The second installment of this legendary fight trilogy took place on April 7, 1995. Despite the overtime round, this nearly 40-minute match finally ended in a draw. But the story doesn't end there! More than twenty years later the two again squared off in the Bellator cage, with Royce quickly taking down and submitting the much larger Shamrock. 

UFC 1 opened the world's eyes to the effectiveness of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but it was Royce's fight against Ken Shamrock that defined the paradigm shift. Ken Shamrock looks like a badass: he big, he's mean-looking, he's jacked. By comparison Royce is lanky and skinny. Based on look alone, Shamrock is an easy favorite. But then, just a few minutes into the exchange, Shamrock taps the mat. Even the commentators don't understand. Was it a choke? An arm lock? What's going on? 

To me, the importance of this matchup cannot be overstated. More than any other match or event, Gracie vs Shamrock, defines the trajectory MMA and BJJ followed in their explosive growth in the years since. Accordingly we, the modern-day practitioners, are living in the house that matchup built. 

This design is a celebration of both of these warriors: an expression of our gratitude. 

Respect to the pioneers. Respect to the history. Get the teeshirt here.

What can we say that the man himself hasn't already said?

Maybe only this, and only because the scope of Master Rickson's comments - in this particular instance - was limited to the mat: 

America has always been a land of bold mavericks and pioneers. Indeed: it is no small thing to depart from familiar shores and head off into the unknown, and that is true whether you're a pilgrim bound for Plymouth Rock of an Iraqi refugee landing on American soil in 2018. Accordingly, we have always lauded ambition, lionizing the self-made man and denigrating the "layabout" who "lacks direction, grit, drive," etc. 

And yet the path from dream to reality is not so clear or readily managed, and often refuses to be negotiated by will and grit alone. Ask any honest success and they'll tell you: Sure I worked hard, but I also got very lucky. I came along at the right moment. I met the right person at the right time. Things worked out for me. Etc., etc.
 
In my role as head instructor at a BJJ school I see all kinds of students. Some struggle with a lack conviction, and allow opportunities to come and go. Others seem to lack all sense of proportion, insisting on moves that have no yet quite presented themselves. Both are frustrated, both feel their failures on the mat as a mark against them. To both of them I say:

Every technique is a plant. For a strong and healthy technique to grow, you need a good seed. The seed is your technique. The elements must be right. A poor seed will never grow into a strong plant. But this is not enough. The best seed planted in poor soil will grow into nothing. You have your seed. Now your task is to become an expert at finding the best soil - the best moment- to plant it in. If you do these things then your technique will be strong. 

I like this analogy a lot, mostly because it asks us to consider every technique not as a battle but as a partnership - a cooperation between one party's actions and my own. It calls me to realize the true nature of the thing: that whatever outcome occurs will be bigger than my singular will. That for me to succeed I must participate in this thing we are both doing, rather than insist on my own vision of the future. 

As on the mat, so in life: We go out into the world, knowing what we want. The world sees us and tells us what it wants. To become recalcitrant is to make an argument from what could be a conversation. It is to mistake stubbornness for dedication. It is to miss the truth: that the future will always be bigger than you; that you do not exist in a vacuum; that success comes once you learn to flow with the go. 

Get the teeshirt here.

As you can see, this design is based on the poster art for the classic film SEVEN SAMURAI by Akira Kurosawa. 

The Samurai has always been a central archetype in BJJ culture. Perhaps this is no surprise: Jigoro Kano devised his art as a means to preserve and cultivate those virtues he saw as best in Japanese culture - namely those contained in Bushido, the code of the Samurai - in the face of the deteriorating effect of Western influence. One can therefore assume that the spirit of these virtues would have been central to the art taught by Mitsuyo Maeda to a young Carlos Gracie. 

Now, as then, the lesser elements of Western culture work to undermine the long-standing martial virtues. Easy promotion entices and flashy marketing distracts. Gaudy showmanship overshadows quiet discipline. 

The Seven Samurai stood against an army of bandits: bandits who used the weapons and the skills of the samurai for their own selfish and violent ends, preying on the weak. Their story is the story of true samurai spirit standing against its own corrupted and fallen mirror image. 

Nowadays the fight continues, only now the bandits are less obvious. Nowadays those who corrupt the samurai spirit for their own selfish ends hide in plain sight. But just look around and you'll see them. There's a McDojo on every street corner, promising a black belt in two years if you just sign on the dotted line. There's a slick salesman in a kimono making empty promises. He tells you he's the real deal. He lets you believe in his character. He doesn't take your money: you hand it over.

