Super obnoxious Steve-O of Jackass fame visits the Gracie Academy in Rio on MTV’s Wildboyz. He gets a demonstration of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at its finest. What a douchebag.

I’ve been looking at how far the Gracies have gone since the first UFC. It seems like only yesterday when a scrawny Royce was making men twice his size tap desperately. Now they have Gracie Barras virtually everywhere. It’s really quite brilliant. Have someone else pay you to open up a franchise studio with your name on it.

I wonder if perhaps one day those who open up those Barras will have students who open other Barras, then have to pay money to their parent Barras like some sort of pyramid scheme. Or maybe… (gasp!) a triangle scheme!!! Dun dun duuuuun!!! I’m not sure why that’s so dramatic, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence. Can you imagine the world economy taken over by Brazilians? I suppose Disneyland would get a lot of free publicity.

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*EDIT* – If you are looking for a serious analysis and fight outcome, go here.

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While part of me wants to believe that Jiu-Jitsu will conquer all, there’s another more pragmatic side that believes that Hughes will overpower Royce. I visualize hundreds of red state fans pulling their dicks out of their sisters and firing their shotguns into the air. Yeah! Fuck that brown kid up!

Probably voted for Bush.

I have a lot of respect for Hughes as a fighter. He is relentless and a total powerhouse. But after seeing his personality come out in The Ultimate Fighter, I now realize that he’s not just a champion… but he’s also an asshole. There wasn’t anything more satisfying than to see BJ Penn choke him out.

Royce likes to write his name on his gi to avoid any confusion.

Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t love Royce either. I think he’s in over his head—his head that is many many times the size that it should be—as seems to be the Gracie tradition. After Sakuraba beat Royler, the only thing that Royler could say was that Sakuraba is the Japanese equivalent of the Gracies. Come on. That’s like saying, “hey you kicked my ass, so you must be (almost) as good as me”. Give me a fucking break. Get over yourselves.

Royler Gracie’s magical swivel arm

Royce really should just retire. He’s a pioneer, and he’s sitting pretty on the Gracie JJ empire they’ve built. I’d take respect and dignity over a million bucks. Especially when you probably already have a million bucks. Anyway, that’s moot cuz Royce is doing it anyway.

My ideal fight outcome is that a suplex goes wrong and they both break their necks simultaneously. Hmm.. wonder if the bookie would take something like that…

All I could think after watching this fight is that Hunt’s head is not made of the same things that yours and mine are. Holy fuck! The guy takes about 30 big knees to the dome, stands up, and kicks the crap out of Bobish. You might say that he has heart. But I’m more inclined to suspect that he just has a rubber head. There is defintely some kind of processing mechanism in there that triggers his lumbering Samoan stature to move at unholy speeds, but I believe that it is encased in a thick rubber layer. How else can a guy take a head kick from Crocop and remain standing?

Check out this highlight reel and you will invariably come to the same conclusion. Video by Mick B.

When I first started with the jiu-jitsu, I couldn’t get enough… because let’s face it… it’s a hell of a lot of fun putting your friends in armbars and triangle chokes and what have you. After a while though, my instructor Renato began having me roll exclusively with the higher belts (purple+).

After my will was broken repeatedly for an extended period of time (like a year), I inevitably became discouraged… because let’s face it… it sucks to get your ass handed to you regularly. Along with the discouragement came a plateauing in my improvement and a decline in confidence in my techniques.

For a while I just kept going and kept getting frustrated. Frustration breeds anger, and anger leads to the dark side, right? Then my technique would go to shit and I’d try to muscle my way to submissions and hurt myself or my clubmates. Not pretty.

So I did the unthinkable. I took time off.

After a few months of chilling, I went back to jiu-jitsu fresh and tried a big change in game with focus on the x-guard and half-guard. Of course there was an issue of fitness that I had to overcome initially, but after that hump, I was good. Now I’m back to learning new things again and this time I’m trying to be more inquisitive and not taking it personally when I get tapped. After all these guys are my clubmates and friends.

How do the rest of you deal with motivation when you feel yourself plateauing?