A word of support for Mr Bravo: One of the costs of being an innovator is criticism. In general, people resist change, especially if they have invested a lot of time in the status quo. One of Eddie Bravo's most important innovations was the rule set for his competition which involves the use of over times to force a decisive result to a match within a reasonable time frame. An important innovation in his overtime was the use of classical jiu jitsu submission positions, the rear mount and juji gatame armlock (he calls it spider web) positions. He was widely criticized for this. Most of the criticism centered around the idea that athletes should never be GIVEN those positions, but should have to EARN them. My own belief is that jiu jitsu needs around five different rule sets to make sure sure all the skills of the sport are kept strong and growing in healthy directions. I want to say, however, that I really believe Mr Bravo's over time innovation is a healthy and good thing for the sport. First off, in EBI, the athletes have ten uninterrupted minutes to earn whatever positions they want – the same time they have in IBJJ rules. Once in overtime, they must choose between the two most classical finishing positions of the sport – back strangles and armlocks. This is where things get interesting. In truth, the overwhelming majority of jiu jitsu athletes spend 95% of their jiu jitsu defensive awareness on NOT GETTING INTO bad positions – and only a fraction of that in actually training the skills and awareness of how to ACTUALLY GET OUT OF THESE POSITIONS ONCE THEY ARE IN THEM. EBI overtime rules FORCE ATHLETES TO REDRESS THIS IMBALANCE. For the first time, they have to devote serious training time to defending and escaping the main finishing positions of the sport. They can't simply train themselves to avoid the attack at the onset, BUT MUST LEARN TO WORK THEIR WAY OUT FROM THE COMPLETED POSITION. This takes real skill. As a coach I can personally attest that these overtime rules forced both me and my athletes to learn a LOT more about defensive strategy and technique in two of the classical submissions of our sport and this is a healthy thing for our athletes.
