Though Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is just one facet of the MMA game it still plays a crucial role. In the first of a two-part series, JOE explores how the Irish fighting community has adopted BJJ to their MMA game.
By Fergus Ryan
While the true origins of modern Mixed Martial Arts can be debated, what can’t be denied is the role Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) has played in its evolution. BJJ was created by the Gracie family in the 1920’s as an offshoot of traditional Japanese martial art of judo. In an effort to promote the family’s fighting system they often issued the ‘Gracie Challenge’ to feared fighters of different styles to see whose fighting system was the greatest. This ultimately led to the creation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship by Rorion Gracie in1993. His brother Royce went on to win three of the first four UFC tournaments as the power of BJJ was unleashed on the world.
As MMA developed the advent of cross training saw fighters become proficient in a variety of martial arts rather than specialising in only one. However, BJJ black belts like Rickson Gracie, BJ Penn and Anderson Silva showed how essential the discipline would be to triumph in MMA.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at home
By way of background JOE first met up with Gabriel Pavan, a BJJ purple belt from Espirito Santo near Sao Paolo in Brazil. Pavan has lived Ireland for a number of years and trained BJJ at Team Ryano/BJJ Revolution under Andy Ryan in Baldoyle, Dublin.
“BJJ is probably the 3rd or 4th most popular sport in Brazil today behind soccer, athletics and maybe capoeira,” he says. “Every city has an academy or gym that teaches BJJ on most street corners. The star players in BJJ today might not be household names but every Brazilian person knows who the Gracie family are and how they developed BJJ into a reputable sport.”
Pavan Rolling … Some of the BJJ Revolution team with head coach Andy Ryan
The Gracie family engaged in Vale Tudo (Portuguese for “anything goes”) fights through the years to promote their brand of martial arts as the best. While they may have succeeded in demonstrating the power of BJJ, there were some negative repercussions in its home country, as Pavan explains. “Because of its associations with Vale Tudo fighting, people who don’t know about martial arts or who don’t fully understand MMA think BJJ is a crazy, dangerous sport only practised by street fighters. This is changing, though. As both BJJ and MMA get more popular, Brazilian people are beginning to understand more about the tradition and respect in both sports.”
Pavan is impressed with BJJ in Ireland. “Sure, BJJ standard in Ireland might be behind Brazil or the US, but the learning curve is steep here. The sport is growing here and the standard will rise with it.”
BJJ comes to Ireland
BJJ was first introduced to Ireland in by John Kavanagh in the mid 1990’s. Kavanagh had dabbled in other martial arts but fell in love with BJJ after seeing some of the early UFCs in which Royce Gracie triumphed.
Having created a number of training groups, Kavanagh opened his first BJJ/MMA gym in 2001. Initially self-thought, Kavanagh met Matt Thornton, president of the Straight Blast Gym International global network of gyms, while fighting in a tournament in Africa later the same year. Kavanagh partnered up with the SBG network and was awarded his purple belt in 2002. Kavanagh won gold at the European BJJ Championship in 2005 and was awarded his black belt, Ireland’s first, by Thornton in 2007.
Munster BJJ Open 2011- Black belt: Jorge Santos (Legion Ireland BJJ) v John Kavanagh (SBG Ireland):
As the popularity of MMA grew during the 2000’s there was a renewed interest in martial arts. Thanks to Kavanagh’s grass roots development, BJJ began to gain some traction in Ireland with a number of gyms opening around the country. One such gym, Next Generation, was opened by one of Ireland’s MMA pioneers David Jones. In his day job as a PE teacher in St. Andrews College in Dublin he introduced some of his students to martial arts including BJJ. One of those students was BJJ brown belt and now head trainer at newly opened Ribeiro BJJ Ireland gym, Darragh O’Conaill.
BJJ as a career choice
“I was introduced to BJJ when I was in transition year in school by Dave Jones,” says O’Conaill. “We did bits of kickboxing and grappling, so that was my first exposure to it.” Having burned out playing rugby O’Conaill still had a desire to compete and was drawn back to Jones’s BJJ classes at the Next Generation gym with a view to giving MMA a shot.
“When I first started BJJ it was with a view to fighting MMA. I had two pro fights, losing both times. I never really enjoyed training ‘stand up’ or MMA in general as much as I had initially thought I would, so I decided to focus on just BJJ. That was nearly five years ago!”
Considering O’Conaill was spending most of his time training and living BJJ, he thought it logical that he should make it his career and not just his lifestyle. With a limited amount of resources available to O’Conaill’s insatiable BJJ appetite he’s found himself traveling to train in order to advance his game.
“I have trained, and still do, train in a lot of places,” he says. “SBG Ireland, 10th Planet San Francisco, the University of Jiu Jitsu San Diego. At the moment I split my time between my own gym and SBG (big thanks to John Kavanagh for letting me do so), while traveling to San Diego to train whenever I have the money and time.”
With a purple belt achieved O’Conaill began to look for challenges beyond the Irish competitive scene. “I first started travelling to England to compete about 2 years ago. Irish BJJ competitors do great overseas. For the last number of years Irish guys have medalled at the European Championships and there are plenty of guys picking up medals around Britain.”
Darragh O’Conaill (left) in action
In addition to his domestic titles some of the international honours O’Conaill has achieved as a purple belt include silver medal at the BJJ British Open 2010, bronze medal at the Grappling X San Diego 2010 and Grappling X San Diego Nogi 2010 Advanced, 3rd Place division, 2nd Place Absolute division and a gold medal at the UK Premier BJJ Championships 2011 Purple Belt.
In Part 2 of our Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Ireland feature next Friday, we catch up with up-and-coming MMA fighter Mark Curry and Andy Ryan, the head coach at BJJ Revolution in Baldoyle.
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