self defense proficiency?

[futang17]

open ended question... flame away.

We assume (probably correctly so) that boxing and grappling are probably the best way to defend yourself. Let's say you went the grappling route, namely picking up brazilian jiujitsu as your primary art instead of judo or sambo or wrestling. At which point in your jiujitsu career do you think a practicing jiujitsu player is proficient at defending themself against random encounters (people not trained in any arts?) one on one encounter in the middle of the streets with no one to interfere. This is not a knock against any other arts, just a question in which level of jiujitsu would someone be able to properly defend themself against an attacker (that isn't high on drugs or armed).

Do you think a high white (3rd/4th stripe white) or blue, or even purple?

 

[war path]

just depends on your style of jiu jitsu. some tournament people develop bad habits by pulling guard first and doing all this punk missionary stuff they are the ones most likely to get their asses kicked in the street. bjj offers a lot of tools and those that use the tools wisely are most likely to survive an encounter. it all comes down to common sense really.

 

[SteelHammer]

Never. There are so many things illegal in BJJ and even UFC tournaments that the grappling there is not going to work on the street against head stomps, groin kicks, eye gouges, etc. You might win but lose an eye or an ear. I don't call that winning.

 

[ILikeBread]

Never. There are so many things illegal in BJJ and even UFC tournaments that the grappling there is not going to work on the street against head stomps, groin kicks, eye gouges, etc. You might win but lose an eye or an ear. I don't call that winning.

Groin strikes and hair pulling didn't stop Royce Gracie in the early days of the UFC.

I think dirty techniques like that could really mess with a less experienced grappler. But honestly, at purple belt and up you're probably going to turn the other guy into a pretzel. You won't get the opportunity to use dirty techniques like that. If anything, the grappler would be using them on you.

Hard to poke someone in the eyes when they're sitting on your chest punching you in the face.

 

[SteelHammer]

Groin strikes and hair pulling didn't stop Royce Gracie in the early days of the UFC.

I think dirty techniques like that could really mess with a less experienced grappler. But honestly, at purple belt and up you're probably going to turn the other guy into a pretzel. You won't get the opportunity to use dirty techniques like that. If anything, the grappler would be using them on you.

Hard to poke someone in the eyes when they're sitting on your chest punching you in the face.

No, i'm talking about grappling techniques. You can't beat strikes using eye gouges, but you can blind someone who's trying to triangle you. Or stomp to the groin when they have an open guard. Not talking about beating standup mma or ground and pound, just a huge number of bjj moves and stances

 

[Butler]

In the context of a 1v1 (trained vs untrained) with no interferrence, you think the untrained guy is going to get a chance to stomp/groin kick?

You think any BJJ practitioner is going to use an open guard in a self defense situation?

Wakey wakey.

To answer the OP: we have some really strong/quick/athletic advanced white belts that would give your average untrained opponent real problems.

 

[SteelHammer]

Why wouldn't he get the chance if the BJJ guy is already on the ground? That's where bjj tries to fight.

 

[Davii]

Why wouldn't he get the chance if the BJJ guy is already on the ground? That's where bjj tries to fight.

I never understand these awkward arguments.

I use my BJJ (to answer OP's question, blue belt is a pretty solid bet) PLUS groin strikes eye gouges, punches and the like vs. someone who only has untrained punches and eye gouges...

I win. BJJ + natural defense >>> only natural defense. This would be common sense.

Again, why do people automatically assume GUARD? BJJ is positional dominance first, as I hope people know on this board. Get the fight on the ground, control, strike away with whatever dirty cheap shot you're afraid of and there ya go.

 

[Shemhazai]

SteelHammer, do you even train? Sure, I don't train to defend eye gouges, but I do train all the time to do things like advance my position, control my opponent's arms, control my opponent's head and lots of other stuff that becomes very useful in dealing with an opponent that fights dirty.

