you can make your bjj anything you want it to be.
Even within sport bjj people have different and sometimes unique games.
There’s nothing stopping you from having a game that’s very applicable to self defense, mma or just fighting and use sport bjj competition as a means for evaluating and testing those skills regardless of whether you won or lost the competition because somebody did something that was kind of “sport specific”. Who gives a shit. Try to negate their shit. funnel the match in the direction you want and impose your will.
I don’t like the idea of pulling guard, whip guard, berimbolos, etc. so I don’t make that stuff a part of my core game. I also do a balance of gi an nogi to ensure that I’m not dependent upon one of them. If people want to try that stuff on me that’s cool. I’m their training partner trying to help them get better. I know what I’m focusing on improving for myself.
In my recreational opinion, you need to stray a bit outside of your training routine if you feel that way. Yes jiujitsu doesn’t teach striking and it never really did. However, it’s FAR more advanced/integrated than it was a couple decades ago in terms of engagement.
“However, it’s FAR more advanced/integrated than it was a couple decades ago in terms of engagement.”
I fully agree with this!
But I’m with MM on his point…BJJ isnt about fighting anymore. Rare for anyone to even articulate how to apply what is developed in training, much less train it for fighitng.
Look at my point about using grips and kuzushi in a previous post some months back. That simple basic skill was what I planned to be one of my primary tools walking around Seattle in the winter.
even simple concepts are ignored in there fighting applications. Amongst my friends, 1of the key thing we did during much of our traininig time we’d concentrate on arm awareness and control. This tied into accessing waistband for weapons draw…all of which ties back to a basic concept I learned as a white belt of “create space and fill space” The minority of time was fucking about playing and rolling.
Some seem to think just training no-gi and takedowns makes their training applicable defensively…to a degree, yes, certainly more than just nonsense sleeve and bottom lapel gripping. For example, I like ken ken osoto…I trained to use it in a fight, I’m not reliant on fishing for a sleeve and lapel grip, etc… despite having spent lots of time grip fighting and training for judo or jiujitsu and nowadays I’m even less capable training tachiwaza extensively due to my ankles.
Or even a level change and shoot for double is certainly useful in a fight…but what is drilled as your default actions in all of the training (both standing and mat work) that most people engage in?..training embeds mentality to engage and followup, to string things together and work toward submissions, reversals etc. A simple thing I learned as a white belt from guard differs greatly between monkey-fuking and VT…because the objective is different.
-Gi can have “unrealistic” street positions
-But so can no-gi with the 50/50 and playing footsies
-So can wrestling and judo where people will literally lay on their stomach stretched out - which I would argue is the absolute worst thing anyone could ever do in a street fight. Worse than any worm guard or squid / belt guard there is.
-A striker could train 3 times a day for 10 years and all that training is out the window if a part time high school wrestler took him down
What is realistic? If I have a triangle on a guy should he be able to pick me up over his head and slam me unconscious because it’s applicable to a fighting scenario?
We have rules for a reason and it’s mostly for safety. But fortunately there are MMA gyms where it is very tailored to an actual fight. I would also argue that anyone world class in sport BJJ would do just fine on the ground against virtually anyone in an MMA fight.
Only a few times in the last ten years. Much more before that. Nothing really in the last 5 i think.
Last Friday I almost had to break one up between a bunch of 60-70yo Asian and White people at the Audi dealership when I took my car in for servicing lol I was telling the service manager if they would have actually thrown blows there would have been 3 broken hips and new members in the recovery home lol they were so close to hitting each other over who was in line first lol me and the manager stepped in and they backed down a bit but one guy looked at me like he was going to try to swing on me until I told him I saw everything from the beginning and he was in the right but he needed to calm down lol
The thing is though, who is actually going to play guard for example. Just because you want to get creative and expand your game does not mean you still do not know the fundamentals.
People should do some weekly rounds with in the gi and no gi with your opponent in guard punching you with gloves on. You can only use your game to sweep or submit. The round ends when you accomplish one of those 2 objectives.
Maybe do a round starting in full guard, 1 in half guard, 1 in mount, 1 standing etc.
Each round has a different objective. The standing round the 1 guy is swinging while the other has to close the distance to a takedown and hold top position. The half guard round focuses on reclaiming full guard or sweeping. The full guard round you work on sweeps, submissions and stand up. The mounted round you focus on sweep or reclaiming guard.
Line up people up and switch partners for each round to have a different body type. The heavier the glove the harder you go. If you are using 16oz gloves that start cracking away but lighten up the lighter the glove.
This is mostly for jiu jitsu schools that don’t focus on any mma or striking classes. In a mma school I say work everything. use your strikes to close the distance, etc.
If we’re honest, it is all just LARPing isn’t it? I’m sure we’ve all fantasised about what moves we’d use to defend ourselves on “the street” using bjj but we never really know what form any attack will take.
Weapon? Bjj is useless.
Mob attack? Useless.
Surprise attack? Useless.
Honourable duel with bystanders to step in should it get too out of hand? Perfect.
I trained counter-knife, etc with BJJers quite a bit. 4 of my personalgroup partners re LE, one is a dog brother. All have done FMA, etc.
Mob attack and surpise…depend what it meant. But moving people againgt their will is a useful skill Id say and grappling based skills develop that. Even simple crash-cover entry and drive off is useful in those situations…Relson taught vertical forearm crash, Joh Will and others a horizontal, Nlauer SPEAR which is one of the dive variations.
Im just making an observation from my 30 years in a lot of different rooms. I’m all old and retired now, my opinion doesn’t matter.
Just saying that I watched it happen.
I never said he couldn’t. Unless that guy is a wrestler. And hes double fucked if he knows how to strike.
But that still misses my point.
Slaphead articulated it better than I. There just isnt the same “on the mat/real world” balance like there used to be. Its too clean and marketable now to be associated with streetfighting.
I only ever trained for the real world. Competition was part of that training, but only because you could go 99%. I went through gyms and tried to learn what worked.
Spider guard in a gravel parking lot is an invitation to the TBI Unit.