​Five belts against an army of imitators. Five belts that can't be bought, that must be earned. The spirit of the seven lives on in Jiu-Jitsu from Brazil.

​Get the teeshirt here. 

I can remember being a new white belt and thinking, Man, if I can just get a blue belt I'll be happy. A blue belt is good. A blue belt is solid. I can feel proud of a blue belt.

Of course, no sooner had I gotten my blue belt than I started to think, Man, if I can just get a purple belt...

And so it goes. Just like with everything else. You start off with a goal, thinking if you can just get there then you'll be happy and satisfied. But achieve the mountaintop and you discover the truth: it's only from the mountaintop that you can see the other mountains, the other peaks that you have yet to climb. And all of a sudden the peak you're on - the one you've been pursuing for years, maybe - seems way less interesting than what's out there, awaiting your discovery.

The journey never ends. We recommit ourselves perpetually and passionately to the next thing, never becoming satisfied or complacent. The journey doesn't end at black belt: it ends when we stop striving, stop searching for the mountains beyond. 

Commit to the journey. Get the teeshirt here. 

It's a crazy world out there, and the sad truth is that good does not always triumph over evil, virtue often falls to vice, and the humble and steadfast tortoise often comes in second to the brash and arrogant hare. 

So what do we do with this information?

Throughout our lives, but especially when we are young, it is easy to let our external circumstances define us. We see the world, we see how it operates, and we operate according to those same principles. We allow the "way the world works" to become the way we work. But as we said, the world does not always operate in an admirable way, and by acting as its agent we become complicit in - if not overtly culpable for - those same machinations. 

But human transaction is a funny thing. Allow a certain behavior to occur repeatedly during conversations with another person - a certain kind of joke, a certain level of imposition - and that behavior grows to define the rules of exchange that you two share. But this rule of exchange is far from concrete! Assert a different rule - express a refusal to entertain that sort of joke, etc. - and the old rules are instantly destroyed, a new paradigm must be created.

This is not to say that this process may not be uncomfortable, even unpleasant. But to be unwilling to undertake this effort is to accept a life defined always by others. 

Which is easy enough. It is easy enough to let the world tell me how it operates, and fall in line. It is a more difficult thing to tell the world how I operate: what I will and won't tolerate, what I do and don't value, what I will and won't reward. 

This is not the same as saying that I expect the world to live by my rules. It is just to say that I can, at the very least, expect to live my own life by them. And herein lies the real meaning of True North: to live a life guided not by the sometimes questionable and perhaps shifting rules of my environment but by something else, something more essential.

When financial markets crumble, when loved ones die, when journeys end, when youth fades, when dictators rise to power, True North remains. 

So: hard work, dedication, consistency, temperance, compassion, efficiency, acceptance, calm, responsibility: every lesson in Jiu-Jitsu is a lesson in how to live in the world. This is not something other than the very nature of the thing itself: Jigoro Kano's primary mission in codifying his art was the perfection of man; Judo was always only a means to that end. He believed that, in creating an art that rewarded the principles of Jita Kyoei (mutual prosperity for self and others) and Seiryoku Zenyo (best use of one's energy), he might engender and nourish those virtues in practitioners: virtues which they would then take with them in their dealings in the world. The hope was that if enough people espoused these principles in their dealings, and defined their rules of exchange by them, the world would be transformed into a more compassionate and harmonious place. 

Now, when the world seems hellbent on sending itself into ever-more violent turmoil, this is more vital than ever. In a world chasing and rewarding the loud and the brash, eagerly engaging in the needless confrontation, confusing obstinance for strength and volume for vision, find your True North on the mats.  
​
​Get the teeshirt here. 

A challenge issued, a mixed-rules bout, a last-minute opponent switch and a $1,000 purse... Thirty years before Royce Gracie ever stepped into the octagon. 

Better to let "Judo" Gene LeBell tell it in his own words, as he did in this interview with Black Belt magazine from April, 2014.

Know the history. Rep the legacy. Get the teeshirt here. 

The glory days of the Gracie Challenge, and school-vs-school events like this one, are now legendary.

Interestingly enough, though often associated with the Gracie Family and Brazil, it was events like this one that help to establish Kodokan Judo's prowess almost a hundred years earlier. 

It is interesting to consider whether, had representatives of Kano's Judo not prevailed in their pivotal 1886 contest against representatives of a local JuJutsu school, Judo would have continued on its rise to prominence, eventually spreading as far as Brazil! 

