Rose Gracie invokes roots of MMA with jiu-jitsu tournament overhaul
Mixed martial arts courses through Rose Gracie's veins.
In 1993, her father, Rorion, created the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which introduced the sport to the United States. Rorion modeled the UFC after his father Helio's iconic "anything goes" fights in Brazil, which filled soccer stadiums in the 1930s.
Today, Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, an offset of Brazilian jiu-jitsu originated by Helio to emphasize leverage over power, is a building block of every fighter, from UFC champion on down to regional amateur.
This weekend, Rose will tap back into her roots with a dramatic overhaul of the Gracie U.S. Nationals, a jiu-jitsu tournament that attracts some of the world's top competitors to the Los Angeles Convention Center.
The Gracie Nationals, now in its fifth year and a part of the Los Angeles Fitness Expo, offers gi and no-gi jiu-jitsu competition for participants in brackets determined by age (4 years old and up) and belt level (white to black).
In the past, the Nationals used a standard scoring system, with referees and table judges awarding points to competitors as they completed certain moves to advance past their opponents during matches. This year, the Nationals will be different: the points system has been discarded, meaning the only way a competitor can win a match and advance on to the next round is to submit their opponent during their allotted 15-minute period. (A fighter can win their entire division in one match if they're the only one to get a submission in it).
No tap, no win. That's the way her grandfather Helio did it 80 years ago, Rose said, when he used Gracie Jiu-jitsu to submit boxers, judokas and wrestlers.
"Today's tournaments aren't what my grandfather envisioned," she said. "There's so many rules that it takes away from the actual art of jiu-jitsu. We don't see many submissions. We see cheating, we see decisions made by a referee."
Cheating in jiu-jitsu, Rose said, comes in many forms.
"[A competitor] will earn a point, then hold for the entire match so they can win with that one little advantage they got at the start," Rose said. "That's not jiu-jitsu. That's cheating."
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