Why BJJ Is Useful As a Form of Self-Defense
BJJ is one of the fastest growing forms of martial arts in the world today and for good reason, it’s effective. It may be one of the hardest to learn and the learning curve may be steep, but even a few months of lessons are worth a lot to the average person. More so when we’re talking about self-defense.
For starters, blue and purple belt holders, which are considered as average fighters in BJJ, can more than hold their own against a would-be attacker.
The reason for this is rather simple and it’s that even though blue and purple belters in BJJ are “average”, they already have years of experience under their belt. Just to get a blue belt, a BJJ practitioner would have to spend a few months up to a year. In that same time frame, practitioners of other martial arts could have moved up more than just one belt.
This isn’t to say that Brazilian JiuJitsu is the best martial art out there or the hardest. Rather, this is to say that to progress in JiuJitsu, one has to study it, making it both an art and a science.
Grappling and ground fighting, for example, are two things that are foreign to many people. This is in huge contrast to other martial arts that employ punching, kicking, elbowing and other much more simple concepts.
In JiuJitsu, a practitioner has to learn not just how to take someone to the ground, but the little details that come with it. This includes the proper grip, foot placement and hand placement, among many other things.
The Unfamiliarity of the Ground
We talked about how unfamiliar the ground is for the uneducated fighter and unless you’re getting mugged by a seasoned JiuJitsu practitioner, your experience and training should give you an upper hand.
Even if your knowledge is just basic and you’ve only trained for a few months, you’d know how to use leverage. You’d know that most people will expose their back and try to stand up if you take them down. More importantly, you know that when you take your attacker down, he or she wouldn’t know what to do against you.
The Bottom Line
UFC 1, 2 and 3 putJiuJitsu, specifically BJJ, on the map and made BJJ a common staple fighting style among many professional mixed martial arts fighters.
If in case you need a reason to actually try your hands in JiuJitsu, then self-defense is probably it. In fact, self-defense is the main reason why JiuJitsu started and it still remains as one of the key foundations that’s taught to many of its practitioners.
Be warned, learning JiuJitsu is no easy feat. The training is hard and learning many of its intricacies could take many years and even decades. For this reason, BJJ has one of the highest drop-out rates among many martial arts. But, for this very same reason, BJJ is a martial art that you’ll want to take up.
