue belt in bjj and they respond by telling you their 8 year old niece has a black belt in karate.

14 out of 27 Pole Dancers Prefer Men That Know Their BJJ Lineage!

Believe it.  Both pole AND exotic dancers are all about men that know their bjj lineage.  The statistics do not lie.

Why do I think bjj lineage is important?

I think it is important because I know for a fact where my bjj roots come from.  If I asked you about your bjj lineage and you shared it with me, instantly, internally of course, I would process that information.  Yes – I would judge you.  But the cool thing about knowing the different trees of bjj is that the criteria or judging is all very similar and comparable.  If you are a blue belt under Roger Gracie, you probably have a very similar skill set to that of a Renzo Gracie blue belt.

Some of the baddest men on the planet.

If I walk into a gym that I don’t go to like on vacation, if I see a blue belt, I should roughly be able to judge his skill set.  That is just one cool thing about enforcing bjj lineage (and outing frauds.)  I know that if I ask someone who they got their ‘x’ belt from and they stutter or reply with “oh this guy got his in Brazil, can’t recall his name, but he went to a seminar…”  Yeah, your belt carries less weight until we roll, lol.

I don’t know why, I just love looking at the different paths that show all of the different branches of the bjj tree.  We basically all come from the same few people.  It is sort of like how blue eyed people are all related by a common ancestor.  When it comes to bjj lineage, it is almost exactly the same.

Here is a cool and very confusing bjj tree.  This one only includes Maeda but that covers most of us probably.  You can easily see if your instructor is on there by scrolling around.  Some sites, like OTM, even allow you to submit your own info so that regardless of your belt color you can get listed in the bjj lineage database.  That’s pretty cool.  I think I joined and sent them my stuff right after I got my blue belt.

My BJJ Lineage

First my training history.  I started bjj in February 2007 right after moving down to Memphis, TN in December of 2006.  At that time, Memphis Judo & Jiu-Jitsu was in a place called the dungeon.  Concrete basement, no windows, a big old padded pole right in the middle of the mat.

Adriano Nasal – BTT Black Belt

The gym was a Brazilian Top Team affiliate headed up by Adriano Nasal Pereira.  He had gotten his black belt from Murilo Bustamante, former UFC champion.  Then we had 2 assistant instructors who were both brown belts, one of them, Joel Gingery, got his black from Nasal.  In March of 2008 I received my blue belt from Nasal, along with a certification from BTT.  I’d say about a year later Nasal moved on to bigger and better things out in California.

My bjj lineage at this point – Carlos Gracie —> Carlson Gracie —> Murilo Bustamante —> Adriano Nasal —> me.

What does that make me, 5 degrees from Maeda?  Damn son.

Shortly after that Memphis Judo & Jiu-Jitsu became a Marcelo Garcia affiliate.  Pretty badass right?  This part gets kind of hazy, sort of.  I believe Joel received a stripe on his black belt from Marcelo, I do not know if that makes him you know, a part of that lineage or what.  I say it does because Marcelo has rolled with him and given him the stripe.  It may even be more stripes by now.  Plus that other brown belt instructor I mentioned above, Alexandre Meadows, was one of the 1st two people to ever get a black belt from Marcelo.  The other was his day-to-day training partner.  Now that is really bad ass.

Soon after that is when I got my purple belt.  June of 2011 I think.  At this point I imagine my bjj lineage would shift but I have no idea.  I really do enjoy claiming both.  The Carlson and BTT side because they were bad ass fighters but also the Marcelo Garcia side because he is probably the best grappler of the last 5-10 years aside from Roger Gracie.

My lineage now – Helio Gracie —> Rolls Gracie —> Romero Cavalcanti —> Fabio Gurgel —> Marcelo Garcia —> Gingery & Meadows —> me.

And if you’re late to the party and don’t know who Rolls Gracie is, allegedly he was actually the best of the Gracie family.  He dies in a hang gliding accident of all things so who knows what could’ve been.  Here is a video that recently surfaced of Rolls training with Rickson.  This hadn’t been seen by us until maybe 2 months ago.  Up until this point, Rickson had been almost of mythical status.  He was 400-0.  As you can see from the video, Rolls controls the pace.  I will say though that Rickson appears to be quite a young man in the video.  Look at all them little Gracie’s walking around.

 

So you should be able to tell why bjj lineage is so important to me.  I don’t want our martial art to follow in the same path as others and within 10-20 years be meaningless.  The mats don’t lie and when you tie that belt around your waist and step onto that mat, you had better be ready to demonstrate that you earned that mofo.  I know my purple belt means something.  If I visit Hawaii and go train with Limao, he know what my purple roughly means.  If I go drive to Alabama for whatever crazy reason and train somewhere, that purple means something.

What do you think?

BJJ Lineage - who I got my belts from