In a resurfaced video circulating online, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt instructor can be seen choking his students unconscious after promoting them to new belt ranks. The troubling footage shows multiple students being rendered unconscious immediately after receiving their new belts.
The instructor, Eric Red Schafer of Unified Martial Arts in Wisconsin, defended the controversial practice in a lengthy social media post. He claimed it was an old “rite of passage” tradition passed down to him when he was coming up in BJJ in the 1990s under instructors like Henry Matamoros and Jon Friedland.
“I was just a student who followed tradition,” Schafer wrote, admitting he was choked out himself for his purple, brown and black belt promotions. He said not tapping out was seen as proving one’s “macho-ness” and that he simply went along with these hazing rituals.
While acknowledging the tradition has no “real use” in BJJ, Schafer said he continued it when he started awarding belts himself 8 years ago as it was “just the way things were.” However, in 2015 he switched to just throwing students instead of choking them out after realizing “not tapping was some old hazing ritual.”
The “belt whipping” gauntlet tradition Schafer referenced is itself controversial, though more accepted than rendering students unconscious.
Some prominent jiu jitsu figures, such as Keith Owen and Caio Terra, have criticized the Gauntlet, labeling it as unnecessary. The ritual’s origins do not trace back to Brazil but rather to the mid-1990s in California. It is attributed to Chris Haueter of the Machado Jiu Jitsu Academy, one of the first non-Brazilians to earn a black belt in BJJ. Haueter introduced the Gauntlet after returning from military training, viewing it as a necessary hazing ritual. Although the Machado brothers were not present, the practice gained popularity and spread, despite not being part of the traditional jiu jitsu customs from Brazil, as confirmed by veterans like 7th degree coral belt Márcio Stambowski.
Many in the BJJ community have condemned Schafer’s actions as dangerous and unacceptable. Choking someone unconscious can lead to serious injuries if mishandled. Promoting a jiu-jitsu milestone by potentially concussing students seems antithetical to the spirit of the gentle art.
