Self defense and BJJ - BJJ Pressure

Here are some thoughts on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and self defense.

Why is BJJ useful for self defense? Is BJJ better than such-and-such martial art?

Check out this clip of Matt Thornton on Aliveness in martial arts:

Essentially, any martial art in which you train with aliveness (real resistance and sparring), will develop great attributes for fighting or self-defense. Any martial art which does not involve a lot of live training is a waste of time, even if they focus more on self-defense. Are there differences in the effectiveness of different martial arts when trained with aliveness? Yes, probably, but I don’t think the difference is so much that it should be a big deal. Instead of spending so much time arguing on the Internet, everyone would be better of spending that time training.

If we agree that aliveness is the key ingredient, then grappling is a great choice because sparring regularly in grappling is low impact and more approachable for most people than sparring in say, boxing or Muay Thai.

Is sport BJJ moving too far away from old-school self-defense based BJJ?

I think the main benefit of training is to build attributes, rather than technique. When you train, you build balance, sensitivity, timing, strength, cardio, fear control, breath control, and things of that nature. So I wouldn’t worry overly much if you’re practicing berimbolos or things like that which are less applicable for a fight. The technique isn’t as important as the attributes, and you’re still getting a lot of benefit out of it.

In BJJ circles, the common Gracie basics self-defense curriculum is designed to defend against common attacks from an unskilled opponent, like a wide haymaker swing, or a standing side headlock, that no one with skills would ever do. And this is typically practiced with little or no live resistance. I don’t necessarily consider this to be effective self-defense training.

Of course, if your main goal is self-defense, then you should train with strikes sometimes, and also with weapons and multiple opponents. But the training should be alive, with real and unpredictable resistance. Ideally it would also incorporate scenario training, with decision making and verbal de-escalation. A great source for training like this is Craig Douglas, aka SouthNarc of Shivworks.

What about awareness and verbal agility for self-defense?

This kind of stuff is really under-rated in some circles. Avoiding the fight, or at least avoiding getting sucker-punched, is arguably of much more importance than being good in a fight.

For more on this, check out SouthNarc on ‘managing unknown contacts’:
http://www.stickgrappler.net/2012/09/self-defense-southnarc-aka-craig_718.html
If this link goes down, Google it. It’s worth the effort.

Also check out these videos on pre-assault cues: