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Thread: Real BJJ

  1. #1

    Real BJJ

    Anytime I hear or read about someone talking about the supposed difference between self-defense oriented BJJ and competition oriented BJJ, I throw up a little in my mouth. Rather than write a lot to explain why, I will show you why I have that perspective. Watch this:







    What kind of jiu-jitsu was that? Self-defense? Or sport? Here is the answer – yes, to both. It is just jiu-jitsu, the way it has been trained for 90+ years.

    This was how I practiced for years with Professor Megaton Dias. This video was filmed around 1994 and most of it was shot in the old Boys and Girls club backroom south of Bethany Home Road (our original location when Meg frist started teaching publicly). No windows, no A/C, and not much mercy from the instructor! Please tell me what parts of that were sport only, or were self-defense only. You won’t be able to, because Jiu-Jitsu encompasses all of it.

    Here is one the biggest thigns you need to understand - BJJ is like guitar playing. If you can truly play the guitar, then you can play different things without a problem. It does not take much to play a hard rock riff or solo like Eddie Van Halen, or a jazz line like Pat Metheny, or a classical part like Andres Segovia if you are already good at guitar playing and understand the underlying principles. It is all guitar. The techniques to play one of those are fundamentally the same as one of the others. You may certainly concentrate on one, and not pay much attention to the others, but that is solely on the individual, not the methodology or system.

    Further, look at the video again. Note how part of it was filmed at a local karate school that Mega gave a workshop at. Look at the flooring. Carpet, not mats, and thin carpet at that, laid directly on concrete. But wait! That must mean the jiu-jitsu cannot work, because there are no mats. And yet, there they are, doing the techniques with no issue. We also sparred with all the lights off, and sparred in the parking lot. We even had Vale Tudo Friday nights, where we put on gloves and trained.

    Also look at the first two techniques shown at the very beginning. At what point during Meg shooting in, taking the other guy down, establishing top control and going to the arm bar could the bottom guy eye gouge. or bite, or headbutt? Here is a hint to the answer - never.

    Note also that how we generally ended up on the ground – by being taken there. No guard pulls, no starting on the knees. We fought for the takedown and continued the fight. And you see the results – that often the fight is ended right away within seconds. THAT is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

    So please forgive me when people who have quite literally never ever spent one minute on BJJ mats try to tell me how my art is not about true “fighting”. And all that is why I just laugh when people who have never trained tell me that “fighting on the ground will get you killed in the street”.

    *bonus points to anyone who can spot me in three sections on the video
    Last edited by Cecil Burch; 06-06-2019 at 12:45 PM.
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  2. #2

    Unhappy

    Good stuff Cecil!

    I have always believed- good jiu jitsu is good jiu jitsu. Sound

    Unfortunately the sport vs self defense argument is one that regretfully always resurfaces with the untrained.

  3. #3
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    Beautiful! All of my belt promotions have been by Royce Gracie; I have the pictures and signatures to prove it! .

    He is as old school as it comes and all of his seminars are run with self-defense in mind.

    During one of the seminars, some guy slammed his own head down on the mat during a takedown and acted like a smartass when questioned about the way he did it. Royce invited him outside to try that in the parking lot on the concrete.

  4. #4
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    Good post.

    Quite a contrast -- I trained in Okinawan Goju for almost 30 years. There is definitely a big difference between the Japanese version which is more sport oriented and the Okinawan version which is more defense oriented (mostly, not all schools follow this rule).

    The perspective on Jiu-Jitsu is interesting.

  5. #5
    Unfortunately that is not the bjj that is taught it the majority of school now.

  6. #6
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Killer montage, boss!
    ”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB

  7. #7
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    Awesome post Cecil!

    Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by makul View Post
    Unfortunately that is not the bjj that is taught it the majority of school now.
    Actually, I disagree. I have trained literally all over the world and the majority of academies are more like that. Are there significant numbers that don't and are watered down? Sure. But like I said clearly in the original post - that is not the problem with BJJ as a methodology or system, it is the problem with individuals.

    Why is it that people always feel the need to say something like this, but yet we never hear the same thing with defensive handgun training? We know there are a good amount of bad instructors teaching poor ways of using a handgun for self-defense, but we ALWAYS blame that instructor, not a blanket throw the baby out with the bathwater approach that so many people can't wait to do with BJJ. It is weird to me.
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  9. #9
    Not sure what happened to my response or Cecil's quote.

    My response was what is on the video is not representative of what is currently being taught in BJJ schools. Many schools today have gone the way of sport jiu jitsu and training for points rather than what was originally intended. Does that mean that BJJ is a bad system? No not at all. What it means is that a lot of newer students are concentrating and learning things such as worm guard, berimbolo, etc. Ask how many have actually taken a punch or a strike or even delivered one and more likely than not you'll get blank stares. It's not a system issue though in the sense that is what the owner is teaching. One has to search out the right school to suit their endeavors. To be clear, there are different schools now. There those who concentrated on sport(majority), self defense (minority) and those whose techniques they teach equally flow between the 2 (think Marcelo Garcia).

    That is all I'm saying. This is not a swipe at BJJ especially since I've been doing it for a really long time, but rather the state I see.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by makul View Post
    Not sure what happened to my response or Cecil's quote.

    My response was what is on the video is not representative of what is currently being taught in BJJ schools. Many schools today have gone the way of sport jiu jitsu and training for points rather than what was originally intended. Does that mean that BJJ is a bad system? No not at all. What it means is that a lot of newer students are concentrating and learning things such as worm guard, berimbolo, etc. Ask how many have actually taken a punch or a strike or even delivered one and more likely than not you'll get blank stares. It's not a system issue though in the sense that is what the owner is teaching. One has to search out the right school to suit their endeavors. To be clear, there are different schools now. There those who concentrated on sport(majority), self defense (minority) and those whose techniques they teach equally flow between the 2 (think Marcelo Garcia).

    That is all I'm saying. This is not a swipe at BJJ especially since I've been doing it for a really long time, but rather the state I see.

    Again, I disagree. Taking a broad swipe at "most schools" and saying they mostly teach more one way is absolutely NOT what I experience in my travels and in my encounters with people visiting my academy. That more schools teach all competition and outnumber SD or general purpose BJJ is a trope that one side wants the public to believe, but it is 100% in contradiction to what I have seen firsthand. As a matter of fact, I am starting to get BJJ academies that directly want to bring me in and teach weapons based stuff to their regular students. I will be doing one in NorCal in August.

    I have taught at or trained in schools all over the world - multiple places in the UK, Portugal, Brazil, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, and almost every single state in the US. Are there a lot that focus on sport? Yes. "Most"? Not even the majority. The vast majority have their feet in both worlds. It might be a balance of 70/30 or something similar, but the gyms that are exclusively sport are really small. People tend to talk about them because a) there are a number of people trying to convince people it is true, and b) some of those such schools are some of the most visible such as the Miyao bros, or Atos. That is perception, not reality.
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