I never thought it would go this far.
Hundreds of pages spanning multiple forums. A countless number of photoshop meme's. I think as of right now the total views across all the forums is nearing 200,000 views. James Paredes has become somewhat of a celebrity at this point because of all the attention he has been getting on the internet after the review I wrote on Jiu Jitsu forums (http://www.jiujitsuforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=35292).
I think at this point I need to weigh in on this. The amount of attention this guy is starting to get is beyond ridiculous. There are obviously some people out there with a little bit too much time on their hands. The point was to draw some attention to the fact that there are people out there that should not be teaching martial arts. James Paredes clearly fell into this category but I'm pretty shocked at how far it has gone.
I chose to leave out some details of what I witnessed the day I went to his dojo, so at some point in the near future I am going to do a video response to everyone on the net and give a verbal account of what happened.
A few of my friends actually went back to his dojo to try and get a picture with him and were told that there is no longer a Jiu Jitsu program where he formerly taught. James Paredes deleted his facebook account and is laying pretty low right now. I definitely cannot blame him since he has been constantly ridiculed for inventing his own style of Jiu Jitsu that is clearly useless. I think that he may as well disappear because at this point anyone in the grappling community knows who he is and would probably instantly recognize him if they saw him in public. But being the type of human being I am, I have been thinking a lot about how to make a positive outcome of this entire situation.
First I think the ridicule needs to stop. Second I truly believe that I would like to talk to James personally and have him confront the mistakes that he has made. Others in the Jiu Jitsu community also feel this way, and we as martial artists should reach out to this guy. He clearly needs to understand that there are people out there that want to help, my friend Jack has graciously offered to teach his students real Jiu Jitsu for free.
What I would like to do is this: Convince James to accept his mistakes, put on a fresh white belt and join a legit academy in the area. I think that we need to give this person who is clearly misguided a chance at redemption. I would much prefer to see a happy ending here than to witness a seemingly endless stream of ridicule over the internet forums. I think we should hold ourselves to a higher standard and help this person instead of wasting our time thinking about the next way to humiliate James Paredes.
I hope that some of the other Jiu Jitsu instructors in the area would be willing to work with me to make this happen. I think that this would be a much better representation of the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community and would show that we are compassionate and willing to extend our arms in order to help people that really need it, not a bunch of embittered small minded assholes who love to prey on others weaknesses just to get a laugh.
James Paredes, I'm going to stick my neck out for you. I hope that you read this and are willing to accept someone that is reaching out to you.
