TJ-Jitsu

Meh, that’s a loaded statement. If your skill set is significantly greater than your opponents, it can be a good position. Other things that influence this is your opponents skill set on his feet vs yours. But you’ve got to be really skilled. Like great, not just good Or at least better than the person you are grappling with. I know lots of people that I can wreck in my guard. And I am not great. Or even really good. But I am better than them. I still think top position is preferable, but especially at the white/blue/purple level there can be significant skill gaps that still don't mean the more skilled person is great. Just that they are better than the person they are playing. What gets scary is the fact that these gaps exist all the way up to black belt. Where there are black belts that can wreck most everyone who ISNT a black belt, but still get wrecked in their own division like they just started. Nature of the game I guess. Sure in a grappling context I agree- however I’m speaking mostly of a fighting situation as opposed to grappling only Even so. As long as your BJJ has included some live training of striking defense, you only have to be better than the person who is in your guard. Although strikes do give them more options, remember that they also expose things as well. I think we have talked before about the idea that a good guard is a dangerous guard. If, either in a fight or a grappling situation, your opponent feels he can just sit in your guard you are not being active enough off your back. Every one of those punches should be potentially exposing an arm-lock or a back take. But, in order to make that a thing, you have to put the gloves on and train your guard against strikes sometimes. And many BJJ schools don't do that. Well in a nutshell the ability to have an effective guard when strikes are involved is dependant on your ability to keep his posture broken (or his inability to get it...). Not everyone in bjj understands the concept of keeping posture broken as many prefer the double wrist control because it prevents grips and makes passing difficult. We’re going on quite an tangent here speaking about people with a developed guard game. Someone who’s learning their grappling at a non grappling school is going to be far below the grade in comparison and therefore should not be jumping guard in a fight And someone who is learning their grappling AT a grappling school, when going against a non-grappler, won't need to. Pulling guard is very much an artifact of one type of grappler fighting another with a different skill-set. You pull guard against a better wrestler, not against your idiot friend who took that Krav class that one time. In a grappling context, yes- it’s perfectly normal and common. If I can put this convo into context I’ll describe the particular video I saw. It was a reputable striking style with a name instructor that I don’t want to say less I be accused of trashing said style. So the scenario starts off with strikes as the guy narrates it. Speaking from the perspective of the striker: “My opponent gets too close and clinches, where I’m able to pull guard” Followed by the guy jumping, not just pulling- full guard from a neutral over/under clinch. Imagine May weather training for an mma fight with this strategy- thats what I mean when I say they’re a little “off” with their strategy

Meh, that’s a loaded statement. If your skill set is significantly greater than your opponents, it can be a good position. Other things that influence this is your opponents skill set on his feet vs yours. But you’ve got to be really skilled. Like great, not just good Or at least better than the person you are grappling with. I know lots of people that I can wreck in my guard. And I am not great. Or even really good. But I am better than them. I still think top position is preferable, but especially at the white/blue/purple level there can be significant skill gaps that still don't mean the more skilled person is great. Just that they are better than the person they are playing. What gets scary is the fact that these gaps exist all the way up to black belt. Where there are black belts that can wreck most everyone who ISNT a black belt, but still get wrecked in their own division like they just started. Nature of the game I guess. Sure in a grappling context I agree- however I’m speaking mostly of a fighting situation as opposed to grappling only Even so. As long as your BJJ has included some live training of striking defense, you only have to be better than the person who is in your guard. Although strikes do give them more options, remember that they also expose things as well. I think we have talked before about the idea that a good guard is a dangerous guard. If, either in a fight or a grappling situation, your opponent feels he can just sit in your guard you are not being active enough off your back. Every one of those punches should be potentially exposing an arm-lock or a back take. But, in order to make that a thing, you have to put the gloves on and train your guard against strikes sometimes. And many BJJ schools don't do that. Well in a nutshell the ability to have an effective guard when strikes are involved in dependant on your ability to keep his posture broken (or his inability to get it...). Not everyone in bjj understands the concept of keeping posture broken as many prefer the double wrist control because it prevents grips and makes passing difficult. We’re going on quite an tangent here speaking about people with a developed guard game. Someone who’s learning their grappling at a non grappling school is going to be far below the grade in comparison and therefore should not be jumping guard in a fight