My opponent tries to eye-gouge me? That means he's giving me an arm to control/attack. My opponent tries to bite me when I have top position? Good luck doing that when I'm putting on a shoulder of justice so heavy he can't even breathe, much less reach me with his teeth. My opponent tries to punch me in the balls when I have mount? I'll push that hand through for a triangle. Or rape-choke his exposed neck. Or simply punch him back with ten times the power due to my mechanically advantageous position. My opponent tries to bite or eye-gouge me when I have his back? I'll bite him back, eye-gouge him, crush his nose and heel-kick him repeatedly in the groin, all while looking for the RNC.

Remember that our grappling sports come from martial arts that once saw real battle.

 

[SteelHammer]

I never understand these awkward arguments.

I use my BJJ (to answer OP's question, blue belt is a pretty solid bet) PLUS groin strikes eye gouges, punches and the like vs. someone who only has untrained punches and eye gouges...

I win. BJJ + natural defense >>> only natural defense. This would be common sense.

Again, why do people automatically assume GUARD? BJJ is positional dominance first, as I hope people know on this board. Get the fight on the ground, control, strike away with whatever dirty cheap shot you're afraid of and there ya go.

I'm not assuming guard, but I am speaking primarily of guard. There's very little the opponent can do in terms of cheap tactics when you have mount, for example, but they have an even larger striker's advantage in your guard in real life than an opponent would in an mma fight

SteelHammer, do you even train? Sure, I don't train to defend eye gouges, but I do train all the time to do things like advance my position, control my opponent's arms, control my opponent's head and lots of other stuff that becomes very useful in dealing with an opponent that fights dirty.

My opponent tries to eye-gouge me? That means he's giving me an arm to control/attack. My opponent tries to bite me when I have top position? Good luck doing that when I'm putting on a shoulder of justice so heavy he can't even breathe, much less reach me with his teeth. My opponent tries to punch me in the balls when I have mount? I'll push that hand through for a triangle. Or rape-choke his exposed neck. Or simply punch him back with ten times the power due to my mechanically advantageous position. My opponent tries to bite or eye-gouge me when I have his back? I'll bite him back, eye-gouge him, crush his nose and heel-kick him repeatedly in the groin, all while looking for the RNC.

Remember that our grappling sports come from martial arts that once saw real battle.

Biting is basically useless. If the opponent tries to gouge your eyes / rip your ears off (this was discussed a couple days ago in another thread about someone's uncle using that as a RNC escape), yes you can grab their arm and use it to get them into a submission and win, but not if your arms are already busy. In other words, if they're standing in your guard and try to gouge your eyes from out of nowhere, they're an idiot and they're going to get armbarred, etc. But if you're doing a triangle choke or rnc and your hands are busy choking, pushing down on their head, whatever, and they grab your ear for even a second or put a thumb into your eye socket, your arms are not immediately available to stop them, and in the 1/2 second it takes you to grab their arm you might lose an eye or ear. Yes you will probably choke them out 7 seconds later, but that risk is something to seriously consider. That's all I'm saying. Defeating an untrained opponent with muay thai or boxing is much less risky with the respect to losing a vital organ.


I was expecting people to disagree with me strongly when I posted on this thread, but I am not trying to flame BJJ or grappling. I'm pointing out realities that someone used to a fight with rules might not consider. Original japanese Jujitsu and judo did not focus on holds that specifically left your head open very close to the opponent's arms, such as the triangle choke or gogoplata, for a reason. Armbars, kimuras, etc are much safer as they leave your vital face organs better out of harm's way. I just want to point that out, because since BJJ schools seem geared toward competition and not street-fighting, people might not consider that factor in a given technique.

 

[sanchezero]

No, i'm talking about grappling techniques. You can't beat strikes using eye gouges, but you can blind someone who's trying to triangle you. Or stomp to the groin when they have an open guard. Not talking about beating standup mma or ground and pound, just a huge number of bjj moves and stances

this is like some shit ashida kim would teach. hop in someone's guard (a competent whitebelt is more than enough for this purpose) and have him throw up a triangle setup, not even a locked triangle, just ankles crossed over one shoulder. now try to eye gouge him effectively before he eye gouges/fishhooks you back, chokes you out or punches you into oblivion.

same with the stomp to the nads. just take a whack at it. i know from trying step through/over passes (similar enough to a stomp to the junk) that a decent whitebelt can move his ass enough to make it hard for even an experienced bjj guy to put his foot where it needs to be.

now, by no means am i advocating jumping dela riva guard when you get clocked in the grill at an ATM. i think nearly everyone involved in bjj wants to be on top when it counts. i just find these ideas about 'rules' crippling your ability to defeat the ancient 'monkey steals peaches' shit ridiculous.

really, just try it out and stfu.

