Garry Tonon’s Critique of Modern BJJ
Garry Tonon is a pro grappling OG, who helped make super-fight events popular. BJJ is growing at a rapid rate, but one thing Tonon doesn’t like is the martial art is becoming more corporate.
The multi-time grappling champion was a recent guest on New Wave teammate Jake Shields’s podcast and aired his complaint.
“People want to treat jiu-jitsu gyms the way that they would just treat like the average business. I paid my x amount of money a month, $200 a month or whatever the case may be.
I get this in return, I get my jiu-jitsu training or whatever. And it’s a transactional relationship. If I want to train somewhere else, if I want to do this, if I want to do that, if I want to wear whatever color gi, I want to do like I’m allowed to do whatever I want to do cuz I’m paying my $200.”
And it’s like, dude, this isn’t Burger King.When you add violence into what you do, you can’t just have a transactional relationship because the guy that you’re training with could break your arm, hurt you.
You have to trust training partners. You have to be able to trust each other.
You have to have some level of loyalty. So if everything’s transactional, it’s a disaster.”- Garry Tonon.
Bobby is martial artist for almost 20 years with a BJJ black belt under Professor Sergio Miranda. He is also a karate black and former combat sports athlete, who loves all things grappling.