This exactly. We were always taught to try to “he harmonious”, but if in a real world situation, do what you need to do to get home safely. (and the best #1 recommendation was to not be afraid to leave your ego and run like hell. Best way not to get hit? Don’t be there!). But yeah, a lot of the “what if he doesn’t go down “properly” when I do this?” was answered with the “well, then look how the side of his neck is exposed in this position.”.
I learned this the hard way once with a somewhat troublesome guy who always what kind of forcing the “what if” situations during practice. The situation was being thrown into a roll, and his “what if” was apparently “what if I decide to fight the throw, and try to not roll safely out of it?” The answer was “you get a broken collarbone when you hit the ground”. Felt horrible, even after my instructors sat me down and had the “it was his own damn fault, don’t blame yourself” talk with me.
BJJ as pioneered by the Gracies is an amazing invention, and it’s fun as hell to watch and to play. But don’t try to pull guard and take a 2-on-1 fight to the ground. It’s not going to go your way.
That’s another misconception about bjj. Bjj is not about pulling guard! We train to take and keep top position. Where the misconception comes from is that if we do wind up on the bottom we can still win the fight, unlike most other arts. That’s why at most tournaments pulling guard isn’t allowed, so on the off chance the practitioner is in an actual fight he or she doesn’t have the habit. The 2 on 1 argument is valid, but every fight I’ve ever seen has been 1 on 1, and most people who think their art will do well against multiple opponents are probably in for a surprise. But it’s worth noting here that true Gracie Jiu Jitsu has a lot of standing techniques for exactly this reason.
The fiction that MMA is “no rules” fighting does much to support this style of fighting. MMA has tons of rules,
True, but remember that bjj isn’t mma. We train for to handle dirty fighting too. And remember that the bjj guy can fight dirty too, with the advantage of having full positional control.
bjj doesn’t do well against weapons
Nothing does, but we do train knife and gun defenses, such as they are. But of course the bjj guy can have a weapon too.
Have you tried using it in any? I’ve had my eyeball laying on my cheek, and been held by my throat over a 4 or 5 story drop, so I’m not exactly unfamiliar with no rules fighting.
Oof that’s a gory story. And yes I’ve unfortunately had to use it to defend myself, and found it exactly like class: double leg, take his back, apply the choke. As usual he was reaching for my eyes (everyone does in a panic) but good luck with that. I was able to calm him down and deescalate. When I let him go he attacked again and it repeated again exactly the same way. I was just trying to end the situation and was able to do so without hurting him.
A few of the people I’ve trained with over the years are downright scary though and love to get into street fights, and it works the same way for them, again and again. A legit knock against bjj is that it doesn’t really discourage this stuff, at least in my experience, but we use the fights that do happen as a learning experience and compare notes on what happened in the fight. And I should add that most of the people at most bjj academies are like me and hope to never use it. But over the years I’ve met some downright scary folks.
In my limited experience, grappling is the last thing you do before you lose. Real life and death fights rarely involve monomachy, which is another good reason to avoid them.
Don’t get me wrong, I avoid fights! But what you say hasn’t been my experience at all. And if you include my peripheral experience (the people I train with), I’ve got a lot of it.
I have never understood why Gracie fighters, more than any others, so strongly resist the idea that their art is optimized for formal combat. It’s not an insult.
Because it’s completely wrong. For better or worse it evolved for use in full combat street fights. That’s what it’s for. You can argue that it’s not effective for that (I’d disagree, but it’s still a plausible argument), but you’d be factually wrong to argue that it wasn’t built for it. But of course it depends on your definition of combat. If you’re allowing the use of magic rings, then of course bjj won’t work well, but nothing works well against magic rings.
I’m an overweight 53 year old. I train BJJ 5 times a week. I got my brown belt 3 weeks ago.
I love BJJ because it’s the only sport I know where I can beat athletic 25 year olds through cunning and technique. I’ve played a lot of sports over the years, and at my age, any fit youngster can outrun me. I won’t be playing soccer competitively any time soon.