 

[Belatucadros]

No, i'm talking about grappling techniques. You can't beat strikes using eye gouges, but you can blind someone who's trying to triangle you. Or stomp to the groin when they have an open guard. Not talking about beating standup mma or ground and pound, just a huge number of bjj moves and stances

How the hell are you going to eye gouge someone who's triangling you? Is this before you go to sleep? Because it's almost certainly mere seconds before it gets switched to an armbar and you can't gouge anything for 3 months.

You simply don't have that much control of that arm....if you want to keep it. If you want to lose it there's all sorts of hilarious shit you can try.

 

[StranGold**]

first off SteelHammer, how many fights have you been in, in real life? i would suspect none.

I have been in a lot of fights from 1 on 1 to 30 vs 30 to 8 vs 2 to 1 vs 7,

i have never been eye poked or hit in the nuts.

i have been on the ground once on my back-- luckily the guy i was fighting was no good and i was kicking his ass and he was on the ground and got a hold of me and wrapped his legs around me and got on top and i could not get out
-i was kicking this guys ass on the feet, he might not have even hit me
- i think that someone who did a little judo told the kid enough to just get on the ground and get my legs and bring me to the ground and get mount.
-i punched the shit out of the kids face from the bottom, but if he had been a decent puncher i would have been screwed. I basically punched him from the bottom until he gave up.

now, if you happen to go to the ground and you train bjj even for a few months and the other guy has no grappling experience you will fuck him up. It is such a helpless feeling to have someone on top of you and you cannot get out.

if you get knocked down in a fight the other guy will be really confident and sloppy and will probably try to kick you, it is easy to grab a hold of his legs and take him down.
even if you get beat up a little bit you can still do it.

i was in a bar fight and started fighting bouncers and got a concussion and after the concussion i still knocked the original guy i was fighting out and soccer kicked him in the face
-point of this story is you can take a lot of shots to the head and still fight.
And that a fight can start out 1vs 1, then you fight about 7 bouncers and then you can fight one vs one again.

just because you train bjj or whatever does not mean you cannot punch someone in the nuts.

if i were to get into a fight now i would mount someone if i could and punch the shit out of them. don't think i would try to sub him. i would use bjj to gain position.

 

[SteelHammer]

this is like some shit ashida kim would teach. hop in someone's guard (a competent whitebelt is more than enough for this purpose) and have him throw up a triangle setup, not even a locked triangle, just ankles crossed over one shoulder. now try to eye gouge him effectively before he eye gouges/fishhooks you back, chokes you out or punches you into oblivion.

" before he eye gouges/fishhooks you back, chokes you out or punches you into oblivion"? but you still just lost your eye to that untrained assailant, regardless of whether you gouge him back before choking him out. isnt the point to make him not severely damage you in the first place?

same with the stomp to the nads. just take a whack at it. i know from trying step through/over passes (similar enough to a stomp to the junk) that a decent whitebelt can move his ass enough to make it hard for even an experienced bjj guy to put his foot where it needs to be.

now, by no means am i advocating jumping dela riva guard when you get clocked in the grill at an ATM. i think nearly everyone involved in bjj wants to be on top when it counts. i just find these ideas about 'rules' crippling your ability to defeat the ancient 'monkey steals peaches' shit ridiculous.

really, just try it out and stfu.

have you tried it? it's not incredibly hard to stomp or knee someone's groin if theyre on the ground and you're up and able to move around and aim for it (not just standing still with their legs around your torsi)

How the hell are you going to eye gouge someone who's triangling you? Is this before you go to sleep? Because it's almost certainly mere seconds before it gets switched to an armbar and you can't gouge anything for 3 months.

You simply don't have that much control of that arm....if you want to keep it. If you want to lose it there's all sorts of hilarious shit you can try.

