This is a topic of hot debate I really wanted to put my 2 cents in on. I purposely titled it gi and no gi instead of using the usual gi vs no gi. I did this because I think they are both great sports, but personal preference plays such a massive role in people forming an opinion. I really don’t like when people frame it that way because it seems like an either/or setup, when it can easily be both. To me that’s like saying Judo vs Greco, two similar but separate sports. But I’ve had experience with both, and granted my time with gi training was limited so take that into consideration when reading the rest of this post. Also consider just because 1 school does things certain way, doesn’t mean they all do. My experience with a gi gym may not have been typical, I have no frame of reference visiting only one.
For those of you who might not know, the Gi is a uniform that traditional BJJ players wear. In No Gi you typically wear shorts and a rashguard or t shirt. The main difference in the 2 styles is that in Gi you can grab onto your opponents Gi to control them. In no-gi you cannot grab clothing so you must control your opponent using underhooks/overhooks/head control. The main concensus is that Gi is more technical because no-gi players can get sweaty/slippery and explode out of positions easily.
I was originally trained at a no-gi school for about 5 years. We were very good and usually won any local tournament we chose to enter. I never gave much thought to Gi jiu jitsu over the years. Then because of going back to school I was forced to join a new gym that had class times that suited me better. As luck would have it they were a gi only school. As soon as I walked in and the instructor heard of my backround he went off on a rant about how no-gi guys were not technical, and how sloppy we were. I though this was really rude and I was kind of caught off guard by this, but I didnt really say much about it, it was his opinion afterall. I commenced training and tried to keep an open mind about how technical this whole gi thing apparently was.
Over the course of 6 months I trained only in the gi. One great thing I noticed is that everything I learned in no-gi I could use regardless of what someone was wearing. So any time I rolled in the gi class, I still was fairly dominant, and people started asking me why I didnt grab their gi ever. I simply told them I didnt need to, and that I just dont grab clothing out of habit. I tried my best to learn the grips but it takes time, and they werent readily as comfortable for me. I feel that its silly to say that one is more technical than the other. A lot of people will say that all the world champions train gi, but I feel this arguement is flawed because no gi is fairly new, and still in its infancy compared to traditional gi jiu jitsu. Marcelo Garcia, one of the greatest grapplers of all time, even claims himself that they both are incredibly technical, and doesnt think one is more technical than the other. I’m just some random guy so my opinion doesn’t count for much, but Marcelo’s I feel does.
As a white belt never having worn a gi in my life, I was holding my own and even dominating other white belts, blue belts, and even purple belts. I wondered if I was such a “sloppy no gi player” how was I breezing through all these supposed “technical wizards”? The answer is simple to me. They are both incredibly technical sports, and usually the only people saying no-gi is sloppy are the people who train in the gi. They have been fed a story by their instructor for whatever reason and never question it. Well I reserved my opinion on this until I actually trained both, and I feel most people should do the same.
There are some very stark differences between the gyms that did not take long to notice, as far as atmosphere and style. A big difference I noticed was the speed and pacing of the styles. No-gi is slick and fast and full of what I call flow. Gi is very slow, there is lots of yanking and pulling and grip fighting. In the gi it takes much longer to pass guard and there tends to be a preference of standing up to pass the guard most of the time. I think that it is a matter of preference in that respect. I like the flow, the “slipperyness” of no gi. It is exciting and you are truly rolling. In gi it is just not my style. I dont feel like its very technical to grab a wad of my sleeve and wait for the timer. There is definetly a more traditional martial arts feel at the gi gym as well. There is bowing to the mats, and everyone yelling OSS! every 2 seconds. Everything is done by rank, the way you line up and which classes you are allowed to join. Leglocks of any kind are illegal, which sucks because thats sort of my specialty. In the no gi gym anything imaginable is legal, and any class is open if you think you can hang. The types of people I also find interestingly different. Since the no gi gym is geared towards MMA, the members tend to be bigger and tougher. They are mostly all incredible athletes (myself excluded). At the gi gym, the members not only are smaller, but there are more girls. This makes sense to me, because the technical rhetoric would make alot of sense to a girl who might worried about the strength of her male cohorts. They also might feel less self conscience about their bodies in a thick gi uniform. There is also a big focus on rank achievement at the gi gym I find really strange. Everyone seems to eye up belt colors, and brag about submitting a certain color belt. They talk about who should and shouldnt be a blue belt or a purple belt in hushed corners. In the no gi gym you dont know who is good until you roll with them, and nobody really seems to care who wins. There is a lot of laughing and joking around to be heard over a stereo playing rock and hip-hop as opposed to the gi gym where it is deathly serious at all times and there is no music to be heard as you roll, only the heavy breathing and grunts of the people around you. The gi gym is also twice as expensive at per month, compared to the no gi gym. Not even counting the extra money you probably pay for testing and belts.
The one great thing about the gi gym is that there is a massive amount of members. Probably at least 3 times more members. I think a lot of it has to do with their excellent marketing, nobody in this city hasnt heard of them. Another is that they have a heavy focus on competition, which in turn acts as self marketing in a way. They compete at any tournament within 200 miles it seems. It really helps to get their name out there and inspire confidence. If you compete a lot of want to compete, this alone would be a huge advantage. The other reason I think they have more students is because people like achieving something tangible. At both schools you would learn incredible knowledge about grappling but only 1 school will give you a fancy belt to show off. For me the learning is more than enough, but I think the average person needs that belt for their own self confidence. There is also something that needs to be said about the level of expertise. At both schools the instructors are incredibly knowledgable, and they are both legit.
That was just some of my thoughts from both sides of the fence. They are truly 2 difference sports. Like judo and greco roman wrestling, the object of both is the exact same, but one has grips, the other doesnt. A lot of the differences I noticed could very well be specific to these gyms alone but something tells me they are both fairly good ambassadors as to what to expect from each style of gym in general. Traditional BJJ makes alot of sense for certain types of people, but for me I enjoy the leglocks, the egoless atmosphere and the flow.
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