Today, I am going to talk about a very common question, should we focus more on gi or no-gi training? Some schools focus more on gi training, and other schools focus more on no-gi training.
In my opinion, you should focus a little more on gi training. I’m going to explain why I feel this way. I believe that you should definitely do both. If you want to be a complete grappler, you should do both.
I prefer gi more than no-gi, because my style of jiu-jitsu works better with the gi. However, I train both gi and no-gi.
I believe that you should train more in gi than no-gi because with the gi, we have more tools to use. We have lapels and we have grips we can use.
When you see the results from gi and no-gi tournaments, you will see that most of the winners are grapplers who do gi tournaments. In my opinion the ADCC is the biggest no-gi tournament in the world. When you see the results of the ADCC, you will see that the winners of most divisions are the grapplers who also compete in gi tournaments.
When you see the results from gi tournaments, you will see that the grapplers who win, train in the gi. What I mean is, you would think that the grapplers who win no-gi tournaments would only train in no-gi. But that’s not the case. Most of the winners at ADCC are the grapplers who train both gi and no-gi.
Of course, a few grapplers have won ADCC, who only train no-gi. However, most winners train both gi and no-gi. I have never seen a competitor who only trains no-gi, win a gi tournament.

So in my opinion, you should definitely train both gi and no-gi. Training in the gi will help you a lot. Of course, your gi game will improve, but your no-gi will improve a lot too. Because when you train in gi, you will get stuck in many positions where the gi makes it harder to escape. If you can escape from positions in a gi, then is should be easier to escape from those same positions in no-gi.
I believe that everyone should train no-gi because once you don’t have grips, then it’s much harder than if you are used to grips in the gi.
If I had to make a schedule for training, then I would train in gi 60% of the time, and no-gi 40% of the time.
At Marcelo’s academy, we train 50% of the time in the gi and 50% of the time no-gi. I think that is the best way to be a complete grappler.
Try to avoid training only no-gi. Training in the gi will help your no-gi game a lot. I reached this conclusion from the results in gi competitions and ADCC no-gi competitions. The best grapplers train both.

Here is the breakdown of my key tips regarding should we focus more on gi or no-gi training:

1. I think we should train both gi and no-gi.
2. I believe training more in gi will help you become a more complete fighter. We have more tools to use, such as lapels and grips.
3. Training in gi will also help your no-gi game for sure. For example, it can be hard to escape from some positions in the gi. If you can escape from those positions in gi then it should be much easier to escape from those same positions in no-gi.

I hope these tips help you. Oss.