I don't see it being that hard, especially if he attacks your eyes with both arms at once, for him to damage your eyes in a second before you choke him or switch to an armbar

 

[sanchezero]

i feel like i'm just taking the bait here, but...

" before he eye gouges/fishhooks you back, chokes you out or punches you into oblivion"? but you still just lost your eye to that untrained assailant, regardless of whether you gouge him back before choking him out. isnt the point to make him not severely damage you in the first place?

my point is - you're not gonna be able to eye gouge, much less eye gouge before getting totally annihilated.

have you tried it? it's not incredibly hard to stomp or knee someone's groin if theyre on the ground and you're up and able to move around and aim for it (not just standing still with their legs around your torsi)

while i've been lucky enough to not have anyone literally try to stomp me in the nuts, i do have plenty of experience with people trying to pass my guard in a nearly identical fashion. i can say that the threat of getting beanbagged is not serious and i would go so far as to say that a more experienced bjj guy (say decent blue) would happily take advantage of a guy trying to step on his junk by dumping him on his ass.

I don't see it being that hard, especially if he attacks your eyes with both arms at once, for him to damage your eyes in a second before you choke him or switch to an armbar

it's pretty clear that you haven't been in the situation described because you don't have the use of both arms OR the ability to control the distance necessary when in a triangled position. if you waste any time at all in that situation (assuming decent whitebelt or above) playing around with eye gouges or nose picking or whatever, you are going to sleep. period. you seem to be forgetting the fact that while the guy is holding your head immobilized in his lap with his legs, he has both arms free and the use of his hips to control distance. it is a position of desperate fuckery that doesn't leave you with any options other that to focus on defending the choke and escaping the position.

i chose pink because this argument is ghey. i just couldn't help myself...

:redface:

 

[SIL]

Even if the fight is one on one (never seen it though there is always someone who interfers) i would not want to go to the ground. Your best bet will always be that you have trained some nice throws in your bjj training. Throw your enemy head first onto the pavement and get hell out of there or throw him and use soccer kicks and stomps (there is a reason why they are banned in the ufc/strikeforce etc.). This could be very expensive if the opponent sues you. Bjj comes in handy if you are in a bad spot (after a knockdown or somehting like that) and you want to get out of there.

 

[RacerX]

I suspect that someone with about six months of grappling experience would beat most attackers assuming there is not a huge size and athelticism disadvantage (which is not a good assumption). People talk about lack of takedowns in BJJ being a problem, but against a novice, you should be able to use a couple of simple take downs effectively. Same thing with arguments of lack of sophisticated ground game in other grapling sports--just doesn't matter againts most people. Having said that, I think it is dangerous to expect your opponent in a street fight to be completely clueless since a lot of people wrestle etc. and a lot have been in plenty of real fights/attacks.

I think eye-gouging, groin attacks and biting are all unlikely from the guy in your triangle. If you do it correctly, especially against someone with no training, you should have both hands free after you quickly pull the arm in the triangle across. And it should take longer than half a second to gouge your eye out if you have even rudementary self preservation instincts. You will at least turn you head and tightly clinch your eyelids.

 

[Kozbot]

Never. There are so many things illegal in BJJ and even UFC tournaments that the grappling there is not going to work on the street against head stomps, groin kicks, eye gouges, etc. You might win but lose an eye or an ear. I don't call that winning.

so competing in BJJ means you cannot fight dirty on the street?

 

[esum80]

steelhammer - might i suggest you find someone you know that has a fair bit of bjj training and try these moves on him to see how far you would get? i know you are being hypothetical but if proper technique is used, the assailant (esp. an untrained one) would not have the opportunity, time, space or use of free limb to pull some of these attacks off.

 

[Kozbot]

you people make gouging out someone's eye sound incredibly easy, like if your hand goes anywhere near their face their eyes will just fall out. in reality you are going to need to dig your fingers in there to cause permanent damage. most of the time the victim will close their eyes or turn their face away before anything truly damaging happens. also hand and wrist control is key to having a good guard

same with nut shots. while they fucking hurt they are not 1 shot KOs in adrenaline charged street fight. especially on the ground where you cant put as much power into a punch or a kick.