"What the World has Forgotten"

My instructor's latest blog entry; interesting:

http://groundzero.com.au/diaryview.php?diaryid=44

"It seems like just yesterday when I first watched Royce Gracie destroy all comers in UFC 1,2 and 3 and his cousin Renzo do the same in The World Combat Championships ( which preceeded the UFC ) but now the world seems to have forgotten just how good BJJ is. They all think you need to add striking to it to make it work... rubbish!

MMA is the new buzzword and students are flocking to gyms wanting to emulate the training of their UFC heroes and pretend they are Chuck Liddell but the new UFC ( as opposed to the original with less rules ) really isnt the testing ground for a martial arts style anymore, its a commercial venture making millions of dollars that once upon a time was on once or twice a year and now is on monthly ( I dont blame them, make hay while the sun shines ).

Im conflicted by it. I like the fact that now people have a more realistic idea about martial arts than they did twenty years ago, and BJJ has risen in popularity as a main component of UFC fighters, but then again people have lost sight of the effectiveness of the art too.

When the organisers of the UFC saw that BJJ was going to basically win all the matches and their main audience at th time was strikers they saw the end of huge viewing numbers and the pressure of the nevada state athletic commission also had its influence and Im sure gets a nice paycheck now they sanction ultimate fighting to compensate for the decrease in boxing viewing as a result of the popularity of UFC.

Introducing gloves ( meaning the grappler now has to develop puncing power like a striker ) , smaller time limits ( and hense the greater chance of a striker being able to win ) has totally changed the UFC and its combatants. BJJ Im sure would have continued its historical winning streak had it not been for those two main changes, and now the ' no striking to the back of the head' rules has everyone giving their backs freely... whats next?

I reckon after watching the last two UFC s ( 80 and 81 ) they will make elbows to the head illegal soon as there is just too much blood ( it does look terrible ) but we will see what happens, it could just end up a good old fashioned pillow fight in the end with the loser the first one to have no feathers left in their pillow. the fighting is fun to watch and all that but remember in the street there wil be no ref to stand you up each round and there will be no gloves so every time you punch him you will probably break a finger or knuckle so you probably dont want to hit him much, so what will you do?

Good old BJJ. Take him down and choke him thats what! Effectiveness never goes out of style."

 

Not wanting to start another row, but this reads as sour grapes to me.

 

Aye mate!

 

Is this the same instructor who says that he won't use BJJ "on the street" but would stick to head butts? I'm not sure I understand.

 

Yep, sour grapes.

The 'strikers' learned to incorparate grappling skills into their arsenal, only fair that grapplers should do the converse.

Ohs Noes! T3h strikers know what we can do now!!!

BJJ with regards to MMA is a victim of it's own success, evolve or die, isn't that what they were preaching at the time?

 

Well to be fair the gloves point is somewhat accurate. Also the fact that grapplers can't grab the gloves or the trunks hinders them somewhat. But then again strikers can't hit the back of the head, knee on the ground, kick a grounded appointed in the head. So it evens out.

 

What?!?!?

BJJ is on a winning streak!!!!!!!

BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, Nogueira??
GSP may not be a black belt (or is he now), but he's still what - brown?

Was this posted in his blog before the Night of the Guillotines last week?

 

Sour grapes.

BJJ by itself wouldn't be enough. How would a BJJ practitioner beat Chuck Liddell, how hardly gets taken down and never stays down? Have you seen the match between Jorge Gurgel and Alvin Robinson? When Jorge was on top, he fought a pure BJJ strategy: pass the guard, improve possition. When Robinson was on top, he threw punches and did damage, without making "possitional dominance" a big part of his strategy. Gurgel would probably have won a BJJ match, but seemed completely unprepared for an MMA match.

The groundwork was set by Keith Hackney, who sprawled on Royce's takedown attemps, and Ken Shamrock, who didn't expose anything for Royce to latch on to in their rematch. Joe Moreira, a very good BJJ practitioner, lost his match at UFC 8 'cause he couldn't take Paul Varelans down, and couldn't beat him in the standup. The formula for beating a pure BJJ guy has been there for years.

Why shouldn't grapplers learn to throw power punches? Why shouldn't BJJ guys develop good wrestling skills? Does your teacher have something against people becoming better fighters? It seems to have served BJ Penn, GSP, Ken Florian, Din Thomas, Nate Marquardt, Anderson Silva, and the brothers Nog pretty well.

BJJ is a needed part of any MMA fighter's arsenal, but by itself isn't enough. I don't think the rules changes have had that much of an effect on that. If two fighters know BJJ, but one is better at strikes, who's going to win the match? The era of the single-style fighter has been gone for years.

 

You miss the entire point. BJJ isn't dying in MMA because it's not evolving. In fact, BJJ evolves at such a fast rate that blackbelts have trouble keeping up with the innovations.

The problem lies in the "evolvling" rules of UFC; with each new rule and limit, the fights get less and less realistic. As the fighitng gets less realistic, BJJ is deminished.

 

It's not about rules and rules evening things out - it's about getting as close to a real fight without maiming someone. The more rules, the less realistic, the less BJJ works.

For instance, punching out of someone's closed guard will work in MMA, but not very well on the street, because you're bound to miss and instead of hitting a nice soft matt, you hit concrete and break a hand. Most of the other rule changes screw with BJJ as well - that's the point.

 

Your entire post misses the point - you are correct, bjj is not enough with UFC's present rule set. If you dropped all rules, BJJ is all you need. MMA is not the street.

