Is knee wrestling a really useless skill?

[beepee]

Hmm, I disagree with your take on it but this is a solid response. I will also say that my instructor started as a wrestler and has some judo under his belt himself so my experience likely hasn't been the same as many others with a BJJ base. He runs his classes with that wrestler's mentality I guess and during my early years of training, I was drilling double and single legs just as often as I was triangles and armbars. Hopefully as time goes on, we see more grapplers who've done nothing but BJJ running their schools the same way (although it unfortunately seems to be going in the opposite direction at the moment).

Personally if I was running a BJJ school, no one would ever be starting from the knees. If that's what you have to do then I think both people should take turns pulling guard. I think I might be giving the wrong impression too when I say I automatically pull guard if my training partner doesn't do it, it's not like I just flop to my back and let him start dictating the pace. I get my grips and immediately start attacking, I'm always trying to sweep right away. It's not unusual for me to "pull guard" from the knees and then be standing up with a single leg just a few seconds later. I just feel like that's the best way to go and that you're only hurting yourself by never pulling guard but hey, no big deal.

To be fair I see where you're coming from too and I agree pretty much with what you're saying. I do not believe that randori/rolling from the knees should be the only starting position but I think it can be a helpful part of a training program that includes positional sparing as a massive part (I include complient guard pulls to working position in these). You need positional sparring to train for the finest technique and you are 100% to point this out but I just think that knee wrestling and the scramble it creates can help you to identify quickly oppurtunities to use those techniques. Of course if unregulated and poorly executed knee wrestling is absolute dogshit, but that's the same for all training methods imo.

 

[GKY]

I don't bother knee wrestling for more than 10 seconds. I just get a grip and flop to guard or get on top if the position is given to me. I feel it would be best to start standing every roll, but it's not feasible due to class sizes and space limitations.

 

[Jonas g33k]

I see knee-wrestling as a kind of scrambling between two ranges of fighting. You're not standing anymore but not exactly working on the ground yet. Usually it will end up quickly but I think that pulling guard to end it artificially is a bit lame. With a quick move you could end up on top, so chosing to work from guard is like accepting a loss.

My question is about MMA because we know that guard is a bad spot in the octogone, so would it be better to knee-wrestle rather than pull guard?

 

[kintana]

For me at least we usually start on the knees because lack of space. I did a wrestling class before BJJ last weekend. Wrestling is usually half the size of the BJJ class. It was very difficult to do stand up. There were a couple of crashes.

Since our BJJ is bigger I dont see how we can do it standing.

Though I think standing is better then starting on the knees.

 

[mshoemaker]

Knee wrestling is needed to be a good grappler,wrestler and all around fighter.Kneewheel in judo can still be in that position and even drop sionagi is on the knees and can be done with both on knees. For true fighters that want to be well rounded...not so much BJJ knee wrestling is very important but should not be the main focus of training it should just be practiced.judo is about controlling grip and setting up throws redirecting and distributing weight and committing! I teach judo am a silver medalist national.i train fighters too who won expert division in naga with no bjj training what so ever in there arsenal.not against BJJ but not all grappling is BJJ.

 

[armbar360]

I absolutely hate starting from the knees! It ignores a important aspect of ones game, it wastes time esp with the bigger guys who dont like to concede top position,but worst of all is the number of injuries from newer guys taking a guy back over his heels...it always happens . I dont ever start from my knees I will just pull guard if my partner forces anything.