Category: News

  • New Year, New Life at Gracie Barra

    Start your New Year with a New Life at Gracie Barra Mansfield & Arlington TX

    New Year, New Life

    You can go to the gym and do the same boring routines day after day and eventually quit going, or you can do something different and completely change your life with Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu. It’s time to start 2015 the right way!

    Register today and the first month is on us!

    What makes Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu better than going to the gym?

    • BJJ is the perfect workout because it requires a high level of concentration proportional to the amount of calories burned and pounds lost.
    • You become part of a community united by the ideals of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle.
    • You don’t just learn how to fight. You also work hard toward mastering the underlying principles that allow you to succeed on the mats. When applied to your life off the mats, these principles can bring more balance to your routine and help you reach your true potential.
    • BJJ is a living sport and martial art; it is constantly evolving and breeds innovation and creativity.
    • You are never too old to participate in a sport the whole family can enjoy!

    Call 817-453-5858 or email to start training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu today!

  • 2014 HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Jiu-Jitsu for Christmas!

    2014 HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Jiu-Jitsu for Christmas!

    Having a tough time trying to figure out what to get for that special someone this Holiday Season? Can you think of a better gift one could have than learning Jiu-Jitsu, making new friends, getting healthy & losing weight? Neither can we!

    Give the gift of Jiu-Jitsu this Holiday Season at Gracie Barra in Mansfield & Arlington Texas


    This Holiday Season get started at Gracie Barra for just $199!

    Includes:

    • Your 1st Month of Training
    • Registration Fee
    • Premium Gracie Barra Uniform ($160 value)

    That’s a $166 savings for Kids and $211 savings for Adults!


    One of the most unique characteristics about our schools is our family-orientated approach. Gracie Barra is proud to be a powerhouse with the most stalwart world champions of Jiu-Jitsu while still maintaining a training environment that is welcoming for the whole family: husband, wife and kids.

    What is it that sets Gracie Barra Jiu-Jitsu apart from all of the other martial arts schools?

    • Our comprehensive Kids and Adults curriculums. Which are made available to you in app form for your Apple or Android phone.
    • We have over 400 locations worldwide, and when you join one you can train at any Gracie Barra all over the world free of charge!
    • Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu all started with the Gracie family, so you are getting as close to the source as possible.
    • #1 Ranked Team in the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation. Although we are ranked #1 there is no pressure to compete at all, in fact only about 10% of our students compete!

    Join Now! Schedule a Free Class!

  • Winter Holiday Schedule 2014-2015 at Gracie Barra Mansfield

    Gracie Barra Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Mansfield and Arlington Texas

    2014-2015 Winter Holiday Schedule

    Students, please refer to the calendar for official closings for the upcoming Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years holidays. We normally follow the Mansfield ISD schedule for school holidays, but this year we have made the decision to open more days during the holidays. We will still be closing on some days so that staff and instructors can be with their families during the holidays.

    Days Marked in Orange are school wide closings.

    Important Dates:
    November 27 – Thanksgiving Day
    December 24 – First Day of Christmas Break
    December 29 – Christmas Break ends
    December 31 – New Year’s Break
    January 5 – New Year’s Break Ends
    January 19 – MLK Jr. Day

    2014 Winter Holiday Schedule at Gracie Barra Mansfield and Arlington TX

  • Grand Opening at Gracie Barra in Mansfield TX

    Gracie Barra Mansfield & Arlington Texas

    Gracie Barra Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (Mansfield) recently celebrated our Grand Opening on Saturday, October 11th with a Family Fun Day from 11:30AM until 2:30PM! We had some GREAT barbecue provided by Professor Young’s award-winning pitmaster brother, an excellent seminar on pressure passing by Eddie Saenz of Team Lovato, and a great time with all of our Gracie Barra friends and family!

    We hope that everyone had as great a time as we did and were able to get enough to eat!

    Become Part of the Gracie Barra Family!

  • Five Grappling Tournament – Oct 5, 2014

    Gracie Barra Mansfield & Arlington TX

    Gracie Barra Mansfield recently competed at the Five Grappling Texas 2 Open Championship 2014 on October 5th, and all of our kids did an amazing job!!

    David Young – 2 Golds
    Olivia Churman – 1 Silver
    Anna Henderson – 1 Bronze
    Evan Munn – 1 Bronze

    With this marks the start of our competition team here at Gracie Barra in Mansfield & Arlington Texas. With the formation of this competition team, we are now holding competition training classes each week for those who have made the commitment to compete at upcoming jiu jitsu tournaments later this year and beyond! Interested in joining the team? Stop in and speak with Professor Young for more details.

    Keep up the great work! OSSSS!

  • The Evolution of Skill – From Fundamentals to Advanced

    Sitting at the edge of the mat while watching students roll, I had a conversation with a newer student of bjj who was already a black belt in a traditional form of Japanese jiu-jitsu.
    We were observing a couple of new students rolling; one of the students was unsuccessfully trying to pressure pass the other and they were locked in a stalemate with both burning tremendous amounts of energy.

