I bow on mats and crawl off as a sign of respect in the former and age in the latter.

I disagree completely that Helio's outlook was an "old mentality". The same amount of men that treat their wives will love and respect now treated their wives with love and respect then. That is character and that doesn't wax and wane over time. HOW you show someone love and respect DOES change over time. That quote, assuming it's accurate, shows zero love, respect, or validation to his wife at any time over the last few hundred years or more. I'm surprised the Gracie boys, given the machismo and fight they have themselves, wouldn't let their fathers disrespect their mothers, especially in public, like that - assuming the quotes are real.

The more I read about Rorion the more I understand why his boys f*cking him over the way they did.

I have a pic of Carlos and Helio on it. I asked my students how they felt about bowing to it. They didn't seem to care, but did have a preference of continuing to bow(just in respect to our history of our style.

**I started on Helio's side of the family(under a Pedro Sauer affiliate) and am now on Carlos's side of the family(under my instructor Ricardo Cavalcanti)**

Every morning when I get outta bed.

Almost every academy that forces you to buy their own Gi's and rashguards.

We bow on and off before entering the training area have pictures of the old masters through to our head coach. Something I have always done and have no issues with paying respect to anyone who has influenced my style of martial arts. I think its good for the students to know where we have come from as well. We are pretty informal about how we do things though its not part of the class and its not enforced just a que of I'm in the training area now lets learn.

No bowing to any photo, we hug and bump fist, sometimes cry a little but that's just me. My coach's pretty cool.

Never have, never will. Choque ensured that years and years ago.

It's never been part of the culture at the places I have trained .

By the way this is NOT cultural at all. In the early days the Gracies reputation in Brazil itself where that of thugs. It's funny when BJJ first appeared on the scene in the US I do a lot of international business and it surprised me to find that to upper middle class people in Brazil they seemed one step above the Bloods and Cripps here. The whole Luta Livre vs BJJ thing had spilled out onto the streets at times.

Lets face it when you look at the Helio's side of the family they are openly sexist, lie about things, are bully's and thugs. This does not mean the could not fight or if you met them they were not cool but please don't try and say they had values that apply to the greater Martial art tradition. I love how they kept the bowing and servitude to the teacher from Japanese culture but got rid of everything else

We don’t bow to any pictures and we don’t have any (pictures of persons) on the wall … we share the mats with a Japanese Jiu Jitsu group, Aikido group, Karate, Tae kwon do , Hapkido and a Kickboxing group… imagine all would hang a picture of their „grandmasters“ on the wall, hahahaha