All,

Geoff mentions he has mixed ground fighting which he’s borrowed from BJJ. Probably the reason I respected his program at the start of it. He understands the value of knowing what to do when you are not standing. That said I thought I would just ramble on about Jiu Jitsu for a minute.

My Experience

I have about 2 semesters of Judo and 6 months of BJJ under my belt. Far from an expert. But I do well for myself.

I currently study under two programs for Bjj. One is a traditional Jiu Jitsu. Mainly sportive techniques but some real stuff too. Secondly I am active in a Gracie Garage in my home town. We have 4 other members and often train at the local college with their Jiu Jitsu club as well. It’s 100% self defense, no sportive components.

The sportive jiu jitsu is amazing, teaches you to be calm under pressure. Fast reflexes.

The Gracie Garage is more detailed, more focused on real word survival. We actually throw punches, kicks, takedowns etc. The what if’s we play out are based on Gracie Combatives and Women Empowered programs as well as drill items we learn from respective schools (we have kung fu, boxing, judo,  wrestling and Jiu jitsu represented at our group)

If you are not familiar with these programs, here are some links
Gracie Combatives – http://www.gracieacademy.com/gracie_combatives.asp

Women Empowered  – http://www.gracieacademy.com/women_empowered.asp

Just happened to be reading this blog which describes the gracie program. http://www.blackbeltdl.com/program-gracie-university/ He asks if anyone has earned a black belt from their program. At this time gracieuniversity.com has no intention of offering black belts via distance learning. As a matter of fact they only offer to blue belt stripe 1 at the time of this writing, with strip 2 a few months away. That said I can’t recommend their program enough.