Rener Gracie has recently released a 1.5 hour long youtube video about why the police need more training, especially in physical confrontations as many in America think they are too quick to draw their weapons. The theory is that if the police are more comfortable in a grappling situation, they will be less likely to shoot unarmed people, whether they be criminals or civilians.
Gracie claims that police are trained (to restrain criminals) for 4 hours per year and in California only 2 hours per year. The presentation goes on to break down why he thinks cops are overreacting and what can be done to solve this problem (hint: it’s BJJ).
The video is quite clearly a sales pitch, which in itself isn’t controversial. Obviously, Rener would make money from this program, but to be fair to him, this is what being an entrepreneur is. You would expect a parachute or life jacket manufacturer to make money. Yes, they wouldn’t make these products for free, but they are solving a problem so deserve to be paid for keeping people safe.
People may begin to raise their eyebrows towards the end of the video where he is really trying to sell the course to people in local government. Once again, trying to sell BJJ to these people is fine, but will it really solve the problem?
He has already been criticized for Gracie University in the past by legend Rickson Gracie, who stated in an old interview:
“It’s absurd. There can be no online belt promotion. After I read an article on Rener Gracie talking about Gracie University, saying that he promoted online students to blue belt, I had a confrontation with him. I said that if he continued to do this, I would denigrate his image, saying that he was a charlatan. And after that, he reconsidered, and thought that the idea did not make sense anymore.”
So what do you think? Is his heart in the right place or is he out to make money? Or is the answer somewhere in the middle? Let us know in the comments.
