The Worlds 2013 came by and swept us away with controversy yet again. Before we get into that, it’s worth noting: the usual suspects came to surface; Buchecha showed his dominance by winning his division, and the absolute (against a strong Rodolfo Vieria). Braulio Estima showed that age is irrelevant as he dismantled Andre Galvao, going on to win gold. Paulo Miyao ousted Keenan Cornelius at last, to go on to win the brown belt, absolute division; Paulo was left in tears as he could barely fathom beating his most difficult rival to-date. Tanquinho stunned the always-methodical Rafa Mendes via 1 score at the dieing seconds of the feather-weight finals.
Match video’s may be seen at www.bjjfights.com.
Along with some fantastic preliminary bouts, and finals, dark trends came to the forefront; of which may need to be addressed for future events. Firstly, the old ‘double guard pull‘ is beginning to really show its true colors – culminating into 10 minute matches that are quite uninspiring. Although the elements of strategy and positional play remain vital even in this position, it’s becoming more and more a trend that the double guard pull is being used to conserve energy, stall the opponent and/or setup corresponding transitions which can be uninspiring to say the least.
Traditionalists and veterans of the sport, the likes of which include Saulo Ribeiro and even Rickson Gracie are beginning to become more vocal about the ‘double guard pull’; Saulo has released a video on Youtube, addressing his take on this position, while Metamoris posted this quote from Rickson Gracie encompassing this and many other positions – such as the 50/50 Guard.
My personal take on this – I fully agree: at the heart of Jiu Jitsu, self-defense through evasion and attack are of utmost importance. However, at the ‘sport-level’, current rules don’t encourage this. If victory (based on the current point system in effect) is of utmost importance, then there’s nothing wrong with an athlete who assumes stall tactics in order to progress or hold onto victory. To address this, rules can be altered or changed – even if we are witnessing some stale and uninspiring encounters, it is the job of the athlete (being stalled) to deal with stall positions by finding a way out, and impose his/her will on the opponent in return. If this cannot be done, then it is the fault of the athlete – and the rules encourage this for the most part.
IBJJF is getting strict on the players who fail to progress their position – and this is a good thing – although inconsistent at times. The moral of the story: so long as rules do not address neutral positions and create for constant flow of action, we will continue to see what we are seeing – especially if matches are 10 minutes in duration, requiring 5 match victories for gold – this can be quite tiresome.
Continuing with the theme on rule changes, in an extraordinary light-feather match between Ary Farias, and Gabriel Moraes, Ary was up by 1 advantage as the final whistle went to end the match. Upon celebration, it appears that Ary forgot of the IBJJF rule change; as BJJ Eastern Europe reports:
“The rule, although new, is very clear: The athlete that leaves the fighting area to celebrate will be punished with one advantage being given to their opponent.”
That 1 point advantage, as it turns out, was enough to over-turn Ary’s victory, and place Gabriel Moraes as the 2013 Worlds, light-feather champion.
The general consensus sees the rule change and the decision altogether to be quite harsh, while some are saying rules are rules.
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