In our modern, litigious society, such contests seem to have fallen out of favor, with most BJJ practitioners competing against practitioners of their own style. It is interesting to note that this is the same condition which led to the practical decline of the martial prowess of many previously effective styles, from Karate to Judo.  A Karate or Tae Kwan Do practitioner gets used to sparring and competing against others with the same arsenal of techniques, goal, and strategy as himself, and over time fails to accumulate experience facing off against the pressures and methods he is likely to encounter in a no-rules contest or street fight. 

One might argue that modern MMA is the current - and superior - iteration of this same phenomenon. However, one would do well to consider the myriad pressures surrounding modern MMA which shape its imperatives and strategies. A modern fighter has to be not only successful but also exciting, dynamic, and aggressive, and must do his work in a relatively short time period. A free-form contest with limited rules and no (or long) time limits, matching opponents of different sizes, presents related but importantly different imperatives, and it is exactly these that contests such as the one commemorated in the above design reveal and reward.

School vs school and style vs style may be a bygone era, but its lessons should not be forgotten by those wishing to prepare themselves for "serious business" situations. It should be noted as well that the so-called "evolution" of modern sport MMA occurred largely after this era, and one would do well to consider whether it is only the dictated condition of the average sport match - and not an inherent evolution to the Jiu-Jitsu athlete or his or her mind - that has allowed these elements to proliferate. The question then becomes: Did the style and strategy remain largely unchanged not because of of the lack of creativity or prowess on the parts of the practitioners, but rather because such a style and strategy proved preferable and superior in no-rules conditions? 

Know the history. Rep the legacy. Get the teeshirt here. 

With the explosive growth of Jiu-Jitsu competition, it seems only a matter of time before BJJ joins Judo and Wrestling on sports' biggest stage. 

...Or at least that's the dream. The sad reality is that many, many obstacles stand in the way, and one has to wonder if, in an environment where even Wrestling (the original Olympic sport!) teeters on the edge of cancellation , the members of the IOC will ever be convinced to give BJJ its moment on the Olympic podium.  

For dedicated fans and practitioners, to see Jiu-Jitsu and its premier athletes recognized at the Olympic level would be a profound acknowledgment of not only the sport's merit but also its athletes' skill, dedication, drive, and heart. We pose the question to the IOC: Doesn't an Andre Galvao or a Mackenzie Dern deserve the chance to stand on the Olympic podium? If they aren't the embodiment of the Olympic ideal, then who is?

The dream lives on. If not in Tokyo in 2020 then in Paris in 2024; if not in 2024 then in Los Angeles in 2028... We fervently believe that one day the five belts will join with the five rings! 

Rep the dream. Get the teeshirt here. 

 If you've been around the game then you already know: it's not the guys with the muscles and the tribal tattoos that you have to watch out for. 

"Cauliflower ear is an irreversible condition that occurs when the external portion of the ear is hit and develops a blood clot or other collection of fluid under the perichondrium. This separates the cartilage from the overlying perichondrium that supplies its nutrients, causing it to die and resulting in the formation of fibrous tissue in the overlying skin. As a result, the outer ear becomes permanently swollen and deformed, resembling a cauliflower." - Wikipedia

To the general population cauliflower ear may look like a deformity, but we at Black Market Jiu-Jitsu know it only means one thing: time on the mat. Show me a guy with some messed up ears and I'll show you a guy who has dedicated whole swaths of his life to the grind.

Is it a good thing? Should you want a little case of cauliflower? Probably not. There are even people who will tell you that good Jiujiteiros - those who roll smooth, always favoring technique over power - make it through with their sound holes unscathed. Then again: this life isn't for everyone, and like it or not cauliflower ear stands as a de facto emblem demarcating the initiates from the general population. As one of my coaches used to say: "Cauliflower ear is a tattoo you have to earn."

Or, as another one of my coaches used to put it: "Cauliflower ear is your mane! It lets the other lions know not to f*ck with you!"

Live the life. Rep the culture. Get the shirt here (red) and here (blue). 

As it says in the product description: for us a Black Market Jiu-Jitsu, this is more than just a fight strategy.

Someone once said that the difference between a dream and a goal is a plan. We'd go one better. We would say that the difference between a dream and a plan is action. 

It's staggeringly easy to let life pass you by. You go to school, you work a job. You have an idea of who you'd like to be, of what you'd like to do, but the time always feels wrong to make the change. You just got a promotion, you just bought a house, you just had a kid. Someday, when the time is right, you'll do the thing you really want to do.

And then, as the song says: one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run. You missed the starting gun. 

No hanging on, riding out a win by advantage. No laying and praying that what you've done is good enough to get you there. No arbitrary medals rewarding unfinished fights. Advance with earnest intention, always.   

Live the mindset. Rep the vibe. Order the teeshirt here.