Filmmaker Stuart Cooper recently sat down with some of the greatest minds in both BJJ and MMA in order to determine whether or not training in the gi helps with your no gi game. It’s a question that has been asked a thousand times before and has only been getting more contentious as the years go on. It was almost taken as gospel in the earliest days of BJJ competition, as everyone did both anyway. In the last few years there has been more debate around it though as talented wrestlers have had success in no gi and elite competitors like Gordon Ryan have focused on it exclusively.
Cooper managed to get some unique insight from arguably the greatest competitor in the history of the sport, Roger Gracie, and he was pretty clear about the benefits of training in the gi:
“No Gi is slippery, right? So the slippery factor, you cannot remove it. So it makes you less technical because you can pull yourself out of situations just because it’s slippery. With the gi you cannot because he’s physically holding your gi, you cannot pull. You have to manoeuvre technically your way around that, like a simple armlock. No gi sometimes you pull (and) the arm comes out, with the gi it will never happen.
He also got the chance to speak to one of the biggest rivals that Roger had during his career, Xande Ribeiro:
“I think in a sense they complement one another. What the gi helped me with in no gi is my ability to move and defend because if you move with the gi, without the gi it’s easier. No gi gave me my ability to be precise because of my game, my pressure game”
It isn’t just the heavier competitors who think this way either, as Augusto ‘Tanquinho’ Mendes was a two-time ADCC chsmpion at 66kg and even he agrees:
“I do believe Jiu-Jitsu with the gi helps you for understanding position, situationals, think about solutions, controlling what you can adjust here and there, and improving your no gi 100%.”
The newer generation are following suit too, as Mason Fowler thinks the podium at ADCC reflects that:
“Most, if not all, of the best guys (in) no-gi also do train in the gi or at the very least came up in the gi. So out of the guys who won ADCC, I think every single one of them started in the gi and got to black belt level in the gi before transitioning primarily to no gi.”
Even competitors who are known for specialising in leg attacks that aren’t allowed in gi competition, like Robert Degle, can see that training in the gi has benefits:
“It’s not so much the actual gi itself, it’s more so like the rule set of the IBJJF, specifically in the gi, which is really beneficial. Having your students train in the gi, what it’s gonna do is it’s going to encourage them to develop those positional skills which otherwise they might neglect if they were only doing sub-only or even just no gi.”
Cooper didn’t just focus on BJJ when he tried to answer whether gi helps no gi training though, he also asked former UFC lightweight world champion Benson Henderson:
“If you can get out of an armbar in gi, getting out of an armbar in no gi is (a piece of) cake. A lot easier in my estimation, in my opinion.”
Even the recent UFC bantamweight world champion Sean O’Malley has trained in the gi, and his coach Tim Welch agrees with the sentiments of other elite competitors:
“I personally think the gi would help improve your game a little bit.”
Stuart Cooper shared the video featuring various BJJ legends discussing whether or not training in the gi helps your no gi game to his official YouTube channel:
