This more of a thought experiment, than me trying to make a specific point. But every week I find some fairly interesting BJJ news articles that get me thinking about culture, examples include: - Cub Swanson not being allowed to train at Gracie jiu-jitsu gyms prior to his Kron Gracie fight - Joe McCaffery, the American purple belt who promoted himself to brown whilst ranting against the 'Brazilian priesthood' - The IBJJF banning Globetrotters It got me thinking about how much of these conflicts could be explained, at least in part, by differences that start at the national culture. Specifically i will show that Brazilian culture is very different to the other 9 countries with the most beltchecker verified profiles. When I say 'culture', i am specifically talking about culture as defined by dutch psychologist Geert Hofstede. In my opinion, his research is by far the best on the subject. In his measurements, there are 6 dimensions to national culture, but i will focus on the 2 I think are most relevant to BJJ: 1. Power Distance Index (PDI) is the extent to which a culture accepts the unequal distribution of power. A high PDI (scored 1-100) means that people accept authority, even if it is distant and they probably thinking there are benefits to it. In a low PDI country, a waiter might take to twitter and tell the world how rude the President was if the President neglected to say 'thank you' whilst being served. 2. Individualism Versus Collectivism (IDV) is the extent to which people think the rights of the group or individual should be prioritised. A country with a low IDV score values group identity and group loyalty. Unlike a high score where individual values and achievements are paramount. Here are the scores for the 10 countries with the most verified beltchecker profiles: 1. United States of America, PDI: 40, IDV: 91 2. Germany, PDI: 35, IDV: 67 3. United Kingdom, PDI: 35, IDV: 89 4. Canada, PDI: 39, IDV: 80 5. Israel, PDI: 13, IDV: 54 6. Finland, PDI: 33, IDV: 63 7. Netherlands, PDI: 38, IDV: 80 8. Belgium, PDI: 65, IDV: 75 9. Denmark, PDI: 18, IDV: 74 10. Brazil, PDI: 69, IDV: 38 As you can see, Brazil has a higher PDI and lower IDV than any of the others. The combination of the 2 is quite unique. In case you are wondering, Japan would look most like Brazil based on these 10. Personally i thought it was pretty bad taste not to allow Cub Swanson into a gym that had no serious connection to Kron Gracie, but had i grown up or been significantly influenced by a high PDI / low IDV culture then the decision would probably make a lot more sense to me.

You understood the score for Brazil correctly, 38 is not an extreme score though, just notably lower than the other countries in that sample. For example, China is 20 which is a pretty hardcore collectivist culture. It's research by Geert Hofstede, you can lookup countries here: https://www.hofstede-insi[...]countries/ The research isn't specific to a sport context and individuals within a culture will vary. I was speculating whether these national level differences could be seen to have a significant influence within our BJJ community. Of course, it could just be the individuals involved!

I would just say that I tend to take social science research generalizations with a healthy appetite for specifics, and context. A lot of social science research, despite best intentions, tends to be over generalized, pseudo scientific, and not particularly reliably to make forward predictions. If you ask a roomful of economists a question, you will quickly run out of hands, 'on the other hand, on the other hand, on the other hand.' And it is important to remember that 2/3 of Psychology studies fail to replicate when replication attempts are made, making the average Psychology study less reliable than just flipping a fair coin to make a decision. That is not to say tha social science studies, especially qualitative case studies, cannot provide us useful frameworks, and context. But, many social science research articles, especially in the field of Psychology given that discipline's abysmal replication rates, have a lot in common with horoscopes wrapped in pseudo-scientific trappings.

Modern economics is a crock of shite for reasons that would take me a long time to unpack. The failure to replicate 2/3 of studies in psychology begs the question what the equivalent rate is in other disciplines. It's actually the same as medicine which might alarm some people. There is a lot of crap in the social sciences generally but this is solid research within its limitations.

Cool, love me some academic data! So, thanks for that Alex. :D As to the general question, there is very definitely a big impact of national culture on BJJ in different countries, in terms of how clubs are run. Christian talked about that in that Let's Talk Jiu Jitsu podcast he did recently, where he mentioned how in Denmark people are a lot more informal. No titles, no automatic cap-doffing to authority. That gets reflected in BJJ: I doubt it's a coincidence that BJJ Globetrotters was founded by a Scandinavian. To an extent there is an impact on the actual BJJ too, but probably less so. E.g., the heavy wrestling influence on BJJ in the US, as it's not unusual for a skilled wrestler to wander into a BJJ gym, meaning everybody else has to adapt. In the UK, that's pretty rare.