Issue 149

December 2016

BJJ brothers Rener and Ryron Gracie have a lot to live up to. Their father co-founded the UFC. Their grandfather co-founded the sport of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

But these submission siblings have carved their own path to continue their martial art’s global growth.

Rorion Gracie’s sons lives are dedicated to jiu-jitsu. They pass on their knowledge as head instructors at the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy and Gracie University online learning curriculum, but you might know them best as the teachers from a social media phenomenon – the Gracie Breakdown.

Their analyses of MMA’s best grappling moments have been watched by millions of viewers on YouTube and UFC Ultimate Insider. But the series was hardly conceived from a carefully constructed masterplan.

Typically, for a duo that radiates enthusiasm when they talk about their lives’ passion, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to share their thoughts with as many people as possible after Georges St-Pierre had failed to finish an armbar on Dan Hardy at UFC 111.

“Looking at the fight, we understood it – we’d dedicated our whole lives so we made a video,” says Rener. “We thought, ‘This is a pretty cool idea: translating MMA for the general public – to really make clear what’s happening in the cage for otherwise uneducated MMA fans.’”

Fans loved it. Now they knew what the welterweight champ was missing to finish his most stubbornly tough opponent. A couple of months later, their videos went viral. Fedor Emelianenko – the indestructible and most prolific heavyweight of all time – was finally defeated by Fabricio Werdum’s triangle choke.

The world needed to know how it happened.

“We actually shot it on a Sunday morning when we went to Costa Rica,” adds Rener. “Three days into our trip we got internet access and saw it had 375,000 views. That was the beginning of a movement.”

Now there are dozens of step-by-step walkthroughs of major MMA fights with everything you’d want to know about why they were successful, and how you might be able to escape or counter those techniques.

As lifelong practitioners who rolled with black belts on a daily basis long before they were old enough to buy a beer, no one could question their credentials and expertise in talking about these fights.

But these masters of the mat are deferential and humble, giving the greatest respect to pro fighters. They insist their breakdowns are never to critique technique – just to explain it.

Rener explains: “(We’re) no Monday morning quarterbacks. That’s not what we’re here to do. We’re very clear about that. We never fought professionally, so one can say that we don’t even have the right.

"What we do is look what’s happening in the Octagon and try and extrapolate the most valuable lesson for ourselves and dedicated students of jiu-jitsu around the world.”

It’s almost as good as being in one of their classes. If you can’t make it to their academy in Torrance, California, or a seminar, a Gracie Breakdown is pretty much the closest you’ll get to training with these two astute black belts.

Ryron says: “I think they’re pretty darn close. It’s often that we teach something in a breakdown – a fight sparked a question for us, we start getting into the position and breaking it down ourselves and the next thing you know we’re making a video.

“We teach (a class) the exact technique from a breakdown and then some. Anything we’re going to discuss in a breakdown has been through the filter: is it jiu-jitsu? If it is, we’ll teach it on a breakdown and to our students.”

“Absolutely, 100% of what we do in our breakdowns is transferable to our regular classes,” Rener adds.

But the beauty of taking their expertise onto social media is that fans that have never even set foot on a mat are gaining an even greater understanding or the art. “That’s really cool, that people who aren’t even jiu-jitsu students are learning jiu-jitsu by simply watching us break down a fight,” says Ryron.

The Gracies’ grappling pedigree is such that they don’t just share their expertise with the masses. They’re also BJJ coaches to some of the UFC’s elite, including Ronda Rousey and Lyoto Machida.

One fighter who has had more of their attention than any other is rising UFC featherweight star, Brian Ortega. Though he’s an Octagon young gun, ‘T-City’ has trained with Ryron and Rener for more than a decade.

“Brian is a special case because we raised Brian. Brian came to us at 12 years old with his dad, trained for a year, couldn’t afford tuition any more, so we told his dad we would sponsor him and take him under our wings.

“He became our instructor sidekick and we raised the kid. In and out of gangs and tough situations – it was a tough upbringing for that kid, but he made it out and is now doing his big things.”

Because Ortega is a product of Gracie jiu-jitsu, he’s been trained in the old-school way. That means using his skills in a safety-first approach. “I’d rather Brian lose a decision than win by a war where he takes a lot of damage and goes to the hospital after the fight,” says Rener.

“Entertainment is all good, it’s their (UFC’s) trade right now, but Brian has a long life after he gets out of the UFC and the brain damage he could get by going toe-to-toe carelessly like so many coaches encourage – I’ll never tell Brian to do that.”

“To me, the coach is attached to whether the fighter wins or loses,” adds Ryron. “Because our art is jiu-jitsu, we’re more attached to whether the fighter is safe or not.”

“Not only because our art is jiu-jitsu – because Brian is our brother,” adds Rener.

That’s not to say their approach results in boring fights. Ortega – still fresh and full of cardio – has consistently come to life in the final round and found the thrilling late finishes he needed to win.

Judging by the numbers flocking to watch Gracie Breakdown and their student’s success, the sport still has a lot to learn from the martial artists of MMA’s first family.