 

WTH? All the change in rules he mentioned favour the grappler.

1, gloves, make it less likely for the less competant striker to get knocked out.
2, no striking the back of the head, since when did a decent grappler want to be striking from back mount rather than looking for a choke??
3, No elbows, Oh right, like the ones people usually throw when they're in the grapplers guard.

And he obviously didn't see UFC 81 because it was basically a 'BJJ wins again!' event which harked back to the days of Royce.

 

He's just annoyed that there's no headbutts allowed

 

Actually I think gloves make it easier for a knockout, but OK.

 

Not so simple...

1. gloves ENCOURAGE striking as they protect the hands, and make punching less risky for the very point you're trying to make. They also affect the grappler's grip in a negative way.

2. It has to be an option, or getting the back mount loses some dominance. Strikes can be used just to have the guy open up for the choke, there's a lot of reasons to have it as an option.

3. You shouldn't throw strikes while in the "grappler's guard" on the street; you'll miss and there will be concrete instead of a soft mat.

 

It's so ridiculous... it makes me feel silly that some people might read that and think that all people practicing BJJ have that kind of view. I don't think anyone except Flashlock and maybe the Gracie's PR agents would agree with this kind of view. The other horrendous thing is that this is a BJJ guy who is waffling on about how his art would work alot better outside of a restricted ruleset and on 'the street'. It's silly.

 

Me too. If someone wanted pure BJJ, there's BJJ tournaments.

 

We're not going to agree - so what can we learn from each other?

My instructor's suggestion is that you simply take UFC with a grain of salt when in comes to self defense, and, furthermore, that BJJ is all you need; it's a complete system and does not require any mongrelization with a striking art (probably muy thai).

Can we agree there is a huge difference between MMA and th3 str33t? Gloves, time limits, soft mat, rules on what you can and cannot strike: add it all up and it's no longer "As Real As it Gets" - and therefore no longer a true test of BJJ or any style but MMA itself--which has become its own thing.

I love UFC: very entertaining, great athletes/ fighters, and it's interesting to see it evolve year after year.

Just don't think it's the answer to self defense.

BJJ is.

 

The point is not what you want to see, but what works for real fighting and what doesn't, and how UFC rules hurt grapplers.

 

No, YOU miss the point. Same participants, no rules, Liddell still doesn't get taken down. A BJJ player concerned with achieving "dominant possition" and not with damage or escape still doesn't do anything significant for five minutes.

Most BJJ classes start and end on the floor. Unless a BJJ guy has a background in wrestling or judo, or spends a lot of time on his takedowns, then there's no guarentee he can get the fight on the ground, where he presumably wants it.

Look at the rule changes:
*5-minute rounds... how many street fights last more than a few seconds? Before five minutes has passed in a streetfight, other people are going to get involved. Unless you're fighting someone in the middle of nowhere. Then you might have half an hour or so to work your game.
*Gloves do encourage striking. Big deal. In the context of a streetfight, which isn't gonna last too long anyway, adrenalin will keep you from going "owie" if you happen to break your hand.
*Standups for periods of inactivity are well and good. I might argue that it actually reflects outside interference on the street.
*The lack of gis... the guy on the street may not wear one. Depending on your location and time of year, clothing resembling a gi may not be availible. Detroit in November, probably. Tahiti, any time of year, probably not.
*Lack of headbutts... those who used headbutts the most were wrestlers or guys with good takedowns. Coleman and Shamrock, mostly. Personally, I'd like 'em back, but my point is that if you still have tools like punches, palm strikes, elbows, and shoulder-butts in your arsenal, the loss of one weapon isn't that big a deal. If you actually look at the history of the UFC, headbutts were used most often AGAINST sub specialists like Royce and Oleg Taktarov. Kenny would sit in their guard and bang away without having to expose an arm or leg for a sub.
*No grabbing the cage... this rule helps grapplers. It makes it easier to take someone down.
*Shots to the spine and back of the head are illegal. But, you can still attack the side of the head. How many times does someone get back mount and not get the choke? I'm talking about an actual top possition, not when they pull the guy on top of themselves, which is usually where the guy has a chance to escape.
*No heel kicks to the kidneys. Please, have you tried these? It's more like "calf kicks to the side". It's a very tough angle to hit at. And at any rate didn't seem to bother Shamrock or Severn when Royce faced them. At best it's a "slow burn" weapon that, in the speed and chaos of a streetfight, is best abandoned in favor of a technique that will produce immediate results.

Fine. I totally agree with this.

Wrong. Sometimes striking is your best option, and you'd better know how to do it properly. Systems like boxing and Muay Thai address this far better than BJJ.

Not if you take something like boxing and learn to strike with accuracy. Or learn to stabilize the head. Or throw hammerfists. I'm willing to bet that my hammerfists will survive better on concrete than the back of a guy's skull. Or maybe I'll just power-bomb the guy. Did they show that backyard fight on the fifth or so season of "The Ultimate Fighter"?

BJJ isn't all you need. Maybe one-on-one against a chump with no grappling. But street fights don't stay one-on-one for any length of time, and I've learned the hard way not to rely on my opponent's suckyness for a win. Sometimes they don't want to loose. Ten years from now BJJ's gonna be like karate, TKD or wrestling (in the States) is today, in that everyone will have done it for at least a couple of months. The reason it worked so well in the early UFC's wasn't 'cause of the lack of rules, it's 'cause nobody knew what it was. Well, the secret's out. Even drunk guys in Vegas recognize a triangle attempt.