A favorite pass time hobby of many practitioners of martial arts is to compare one martial art to another. Which of the two is the better? Are there differences in how they perform on the ground and on standup? What would happen if the top practitioners of the two martial arts face one another? There are so many different types of fighting arts, from Karate to Dumog. Today, we will discuss these questions in relation to the martial arts of Hayastan and BJJ.
What is Hayastan Grappling System?
Hayastan, informally, is the name that the native people of the Armenia use to refer to their country. And in terms of martial arts, it’s a fighting system that encompasses several different grappling skillsets all into one set. Originally created by Gokor Chivchyan, Hayastan has turned out to be one of the best and most effective grappling arts systems in the history of martial arts.
Back in the day, the practitioners of martial arts usually took a more restrictive view to martial arts evolution. In this sense, the top most respected professors stuck to their own guns, so to say. What this meant was that the competitive nature endured and it was Gracie Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta Livre vs Judo vs Sambo, etc.
Well, Gokor Chivchyan and his teacher Gene Lebell understood that the future is not into dividing martial arts skillsets – but into fusing them together so that the best techniques endure while the others fall into disuse. And this moto is what helped them create the Hayastan grappling system, which is to this very day highly popular among martial arts practitioners.
It’s an all-encompassing system that involves chokes, leglocks, joint locks, neck cranks and everything else in-between. By mastering these elements, the practitioners of the Hayastan grappling system are known to hold their own against the experts in the other grappling-based martial arts such as BJJ.
Who are some Hayastan fighters?
The leading Hayastan practitioner and fighter, without a doubt, is the grappling system’s founder, Gokor Chivchyan himself. It’s said that his unofficial fight record comprises of over 400 individual fights – of which he’s lost not a single one. This mirrors BJJ’s legendary Rickson Gracie’s own merits – as he’s also touted as one of the world’s most successful martial artists and fighters of all time.
Have you heard about a UFC fighter by the name of Ronda Rousey? Not that long ago, UFC president Dana White stated that there was no way that women would get to compete in the world’s leading MMA promotion. Well, Ronda Rousey was one of the organization’s pioneers in the women’s division.
She destroyed much of her opposition in record-breaking time and she became one of the most dominant champions that the organization has seen. As it turns out, she was trained by none other than Gokor Chivchyan himself, ever since she was 13 years old. The inside-out knowledge of Judo helped Ronda dismantle her opposition and she ran through the opponents like a train.
But there are also lots of other Hayastan practitioners that have made a name for themselves as top MMA practitioners. Some of them are Gegard Mousasi, Karo Parisyan, Manny Gamburyan, and several others. This cements the validity of the Hayastan grappling system as a completely legit martial art that can produce champions from gifted athletes from all over the world.
Gokor Chivichyan VS Van Oliverira
In a super fight, and under BJJ rules, Gokor takes on 9 time BJJ World Champ Van Oliverira. As you can see in the video, althought there was no submission, Gokor was able to pass and maintain side control. He does however get reversed and end up out of bounds.