Meh, that’s a loaded statement. If your skill set is significantly greater than your opponents, it can be a good position. Other things that influence this is your opponents skill set on his feet vs yours. But you’ve got to be really skilled. Like great, not just good Or at least better than the person you are grappling with. I know lots of people that I can wreck in my guard. And I am not great. Or even really good. But I am better than them. I still think top position is preferable, but especially at the white/blue/purple level there can be significant skill gaps that still don't mean the more skilled person is great. Just that they are better than the person they are playing. What gets scary is the fact that these gaps exist all the way up to black belt. Where there are black belts that can wreck most everyone who ISNT a black belt, but still get wrecked in their own division like they just started. Nature of the game I guess. Sure in a grappling context I agree- however I’m speaking mostly of a fighting situation as opposed to grappling only

Meh, that’s a loaded statement. If your skill set is significantly greater than your opponents, it can be a good position. Other things that influence this is your opponents skill set on his feet vs yours. But you’ve got to be really skilled. Like great, not just good

I've been doing muay thai for about 12 years now- never heard of someone injuring their knees far as something like an ACL or whatnot is concerned You're not really kicking their knee as you don't want to hit the bone. You're kicking just above the knee. Think of your muscular system as suit of armor and you're trying to hit the thinnest part Peoples knees buckle and fights end when fighters are unable to stand because the muscles in the legs don't work anymore from the damage taken- not because the ligaments are damaged. That's one Two is that you'll only be getting kicked when you're sparring which is hardly every class and even when you do spar it'll hardly be 100% all the time. Lots of muay thai classes will be hitting pads and trading back and forth with minimal damage to your body. Just as safe as the next thing- its the fight that's painful

Minimum age is 18 as one is an adult at that point. Prior to that, its just not practical to think a child can beat a grown adult. IMO if you give black belts to children you're inviting so much criticism and questioning of what you're attempting to teach people.

No, no one is a "natural" anything. Humans don't rely on instinct like other animals do, we learn and adapt. The whole "hes a natural" thing is just someones attempt to explain what they dont know. My personal favorite is "Oh, hes got good genetics...." Like they actually studied the science. I believe theres something like, 20,000 genes in the human genome. People who say "so and so has good genes" should be required to follow that statement up with just how many genes they can name and identify....

The warm up is to help prevent injuries- not help you perform a technique... This is a common theme of rbsd instructors and styles, who miss the point entirely....

It's never why you train but how you train that will or will not disrespect your instructor...

The many other reasons aside, why does that matter? Someone doesn’t have to be great at it to teach it effectively. Mike Tyson could’ve absolutely destroyed Cus D’Amato and Kevin Rooney. But those guys could watch Tyson, evaluate his strengths and weaknesses, and get him to perform far better. Not to mention coming up with an effective strategy for each opponent. Same can be said for any coach of any sport. The coach doesn’t have to be a great player; he/she has to be a great coach. My former teacher was one of the best martial artist I’ve ever been around. He was fast, strong, smart, and his technique was as flawless as anyone I’ve been around. But what good would that do if he couldn’t teach me? It wouldn’t do much more than entertain me. He was a very good teacher too, but that’s besides the point. My current teacher has some physical impairments. He needs yet another hip replacement, but is putting it off for as long as he can. Needless to say he can’t kick very well and he’s not very mobile. I’ve only sparred with him once, and there was no question in my mind why he’s a 7th dan. He was very crafty. My former sensei was significantly better physically than my current teacher. But my current teacher is a far better teacher - he’s seen my flaws and given me far better feedback and corrections. He’s made me a far better karateka. My former teacher was no slouch by any means. The teacher has to be a good teacher. Their own physical skills are irrelevant so long as they can get you to perform your best. I agree 100% with all of the above. Now imagine this scenario. You are being taught a technique. Attacker does this, so defender does this. OK fine. So what if when I'm applying this technique, attacker does this? He won't. Why? Because he's not a martial artist, he's a moron. OK, so what if he throws a punch with his spare hand? He won't. Why? Because you'll take him down before he realises what is happening. What if he's strong, or in the heat of combat I miss the technique? You won't. It will just work. Imagine hearing that many times. Then imagine, being picked out to be demonstrated on. You feel a lock going on. You don't like it. Instinctively you escape it without effort. As soon as you do you remember that that you're at the front and lots of people, paying students, are watching. So you slot your arm back in, squeal appropriately, and despite the complete absence of pain, tap the floor frantically just to avoid undermining the teacher. Imagine this happening many times. Not just once. If you can imagine all of that, then I'm sure you'll see that while I respect my chief instructor as a person and a fellow martial artist, and am happy to keep going for the camaraderie and the exercise, I'm looking elsewhere for the actual training. One might say you're looking for a little more resistance in your training eh?

