Keenan Cornelius offers a unique perspective on the role of competition in martial arts. Despite his success on the competitive stage, Cornelius views competition primarily as a tool for improvement rather than an end goal in itself.
“I always felt like competition was kind of like you have to do it to see if what you’re doing in the gym actually works,” Cornelius explained in a podcast appearance. He points out the difficulty of replicating true competitive intensity in regular training sessions, making tournaments an essential proving ground for techniques and strategies.
However, Cornelius is candid about the emotional toll of competition. “I always had a lot of negative emotion around competition honestly,” he admits. “When it’s over, it’s like a relief more than like excitement or happiness that I won.”
This perspective challenges the common narrative that competitors should inherently enjoy the competition experience. Instead, Cornelius frames it as a necessary, if sometimes unpleasant, part of the learning process.
“Honest feedback hurts the most,” he states. “When you’re forced to go and reconcile your weaknesses in competition, it really beats you down, but you have to be comfortable with that destruction and rebuilding of your game.”
Cornelius’s insights offer a valuable perspective for practitioners at all levels, encouraging a mindset that embraces the challenges of competition as opportunities for growth, even when the experience itself may not be enjoyable.
Keenan Cornelius: American Jiu-Jitsu as an Alternative Approach Aligned with American Values
Jiu-jitsu black belt and gym owner Keenan Cornelius is advocating for “American jiu-jitsu” as an alternative to traditional Brazilian jiu-jitsu that better aligns with American cultural values. In a recent podcast interview, Cornelius outlined his vision for American jiu-jitsu as removing unnecessary hierarchies and power dynamics while emphasizing individualism.
“From a first impressions perspective, what people will notice is our care and structure of how we integrate white belts into jiu-jitsu,” Cornelius said. “Then the secondary things you would notice is we don’t have the little secret handshakes at every step of the way.”
He contrasted this with Brazilian jiu-jitsu academies, where students may have to follow strict protocols like asking permission to use the bathroom or being punished for arriving late to class. Cornelius sees these as unnecessary displays of authority that don’t align with American ideals.
“We remove a lot of those traditional aspects that maybe are not obvious when you look at BJJ versus AJJ as like a name, but when you get into the reality of the environment, the discrepancies become much more clear,” he explained.
Cornelius emphasized that American jiu-jitsu puts the focus on serving the customer rather than enforcing a strict hierarchy: “For my academy and offering American Jiu-Jitsu, it’s very focused on the customer as the central point of the entire program.”
He believes this approach will help spread jiu-jitsu to a wider audience in America by removing barriers that may turn people off from traditional Brazilian academies.
Cornelius also argued that Americans should take pride in the technical innovations they’ve contributed to jiu-jitsu, rather than letting them be absorbed under the Brazilian jiu-jitsu umbrella:
“Americans have made contributions, and I don’t think it should sit right with any American that if an American makes a contribution, it gets enveloped by the name Brazilian, just because we compete against them or even compete in a lot of their tournaments. When we do our own techniques, that doesn’t mean they’re now Brazilian techniques – those are American techniques, and the people who originated them need to claim them.”
While acknowledging the Brazilian roots of modern jiu-jitsu, Cornelius believes it’s time for Americans to plant their own flag and develop a distinct American approach to the art. He sees this as part of a broader need to preserve American cultural values rather than simply importing Brazilian culture wholesale.
“If we concede and say we’re not going to put American on anything, we’re basically conceding the individualism, and we’re saying no, actually, we want to import Brazilian culture, we want to import other culture, and that fundamentally erodes the American culture that makes America great,” Cornelius argued.
Through his advocacy for “American jiu-jitsu,” Cornelius presents a compelling case for the recognition and development of a uniquely American approach to the martial art, emphasizing the importance of cultural identity and innovation in the evolution of the sport.
