Dante Leon grew up training Jiu-Jitsu almost entirely in the gi.
When he began competing in the mid-2000s, no-gi was barely an afterthought at most academies, with the weekly schedule typically built around gi training and only a single, sparsely attended no-gi class squeezed in.
He recalled it as:
Mainly gi every day or every week, and then there would be like a Friday or Saturday no-gi day, and it’d be the smallest class in the gym.
Leon has since become one of the top no-gi competitors in the world, reaching an ADCC semifinal and picking up multiple championship wins on the global circuit.
Even so, he remains convinced that gi training is the foundation serious Jiu-Jitsu development should start from:
I still believe the best way to get good at Jiu-Jitsu is starting in the gi.
And I think the people who are good in the gi are the best in no-gi..
His own trajectory backs that view, as Leon came up through the IBJJF circuit, winning Pan Americans as a juvenile blue belt – before taking back-to-back bronze medals at NOGI Worlds and eventually winning the title in 2019.
He extended that reasoning to competitors who train exclusively in no-gi:
Even no-gi, strictly no-gi guys, usually they’re really good in the gi.
I’m not saying they’ve won world titles, but if they dedicated themselves the same way, you have to think that they would probably be very close to the level that they are at no-gi.