    Gracie Barra News
    I asked the Japanese bjj instructor what he saw in the dynamic of the match. He said something to the effect that the student trying to pass was not changing levels in his pass and unable to overcome the frame that the guard player was using defensively.

    I agreed, but my view was even simpler: the passer only knew 1 guard pass well at this point in his study of jiu-jitsu, and used that pass for every situation. “When all one has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
    We discussed some of the more advanced principles  Article on Musashi and I shared my view of the stages of learning bjj. My view is that there are stages of understanding on jiu-jitsu that most students seem to pass through sequentially before being ready to progress to the next.

    Fundamentals Program1) Focus on acquiring fundamental techniques for each position: The period of white belt where the student has developed mat fitness and become comfortable with the routine of classes is frequently the most exciting period of their training in bjj.
    Every class reveals a new technique that is just the solution needed to address their problems in training. Every time the student steps on the mat they will gain another puzzle piece to their rolling.
    The goal here is to equip the student with techniques to flesh out the positional hierarchy of bjj. They need to be able to identify what position they are in every part of the roll and have a solid technique they can employ to escape or control the position.

    The Gracie Barra curriculum assists in making certain that the student will encounter each of these situations during the course of their time in the fundamental classes.

    2) The correct mechanics: The student will understand the general way that a technique looks and works, but will now need to focus on the mechanics of the specific technique.
    For example: when executing the Bull fighter guard pass, they will move beyond roughly grabbing the opponent’s legs, tossing them aside roughly and quickly running around to the side, hoping to secure side control before the opponent can recover the guard.

    They now take a tighter grip on the knees: twisting the slack out of the opponent’s gi pants; they pin the opponents knees using their body weight to kill the opponent’s hip movement; they maintain pant grips to prevent the opponent from sneaking a knee inside and reguarding.
    The student becomes aware that there are more efficient and technical ways to use each part of the mechanics of the technique.

    Mullen_article_belts3) Discovering other options for techniques: After several months / a year of bjj training, students will have at least one option from all of the main positions in bjj.
    Now, rolling is more productive as the students can attempt to utilize their techniques in the match – as opposed to strength and instinctive survival physical reactions.

    One of the coolest things about bjj training is the enormous number of techniques and their variations in the art.
    Earlier I mentioned “When all one has is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Now, we acquire more hammers!

    The guard position itself has many variations: (closed, butterfly, De la Riva, spider guard, Z-guard and so on). Now that the student is grounded in fundamentals, they can explore the infinite variations of positions.
    Not to dampen your enthusiasm of studying new techniques, but the blackbelts will tell you that skill in jiu-jitsu comes not just from how many techniques that you know, but the depth to which you know your favorite ones.

    4) Combinations and counters: Knowing the technique options that are available in specific training situations is the first step.
    Early on, simply knowing more techniques than another inexperienced opponent may be enough to dominate the match.

    It is at this stage of learning that the student starts to place the individual techniques in context.
    They start thinking in terms of “When my opponent does this..is this the time to do that?” and “How can I set up my opponent for this technique?”.

    Experienced practitioners can usually defend straight on single attacks and to be successful one must trick the opponent using distraction with the first technique in order to catch the second.

    Advanced Program5) Return to the basics in depth: The majority of advanced belts (purple and above) that I speak with say that while they had experimented extensively with more advanced techniques, most were returning to those basic techniques they learned as new white belts.

    My own period spent as a brown belt was focused on 2 aspects of training: correcting some holes in my game and bringing my “basic” techniques – those movements that you use every time you roll – to a black belt level of technical precision.

    By the time most practitioners have reached purple belt, they have seen most of the moves they will know as blackbelts. The difference between that purple belt and the black belt is the DEPTH to which they know the movement.
    “Move your hip a little to the side and grip a bit deeper in the collar” are the types of details that move a basic technique into the black belt level.

    You might say that the jiu-jitsu student has come full circle in their study of technique.

    Credits: Mark Mullen 
    GB Black belt from GB Calgary, Canada
    Twitter: @MarkMullenBJJ

  • YouTube Channel Relaunch

    Since our conversion to Gracie Barra we have since taken down our old Youtube channel when we were still Champion Academy.  As such, many of our old videos are now inaccessible, but fear not! We are relaunching our Youtube channel under Gracie Barra Mansfield.  Be sure to check out our videos, and subscribe to us to keep up to date with all new videos from Gracie Barra Mansfield.

  • New School Policies

    We have a few new announcements to make regarding some of our school policies.

