Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Real Life Applications?

[Bible_Belt]

Good points made in this thread. Centaurian's instructor talking about dirty fighting sounds very realistic. There's no such thing as a fair fight. That's the difficulty of any street fight sitaution. You know if one of your friends was being put in a submission hold and screaming in pain you would probably not hesitate to clock someone over the back of the head to save a friend. So unless you are fighting someone who is completely alone, you only have the time it takes for a friend to deliver a kick to the head before ground skills lose the fight for you.

However, almost no ground surface is as forgiving as a wrestling mat. One good takedown or slam should break bones on pavement, then you can roll right off and look for the guy's friends. Coming from a wrestling background, I can say that it is ridiculously easy to take down people who have never grappled or learned bjj. Having said that, you never know someone's background, and if he knows how to wrestle, too, then any weight advantage he has starts to become a big deal. I would never pick a fight with someone who had 50 pounds on me, and if forced into one, boy would I fight dirty! My big bully of a neighbor got in my face once about my dog scaring his wife. He weighs about double what I do. I was so mad I got right back into his face and I was ready to fight with that guy. But the idea of throwing a punch would have been just stupid, like punching a cow. The cow would just look at you. I was going to climb up this redneck's overalls, bite him on the nose just like Centaurian's instructor teaches, choke him, and maybe hit him in the head with a rock if all of that didn't work. But it did not come to that, because that guy saw it all in my eyes. After getting up in my face, he started to be the one backing away. I could see him thinking, "Holy Sh!t, this kid's not scared of my giant fat ass. He's crazy!" Maybe no one has ever stood up to him. But I think that is another real-life application of fighting skills. Even when you don't actually fight, you don't let yourself get pushed around or bullied.

 

[Reyaj]

BB how do you think BJJ compares against someone with a solid wrestling background but no BJJ?

 

[Bible_Belt]

Honestly, I have no formal training in bjj; my only knowledge of it is from being a fan of ufc and mma. Someone who had training in both could answer that question better. But fwiw, after the takedown, the two are very different. Wrestling is staying off your back; bjj includes fighting from your back and learning the guard position. If a wrestler gets taken down, he 'builds his base' - a six-point stance knees/feet/hands - and then stands up as quickly as possible. There are other reversal techniques, but the idea in wrestling that you have drilled into your head is if you're taken down, get up. bjj afaik is different in that being down is not necessarily a bad thing. Gracie's school of fighters in the ufc will sometimes lay on their backs inviting the other fighter to attack them. This is very odd behavior to a wrestler, but I admire those guys' skills.

 

[Reyaj]

Im torn between BJJ and Judo right now. What bothers me about BJJ is exactly what you admire.... it relies too much on being on the ground. Ive watched a lot of MMA also, and often I've seen wrestlers/muay thai guys just beating on jiu jitsu guys while they stay in the guard position like a child. They just sit there and the person standing delivers strike after strike. makes me apprehensive

 

[Bible_Belt]

I just went to a cage fight, mostly amateurs. The guy who got hurt the worst kept trying to submit the other guy in a guillotine. The dude would slip out, punch him several times, then get stuck in another attempted guillotine. I am not well-versed enough in bjj to know what was wrong with the guillotine, but the guy must have had success with it elsewhere, because he seemed confident with it. The guillotine guy lost and got his nose broken.

 

[Kerpal]

BJJ is not only about submissions and staying on the ground. It includes sweeps and escapes so you can get back to your feet. Submissions are only 1 part of it. The guard should be learned as a form of "damage control" in case you get taken down and can't get back up immediately. It is the best position to be in if you have to be on the ground and not in the dominant position, because you can sweep and submit people from there. It is not a position to go to intentionally.

 

[Reyaj]

do you learn submissions from standing up?

 

[Kerpal]

I've learned a few but most of them are designed for the ground (that's why I cross train in boxing, Muay Thai and wrestling). But there are a few, for example you can arm drag someone and then put them in a rear naked choke, or "duck under" (don't know the proper name for the technique) into an arm triangle choke, or hip toss someone and go from there straight into an arm bar.

 

[Belisarius]

The reason I got into BJJ was because I wrestled for 4 years in highschool and my little 160 pound friend who was a purple belt in BJJ would whoop my ass wrestling in his apartment. I'm 235 with 10-12% body fat. Wrestling teaches good ground instincts and takedowns, but because there are so many illegal holds in wrestling, you don't learn to protect yourself in certain ways and you leave way to many openings for a BJJ guy to come in and take advantage of. I have a ****ty guard and my best moves from the guard are sweeps and escapes so that I can get back on top to go on the offense. BJJ will teach you to control the position on the ground so that, in a street fight, hopefully you wont have to get into your guard. Also BJJ gi techniques can be very effective when you use them in real life on peoples shirts or jackets. Also there are some bad ass moves you can pull off if you have a long sleeve shirt on. I know this from drunken party wrestling.