I don’t do it to become a better street fighter. The last time I got into a fight was when I was seven. (A nine year old got me in a head lock, so I pinched him hard. He let go, but the other kids thought I had “cheated”. I thought they were a bunch of idiots.)
That said, I think I’d kick the shit out of most people. And that is why I would never ever get into a street fight. Because if you look at me, a pudgy middle aged math professor with an enthusiasm for paisley shirts, I don’t think I’d look threatening. You never know what people know.
An uncle of mine is a high school principal. He once made the mistake of trying to break up a fight between two girls in the hallway, and got a knife in his thigh for his efforts.
I think this is a bit of a straw man, though. No one’s arguing that BJJ training turns you into a superhero. All anyone’s arguing is that it increases your odds. Even if you have multiple attackers, you’re much better off having some BJJ training than not having that training.
You never know what the other guy has in reserve until he shows it to you. First rule of fight club: survive. Not “don’t talk about fight club.” The first rule is survive.
For example, at last night’s BJJ practice, I went up against a much lower ranked guy whom I have beaten many times in the past, and he knows it. He rolled his eyes when I picked him out of the crowd to roll with. At the very end of the match, he simply reached up and cross choked me. I was tired and I could not get out. I was stiff-necked, slow-moving and couldn’t wrangle or resist with brute force; and my brain was tired, so I could not resist with technique. He simply applied more arm strength, realizing he had a big fish on his hook, and he was facing the clock which I could not see; I tapped his arms just as the buzzer was buzzing. He did the exact right thing at the precise right time when I was unable to prevent or circumvent it. And it was unexpected because I had “beaten” him about 4 or 5 times that very round by being positionally dominant but letting him go, so that we could keep rolling without a reset and get the most out of the practice.
And honestly, I don’t see any of it as bad. It’s all good. It’s good for my ego to get beaten at something I like to do. It’ll make me more aware next time: this guy, cross chokes, my level of tiredness towards the end of rounds, etc. But the point is what Medievalist said: anyone can lose or win at any time for any reason. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Or practice some kata; those are a great comfort because they are 100% predictable.
A friend and I were in a bar and some schmuck who was completely plastered overheard us discussing a technique. He absolutely insisted that my friend come outside and fight. My friend rolled his eyes, followed him outside, and I tagged along to watch. My friend walked around him a couple of times quickly and then caught the guy as he started to fall down like they were the best of buddies, “Hey man, you okay? Let’s go have another beer!” And we went back inside.
This is a commonly repeated yarn. And anyone who says grappling isn’t important is a fool but it’s not all important. As to the “all fights” legend, I’d say that it’s true in that so few people understand how to punch. My experience is that punches from studied punchers end fights. I think that the thing that MMA has shown us is that to be enable to enact your plan you need to have a strong game plan on either side of your preferred range.
On a separate note the history of those early UFC’s show that the dominance of BJJ wasn’t an accident. The Gracie’s had been holding competitions in Brazil for decades before hand and set up the rules to allow for them to show case their art. In Asia different rules (allowing people to kick downed opponents) and different environments (competition in rings instead of cages with mats) conspire to make grappling a less critical factor.
Too true. The more training the better. And honestly all those BJJ techniques are out there in the popular consciousness now. It is worth it to study them because they are now so common place.
True - for example everyone knows about the rear naked choke, which used to be called the sleeper hold. And armbars and guillotines. So fighting kinds of people are itching to try them out. What they don’t know is all the subtle stuff like passing and escaping, which are things that take years of training to do well under pressure.
But all of it is pointless if you don’t protect your face from getting hit or kicked!
I know nothing about fighting, but my daydreams of what would I do in a life threatening situation is that, knowing that I know nothing about fighting, is to go straight for the eyeballs. Horrible, I know, I almost feel guilty about it but we’re talking life and death, not a playground (or airline) fight. But does it at least raise my odds from 0% to a slightly higher chance, or am I delusional?
Re: Bruce Lee, wife and I watched a fantastic documentary, and ever since we quote “the style of no style” frequently. Especially regarding our living room decor.