    SODAS IN THE GYM

    As a result of multiple spills over the past couple of weeks, we will no longer be allowing sodas in the gym. You may still bring your own water, but we do ask that you refrain from bringing sugary drinks. Because of the sugars in sodas, it produces a sticky film on the floor that becomes difficult to clean. This causes a hygiene issue as we do not want to allow any extra avoidable dirt and bacteria from making its way onto the matted area.

    LOBBY SEATING

    As you may have noticed, we have been enrolling many new students as a result of our conversion to Gracie Barra! So we ask that you please hold your bags or other belongings either in your lap or under your seat so that we may be able to accommodate your fellow students and parents.  We also ask that you please keep the bench area clear if there are still seats available. If all of our chairs are occupied, please see a staff member and we can provide you with another chair from one of our offices.

    KIDS NOT IN CLASS

    Unfortunately, we do not have a designated “play area” for children not participating in class, so we ask that our parents please make sure your kids remain seated or under your supervision for their own safety and the safety of others.  Also, as an alternative we welcome you to enroll your other child(ren) into our kids program! Under Gracie Barra’s kids curriculum we are able to start their jiu-jitsu training as early as 3 years old.

    Thank you for your patience and understanding so that we may ensure the safety and best interests for all of our students.

    – Gracie Barra Staff

  • The Paradox of Choice

    The Paradox of Choice

    How often do you go to the store and get stuck on trying to decide on what you want?  We, as consumers, love to have the freedom of choices, but in BJJ that can create frustration and second guessing.  Don’t get me wrong… having choices is great, but for someone just starting out it can be overwhelming.

    For some people, the solution is simple: train more.  When you’re new to BJJ, the first couple of months are some of the most trying.  This is the period of time where the majority of people who do quit will quit.  This is partially because grappling is so much different from the average person’s daily activities.  As such some people are able to overcome this hurdle by just training more often.

    For others it isn’t always that simple.

    We often say that jiu-jitsu is “infinite” and there is some degree of truth to that.  There are countless variations of each technique with each student putting their own tweaks into it (once the technique is mastered) to better fit their own style.

    But to someone just getting into BJJ it can be very overwhelming.  When you’re in a position where you are presented with near limitless choices, then you may get snagged trying to filter through each choice to find the one you want.  This effectively causes you to make slower decisions and can cause your mind to go blank.

    In a book called The Paradox of Choice, American psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.

    Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well-being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

    —Ch.5, The Paradox of Choice, 2004

    So what’s the solution to the problem?  Limit your choices.

    Master Carlos Gracie Jr.’s Fundamentals curriculum is a great place to start.  After enough practice you can begin to expand your number of choices until you are comfortable having a variety techniques at your disposal.

    Remember, to get better at jiu-jitsu you need to do jiu-jitsu.  Train hard and live well.

    JIU-JITSU FOR EVERYONE!

  • Getting the Most out of Training Time

    Getting into Jiu-Jitsu not only requires time, and a lot of resources. Now, to fully maximize the potential for learning within the gym, you have to be able to know how to do it. Your growth and success depend on your attitude in the gym. There are fans, there are followers, there are those who take their BJJ to a different level. Find out how to do it now and make the most of your training.

    Gracie Barra News

    Be On Time

    Time is a resource that is used best when its importance is well understood. Think of it this way: if I were to give you 86,400USD every day, and I want you to use it all up, how would you spend it? Take note that you have to spend it all. But! You cannot spend it on something that you can sell later on. Many would answer, “Hey, I will use it to ride a plane or go skydiving.” I say, I will pay for a personality improvement class and make sure that I invest in myself with that kind of money. 86,400 seconds in one day, and you actually invest a fraction of that to BJJ. Make it count, my friend.

    10469150_334754586683490_3299292431398725918_oListen. And Listen Well

    There is a big difference between just hearing what your instructor is saying, versus actually understanding it. If you have been catching yourself spacing out every time your instructor is saying something, you have a problem there. Let’s be frank. You went to training in order to learn, so what’s keeping you from listening? The best advice that we can give you is to leave everything outside the door. By all means, just forget the world and focus on you. Treat it as your “me” time.

    Spar. Spar. Spar.

    It’s a contact sport. And you need to get in contact with someone. Do away with the fear of being humiliated because someone is getting the better of you. That’s usually why some have second thoughts about sparring. It is because they feel that losing in a sparring match will cost them a lot! That’s not true! Get in there and spar. You will learn a thing or two.

    Drill. Drill. Drill.

    10345542_545412085580779_5505534847379911581_nWash, rinse, and repeat. Yes. Drills can be tiresome. Doing drills actually takes a lot of effort. We all have been to that moment where we are just too tired to do it! But, no. Before you put the brakes on doing drills, remember that the power to repeat translates to your ability to execute something. Execute by practice.

    Getting the most of your time in the gym requires discipline. Your coaches, professors, and mentors want you to succeed. Do so by following the practical tips above.

    See you on the mats!

    Jiu-Jitsu for Everyone!