Rener Gracie and Ryron Gracie have just announced that they will be hosting the second annual Black Belt Exchange on October 22nd, 2023. It’s a 4-hour event that is completely free of charge and available exclusively to BJJ black belts, as the two Gracie University founders are aiming to develop an idea they had last year. The basic concept is that the event will bring together a ton of black belts and give them the opportunity to share ideas about the sport together. As Rener and Ryron are organizing the event, it’s booked to take place at the Gracie University Headquarters in Torrance, California.
In 2022, Rener and Ryron Gracie decided to put out an open invite to any and all black belts who wanted to attend a meeting in order to exchange ideas and general approaches to the sport. It was arranged on pretty short notice last time around, but the pair still managed to attract 135 black belts despite only giving them 4 days to make arrangements to attend. It’s clear that they must have been impressed with the feedback they had from the event, as they’ve decided to repeat it again this year and give people a whole month to register for it instead.
They’re anticipating that over twice as many black belts will be attending as last time, so it’s set to be an interesting afternoon of collaboration between veteran practitioners. As an added bonus, the pair have arranged an optional meal after the event so that attendees get the opportunity to continue networking and unwinding together after the session as well. A lot has changed since the early days of fierce rivalries between gyms and any push to work together for the betterment of the sport as a whole is only ever a good thing.
Ryron Gracie announced the news that he and his brother Rener Gracie were hosting the second annual Black Belt Exchange in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
