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<H2>Why I Love America
</H2>So I'm sitting here puzzled over what my next column is going to be about only hours away from deadline, when all of a sudden I check my inbox and find the single most disturbing email I've ever seen (besides that one with the donkey and the...). The International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Vale Tudo Association (IBJVTA) is offering the belt of your choice, along with a certificate stating that you actually are at the level you claim to be for the excellent price of somewhere between one and two hundred forty seven dollars. This means that you too can get your black belt using the good old "honor system" without ever having to dirty up a mat! If you'd like instructor certification you can get that for a mere $217.00 and if you want to fight vale tudo, just mail in the same amount and a handy dandy slip of paper that says you're qualified will show up in your mailbox! Naturally at the bottom of the application/advertisement is a disclaimer saying you release the IBJVTA from any and all responsibility should you, oh say choke someone to death after holding onto a triangle for too long, or in the event that you cripple a few small children by not letting go of your kneebars in time. If you want an extra copy of your instructor's certificate to put on your girlfriend's wall, you can purchase one for a scant twenty five smackers and everyone who comes over for a round of "behind the black belt's back" will be forced to stop and wonder if they aren't taking their lives in their hands.
To say this is absurd would be redundant. In my six years fiddling around with guys on mats and watching dudes in speedoes pound the crap out of each other, I've never heard of something so potentially destructive to our sport. I don't know exactly who this IBJVTA is, but if times are that tough in the BJJ community that we have to start handing out belts to amateurs to make ends meet, maybe we need to start a social security program. Let me urge you to email these shysters and tell them what a bunch of scum sucking bastards they are by providing their email address. Naturally they have no website because public advertisement of this nonsense would probably result in a lawsuit from Carlos Gracie Jr. The email address is [email protected]. Write your friends, instructors and cousins and tell them to overload these jerks inbox with hate mail for trying to tarnish our sport.
Now.
On the one hand, I can see how people would feel like they needed something like this. So many of us toil in obscurity, training hard on our own or with friends and having no validation for our travails. Some watch every instructional video they can find and pore over the techniques in GRAPPLING magazine or THE MASTER TEXT, all the while knowing there's no jiu-jitsu school within miles that could be of any assistance. But so what? I've toiled away in obscurity for years as have the guys I've trained with and the guy who taught us all. Anyone who's anyone knows that the key to validation is in display. If you want to teach jiu-jitsu, go enter the Grappler's Quest in the Advanced Division and surprise everyone by taking first place. If you want a blue belt, go to a seminar where an instructor can gauge you and award you what you deserve. If there's nothing near you, too bad! You don't need a belt for anything except a lever in gi competitions. I wear a white belt with pride when I'm forced to wear a gi because it shows that I'm eternally a novice and it shows that I really don't know a gi from a space suit. If somebody's that insecure in their abilities that they need to strap a belt around their waist and frame a certificate on their wall, then they have no business teaching anyone anything. If they feel they lack credibility because they lack certification, then they can get certified!!! I'm not certified to teach so much as an upa, but I do it anyway. I primarily do it because I need sparring partners and whenever I do, I explain my history and lack of official instruction. The people behind this charade should be flayed on a bed of coals. They're going to drag us down a scam a bunch of naive kids with their little yahoo paypal scheme. Disgusting...
Once again, I urge you to write and tell them how worthless they are as human beings at [email protected]. I doubt you'll get a reply, but they deserve a good savaging. For my part, I'm going to make it my business to find out who's behind this latest mail-order belt scam and give you all a name to put on your dart boards. Keep the filth out of our sport and enjoy your Labor Day folks. And, as ever, keep on rollin'...
Diami J. Virgilio
August, 2002
[email protected]
True, and still sad.getgoin said:It was only a matter of time till it happened.