 

[Belisarius]

Also nobody steps into the octogon these days without any bjj training. Even those wrestling/muy thai guys you see delivering the blows from the top know bjj guaranteed. They have to because if one of them didn't know any at all it would be a nice big hole in their game to be exploited.

 

[speakeasy]

Are you sh!tting me! Do people really carry guns on them everywhere they go in America!

Of course not. Many have them in their homes, but in most states it's illegal to carry a concealed, loaded weapon around. And those that do have permits to legally carry them around aren't the people you need to worry about anyway.

I notice that a lot of non-martial artists like to always bring up the gun issue when people are talking about the effectiveness of martial arts. Maybe it makes them feel better, I don't know, but it's a pattern I've seen often.

As to the effectiveness of BJJ, at my school the other day, I was working the sidemount on an inexperienced guy much bigger than me. I'm 5'8" about 160lbs, he was pretty tall, I'm thinking maybe 6'2" - 6'3"ish or so and definitely more than 200lbs. He absolutely could not escape from my sidemounted position. Everytime he tried to throw me off or rotate out, I'd keep left knee flush to his hip and the ground, control his arms and use my right extended foot to adjust my center of gravity whichever way he moved. This guy was way stronger than me, yet I had him pinned to the ground and could not get up. THIS is the power of martial arts!

 

[speakeasy]

Also nobody steps into the octogon these days without any bjj training.

Wouldn't know it from that last Liddell/Jardin fight!

 

[Phyzzle]

ANYONE interested in learning (and arguing) about martial arts should check out bullshido.com.

The consensus is that wrestling and Judo are more effective for fast fights.

(SLAM, on top, slug slug, over.)

But if the the fight passes the 10 second mark, you'd better know your BJJ.

Of course, it's better to study both (duh) or study MMA from a veteran who has won a few.

 

[speakeasy]

"
"I see alot of kids on this forum that has been training BJJ etc, for a couple of years and now think that they are the fvcking gods of fighting. The truth is that unless you've trained for a life time, all the moves you've learned will fly out the window when you are in a life threatening situation. Your heart will be pumping, the adrenalin will be flowing and you'll be scared sh!tless - and there will be no second chances."



And what about those of us who have been training different martial arts from 1st grade? I have been in a few fights and my training sure didn't go "out the window". I have also only recently got into bjj, my bread and butter are wrestling and boxing. I have enough experience to know what I am talking about.

I guess the point I'm getting at is don't rely on any one weapon system.

For just basic street fighting, I think even taking just straight up boxing might be the most effective thing you can learn. The punches are simple, jab, cross, hook and uppercut. Of course there's the footwork, bobbing and weaving, timing, combinations and all that stuff to make it more complex, but your four basic punches, you are not going to forget in the heat of the moment. Now also throw in a few Muay Thai elbow and knee strikes, and now we're talkin'. And sh*t, if you know even a little BJJ, you will make easy work of an untrained fighter on the ground. At the very least, the other guy(untrained) won't be able to do much to you down there because you'll check him with your guard.

 

[Belisarius]

Wouldn't know it from that last Liddell/Jardin fight!

Jardin and Liddell are primarily strikers but both have grappling experience and have submitted people before. Chuck is a purple belt in BJJ which usually entails 4-5 years of training. Jardin trains at Jackson's Submission Fighting in albuquerque, NM.

 

[Reyaj]

What happend in that fight? I see Jardin won..... that has to be a shock... was it a close fight?

 

[speakeasy]

What happend in that fight? I see Jardin won..... that has to be a shock... was it a close fight?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4BOKE2_xMs

 

[Bible_Belt]

Liddell just never found his knockout punch, and Jardin kept landing a kick to Chuck's ribs that scored points.

btw, the purses in that fight - Liddell got $500K, and for beating him, Jardin got a measly $14K. He agreed to do the fight for $7k and got a doubling bonus for winning. But the discrepancy in pay was extreme.

 

[Reyaj]

It strikes me why Liddell hasn't been knocked out so many more times. He leaves his hands down and throws so wide when he does punch.... I dont get it....

 

[speakeasy]

Word has it that many boxers think Chuck sucks. I don't think he'd last a second in a boxing ring. I'm a bit baffled by his fighting stance too, but then, he was the light heavyweight champion so obviously he was doing something right.