11/18/2025
Back in the early 80’s, when Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu first came to America, I was fortunate enough to train with Rorion Gracie.
At that time, he was their representative.
After a couple of years with Rorion, he and I became close friends, and I decided to institute Gracie Jiu-Jitsu into my seminar circuit worldwide.
This enabled me to meet the rest of their family and get a feel for some of the other fighters.
My next teacher was Royce.
Royce amazed me in a similar way that Rorion amazed me. These guys would get on top of you and overwhelm you with footlocks, leglocks, armlocks, etc. And just when I thought every single or***ce in my body had been attacked, Royler came along.
Whatever Rorion and Royce did, Royler did even faster.
In Brazil they call Royler “The Snake.” Royler can pass your guard and armlock you before you tighten your gi belt.
Although I was enamored with the skillsets of all the brothers, the one sibling I had not met — the one everyone mentioned over and over again — was Rickson.
Rickson was the consummate street fighter in the family and took on all challenges in Brazil. One day, when I was helping train Royler with some standup, after about six hours of training — during which he must have taken me to the ground a thousand times and tied me up in knots — he looked at me and said:
“Ah yes… but my brother Rickson is twenty times better than me.”
Then it happened: I finally got to meet Rickson. And I can say one thing — Brazilians do not exaggerate.
Rickson was everything they said he was and more. The genius behind Rickson Gracie was that he could take the sport of Jiu-Jitsu and apply it directly to the cement streets of Brazil.
I quickly became one of Rickson’s most dedicated students. We hung out eight hours a day. Over the five or six years I had the honor of spending with the man, and the thousands of hours I spent rolling with him, I would like to sum up what made Rickson’s style different — and why he was perhaps the greatest street fighter in Brazil.
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#1 – Move Slowly
Rickson never got out of second gear. With every opponent he rolled with, he made sure he never put in more than 50% energy. While other practitioners bounced frantically from lock to lock, Rickson moved like a sloth. Once one gets used to rolling slowly, the benefits are immense.
I remember a seminar I took him to in Boston. There were 300 people there. Rickson started rolling at 9 a.m. and rolled with every single person until 6 in the afternoon.
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#2 – Emphasis on Passing the Guard
“What separates the men from the boys in my father’s art is one’s ability to pass the guard.”
— **Rickson Gracie**
Many folks in MMA choose to stay in the guard and punch it out. This is like breaking down a door instead of turning the doorknob. Once you have the skillset to pass the guard, the punches afterward become exponentially more powerful.
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#3 – Base
Just like with Dan Inosanto, where everything was forward pressure, with Rickson all I heard was:
“Base. Base. Base.”
According to Rickson, base is the most important attribute in Jiu-Jitsu.
Modern sports Jiu-Jitsu is flashy — athleticism, steroids, and cutting-edge tricks. But Rickson’s old-school paradigm counters all of it.
Once you pass someone’s guard and go to cross-side or mount, if you hold them down long enough to make them panicky, they will always give you an arm or their back. And for real street fighting, this philosophy becomes exponentially more valuable.
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#4 – No One Can Hold Rickson Down
Finally — the fourth thing that differentiates Rickson from everyone else:
**No human on this planet can hold Rickson down.**
By “hold down,” I mean taking the cross-side position and stopping him from pulling guard or getting to his feet. The ability to pull guard and hold guard from the bottom is equally as important as having base from the top.
And when you combine:
* passing the guard
* perfect base
* the ability to escape any hold
* and conserving energy
…you get exactly what Helio Gracie meant when he said:
"My son Rickson is the greatest living proponent of my art."
