Interview with Gracie China Instructor Chet Quint [Part 1]

Chet Quint is the BJJ instructor at Gracie China, and currently the only BJJ black belt in China. He also has an academy in Shanghai and an affiliate school in Hong Kong. As a key figure in China's rapidily developing BJJ community, I asked him to answer questions on topics ranging from his own personal background to his insights on China's young MMA scene.

You are the first Brazilian Jujitsu black belt in China. Before we talk about what made you come here, can you talk about your background ?
How and why did you start BJJ, and did you study other arts ? Who did you learn BJJ with ?

I first heard about Jiu Jitsu back in 1989 when Rorion Gracie produced the "Gracie in Action" video. There. for the first time I got to see real footage of martial artists fighting each other. At the time I was boxing and was training Muay Thai and Kali. I also had black belts in Taewondo and Goju Ryu. My Goju Ryu teacher was heavily influenced by judo and Japanese Jiujitsu so I had a lot of exposure to those styles as well. I guess I was sort of a martial arts junkie, because I trained anything I found interesting. Like many of us, I was very interested in Bruce Lee and his philosophies about martial culture. Along with TKD and Goju Ryu I have a Black Belts in, of course, Gracie Jiu Jitsu, Chinese Shuai Jiao and I am a Full-Instructor in Muay Thai. I didn't get a chance to actually experience Gracie Jiu Jitsu until 1996 when I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah and met Pedro Sauer, my teacher. Pedro was 65 kilos and despite the fact that I was already an accomplished fighter and was 40 kilos heavier and 10 years younger he tapped me out like I was a child. I couldn't believe it. I signed up that day and haven't stoped training since.

What got you interested in China ? How did you decide to come here, and what made you think at that time that there was a future for BJJ in China ?

When I was living in Brazil I trained with Rilion Gracie at night and with Rolker Gracie during the afternoon. It was at the Gracie Academy in Centro, Rio de Janeiro that I met an Australian guy named Aaron Gardiner. He told be about the BJJ club he trained at and explained that they only had a blue belt there. They were pretty much trying to figure out things on there own.

Mitsuyo Maeda left Japan to teach Jiu Jitsu in Brazil. [...] So, I feel that teaching the art abroad is kind of a tradition in this style.

I spoke a little Chinese and always wanted to live in Asia so a year later I went out there to visit him. The guys in the club were all nice guys, but they didn't really have an idea what was going on. They lacked an understanding of the basics. I liked Beijing, so I decided to move here and teach Gracie Jiu Jitsu. Mitsuyo Maeda left Japan to teach Jiu Jitsu in Brazil and the Gracie brothers along with Pedro Sauer left Brazil to do the same in the United States. My other teacher, Rilion, just left Rio to teach Gracie Jiu Jitsu in Miami. So, I feel that teaching the art abroad is kind of a tradition in this style.

What do you think of the rising Chinese MMA scene ? Do you think China is a promising place for MMA to develop, and do you think Art of War
(arguably the best-known MMA org in China right now) is doing it right ?

It really isn't my place to say what is right and what is wrong. We all do the best we can so you have to appreciate their effort. I think that the MMA scene here is still very much in the beginning stages. The Art of War guys have a very difficult task because of the way that entertainment and sporting events work here in China. Currently there is no real mechanism that allows a fight promoter to make good money in China. Pay-Per-View doesn't exist here and the Central Government controls the media. If it weren't so hard, the big players like the UFC and Pride would have been here a long time ago. Anyone can set up shop and put on an event if they have enough money. The trick is to make the event profitable. Why isn't professional boxing here? It's because they still can't make good money in China. Once that bridge is crossed, the real fight organizations will be here in force but I don't think China is ready for that just yet. Not when you can set up a multi-million dollar event in Japan or Korea with a phone call. So things have to change here first. That kind of change will happen in small steps. I sympathize with their problem and I wish them luck.

part 2

Goodbye China !

I'm back in France, but that doesn't change anything for this blog. It will still be updated aproximatively once every three months with a post promising "big things soon".

But this time it's for real ! An interview with the only BJJ black belt in China is coming soon ! Stay tuned !

MMA Beijing Training Report

I had the pleasure of trying out a class at MMA Beijing. The head instructor is Laurent (or Along as he's called here), and the classes include groundwork, MMA, boxing, wrestling.

The gym is beautiful, with a big area, mats on the wall, two heavy bags, a speed bag, wrestling dummies, tires... The only downside is that since the bags are in the middle of the rolling area, I kept bumping my head into one of them.

The class I tried out was focused on stand-up wrestling. We started out with a pretty dynamic warm-up, including one of those horrible drills where everybody hops around in a squat trying to be the last one standing.
We then did simple "swimming" and arm dragging drills. After a while of this we did some sparring.
Laurent's students were pretty good, and I could see they had a MMA approach to wrestling, using the thai clinch a lot and keeping an upright posture.

The same remark applies to their groundwork. It was very MMA-oriented, and Laurent admitted to being influenced by Erik Paulson and Catch as Catch Can. His ground style was an interesting alternative to pure BJJ, incorporating Catch, BJJ, and Judo techniques.

For example he used a very effective head and arm (kesa gatame) position (he told me he injured people with this by crushing their ribs, so he had a student do it to me instead), whereas most BJJ people will tell you it's not a good control position. He also twisted the wrist on the americana lock, and a few other small details that seem to come from Catch wrestling and Japanese style submission wrestling.

If you want to train MMA or no-gi, and especially if you're a student living in Wudaokou (the universities neighborhood in Beijing where Laurent has his gym) I encourage you to go pay them a visit.

Summer Blogroll

Now that it's summer and the sun is shining, what better way to spend your afternoon than staying home with the A/C on and the curtains drawn and look at some good MMA blogs ?

Here are a few blogs that have in common that they all link to here, and also happen to be awesome.

Fightopinion.com
Fightstalker
Nightmare of Battle
Bloody Elbow
MMA Review
Mad Squabbles


Keep tuned in, as I will be having some training reports and interviews up here soon, as well as a surprise if you happen to live in France...

K-1 in Hong Kong

Fightopinion reports that K-1 will hold an event in Hong Kong on July 29th.

As far as I know this is the first event of this kind in Hong Kong or China. I will keep you updated if there are any news of Chinese fighters participating.

Art of War Comes to Video Games

Art of War is coming to a console near you !

[...] the game will use likenesses of the current and future stars of the ring in new and fantastical ways, extending their capabilities beyond that of mere mortals [...]

This means you can expect Zhang Tiequan to throw fireballs and Dai Shuanghai to invoke an eagle that rips his oponnent's heart out.

Since this is a chinese game, you can also expect you'll be able to play with Wonderlai Silvo and Fodor Emelieko...

EDIT:
Always check your sources. This is the first thing you learn when you go to journalism school, but since I'm a blogger, I tought I could afford not to. Well, turns out the AoW image on the site I'm linking to is misleading, as the game actually concerns the other, Texas-based Art of War. Anyway the good thing to come out of this is that I noticed that they're advertising a "USA vs China" Art of War event. I don't know if there's gonna be any real chinese fighters from China, or just "chinese" fighters like Cung Le ("Vietnamese ? that's good enough for me, you're hired !").
I'll keep you posted as soon as I get more info.

Art of War 6 vids

You can check out the latest Art of War fights here:

http://sports.qq.com/bojidasai/bojidasaimedias/mediamore/more.htm

The first one is the best ( 武田雪马VS杨建平 ), but they're all worth watching.

Be warned that the video player doesn't work that well in firefox, at least for me.