Brandon Quick - 10th Planet Jiujitsu - Fake Brown Belt

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Eddie Bravo himself clears up this issue, in a show of class and professionalism:

[INDENT] [I]I did not give Brandon his brown belt.

I have known Brandon for many years, met him at JJ’s a long time ago while he was a student of black belt David Dunn. He also trained from time to time at 10th planet over the years. Many of my students are also full time students elsewhere, so his sporadic training at my school was quite normal.

When he approached me for affiliation he told me he was a brown belt and since I knew him for many years I never verified his brown belt, I just believed him.

Since the ability to teach my system is more important to me than the color of your belt i just checked him on his 10thplanet knowledge, which was pretty damn good.

I am not looking for champions to run my affiliates, just good teachers that understand my strategies, philosophies and have complete command of the 10th Planet terminology, which Brandon had down solid, and so does Ari, who got his purple from me directly.

Now that Brandon’s brown belt is in question, I called him yesterday and asked him exactly where he got it.

Now i know why he’s hesitant to explain how he got it publicly.

Turns out, according to Brandon, he got his brown belt from a bjj black belt while he was in the army. A guy named Sergeant Jason Keen who years later turned out to be a fake black belt.

Srgt Keen claimed he got his black belt from a Gracie military system called G.R.A.P.P.L.E. or something like that, but it turned out he lied, so basically Brandon’s brown belt is not legit.

Now the question is, what am I gonna do about this situation?

There are a few routes I can take, but I will discuss this with my top disciples before I make my final decision.

I take full responsibility for not verifying the legitimacy of his brown belt before official affiliation was complete, I will do my best to make sure this does not happen again :slight_smile:
[/I][/INDENT] Here’s an interview with the individual in question:
YouTube - Interview with Brandon Quick pt 1

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For reference:
http://www.trinitycombatacademy.com/
http://www.10thplanetjiujitsudfw.com/

Had the links handy because Cyrijl mentioned it in my newbietown thread. (The school is an hour or so away, south of Dallas)

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So Eddie had someone else’s brown belt open a 10th planet affiliate after evaluating his skills over the course of a couple classes?

Either Brandon has sick BJJ and 10th Planet skills anyway, in which Eddie should have mercy and award him a brown directly…or Eddie has atrocious quality control over his affiliates, in which case he should kick him to the curb, accept that he made a dumb mistake, and rework his affiliate standards.

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Bullshit is the new black

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Oh shit no wonder I smashed his students in competitions. Whats funny is I’ve been curious about training up there, maybe I should go stop by.

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I’d guess based on his experience and development after receiving his fake brown belt that he’s got the skills to make it legit at this point. Hopefully he will be rewarded a real brown belt based on competition record and current skill level and can put this behind him.
It looks like he’s been competing in the advanced No Gi division at NAGA for a while now. Looks pretty solid.

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This is why in my ACJA group I give out teaching letters, not rank…

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Yea, from my understanding he has the skills. Probably it would be best if Eddie promoted him himself.

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I’ve heard things contradicting even that, but I have no evidence either way.

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That didn’t work so well for JKD, just a warning. Instructorship became the new Black Belt.

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Which is why belts should be deprecated and all that people should go on is competition records.

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Then we’ll lose alot of great teachers. In addition, Brandon’s DVD has helped me improve my top game by leaps and bounds.

I do worry about the 10th Planet quality control.

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It’s a valid point. Some people can teach things really well, but are limited in competitions by their physical attributes.

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Also, do we look at purely the record, or how well they did in each fight against each opponent, and who the opponents are (ie in MMA).
In just sub-grappling though it would seem to be easier to gauge.

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I think the issue is with giving out rank. Eddie is a great teacher and bjj player. Once he starts giving out rank or accepting rank that is sub par (not just him but anyone) things just start getting worse.

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The issue is that Quick knew for quite a while that he was not a legit brown belt and continued to promote himself as such…and apparently lied to the very guy (Bravo) who handed him the keys to the 10th Planet car and essentially put Quick on the map. The fact that he willingly misrepresented himself and lied to his beloved “Master Eddie” speaks volumes about his integrity (or lack of it).

I for one could care less if the guy is a good coach (which he does seem to be) or skilled grappler if his integrity is questionable. I have nothing against the guy personally, he vids are very good, but karma is a bitch. If you build a kingdom on a poor foundation, it will fall apart at some point.

The other issue that was also mentioned was Bravo’s lack of research on a guy he was going to do business with and have represent him. As is, I don’t think it reflects too poorly on Bravo, but I do think that Bravo learned a lesson the hard way. It shows he needs to tighten up his business practices (assuming he cares about integrity). Bravo made an error that I suspect he won’t make again…Always check up on who you do business with. Bravo may have been too jazzed or blinded about spreading his system, rather than checking the integrity of who he has represent him.

People get blinded by $$$ and power and will tend to consciously or unconsciously overlook things they normally would not overlook. I truly hope Bravo did not know about Quicks rank situation. Likewise, I am sure that the more successful Quick got and the more money he made via 10th Planet, the less likely he was to reveal his lie.

If I were Bravo, I would be real pissed

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The whole thing is strange. I read the threads over at the underground (i never go over there and am now thankful for that) and there hasn’t been really much more info.

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OK, I am not very familiar with BJJ and even less familiar to Brandon Quick. But at first glance it looked as though Quick may have just been a victim of Keen’s douchebaggery. But then I went to the website listed and saw this:

“Eddie Bravo Brown Belt”

If I was a student I would feel pretty mad about this.

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On the UG thread talking about this there was also discussion of that Ari guy from 101submissions (not the cool compilation vids, the shitty instructional vids).

Eddie seems to not care about quality control.

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[quote=UpaLumpa;2155801]On the UG thread talking about this there was also discussion of that Ari guy from 101submissions (not the cool compilation vids, the shitty instructional vids).
[/quote]

Yeah, he’s running the 10th Planet affiliate in Victoria, BC and has apparently been on the road teaching seminars as well. He has a pretty dubious reputation:

http://www.victoriajujitsu.com/