You kinda answered your own question- the roll is the means of alleviating the joint lock. Break falls spread the impact over the entirety of your body rather than an individual joint. Your body as a whole can take most of these impacts, the individual joints not so much. So that said you dont *have* to roll in the "real world" but then you've made a choice havent you? And now your arm in snapped in two.... Id rather take my chances hitting whatever is on the ground and keeping my limbs intact.

This is EVERY MMA event ever- that's an awful lot of objective evidence that cannot be written off. People have known for thousands of years the earth was round- sailors for example. But there are still some to this day who think the world is flat.... So lets talk about this evidence. Every MMA event ever. In the earlier days of MMA and especially with the entry of UFC, peoples expectations were based off of many years of misinformation. Many people believed that whoever hit the hardest while taking the least amount of damage in return would win. Whats worse is that every style that was labeled as a "sport" was written off before it had a chance to even try its hand. What ended up happening? The sportive fighters cleaned house. Those that did boxing, wrestling, judo, jiu jitsu, sambo and so on regularly won. These were competitions held across the globe with numerous participates all representing several different styles and several different nationalities. What was interesting was that some styles had or shared similar techniques, but didn't share similar successes. This correlated with how they trained and the resistance offered. Sparring with full resistance becomes necessary to become a quality fighter. Until then you've no idea the limits of your power and strength cardio, and even the reliability of your technique. Theres no better proving ground. Imagine if you wanted to learn how to swim. Who are you going to learn from? The guy who talks theory and has you practice exercise and theory but never gets wet, or the guy who says "lets jump in the water and I'll show you!?" You're making a false analogy. Flying cars and jet packs are entirely possible- they're merely not made because they're not practical and theres no return investment... I think you're on to something here.... Not a single person in the history of mankind was ever a "natural" puncher, kicker, knee-er, or elbow-er. Since you're basically describing muay thai I'll just call it that for short. A novice poses virtually no threat to a trained fighter because they've no idea how to throw any of those strikes effectively. The only thing people "instinctively" do is flail hopelessly. They also try to wrestle hopelessly too, but I don't dignify that as jiu jitsu or wrestling either. Humans don't do anything well off instinct. Instinct in built into animals that don't have long life spans and therefore don't have time for a learning curve. Humans have virtually more time than any other animal and more capability to learn and use their brain to a far greater capacity than any instinct could afford. Sure it is, because you're completely dismissing the greatest variable of them all- your opponent

Im going to give it to you straight- this isn't a "yes" or "no" answer... The greater the resistance you get while training the better the fighter you'll be. Yes self defense is fighting, no you don't need to be a professional to be able to defend yourself. But THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT CRITERIA that exists to be proficient in a real life situation is the consistency with which you train against fully resisting opponents. Nevermind what you want to call your system your training in- karate, tkd, muay thai, bjj, etc etc.... are you occasionally training with a fully resisting opponent? Are you at times sparring with someone who is using their full capabilities to either knock you out or out wrestle you? That said, does the school you're training out of have full contact sparring sessions? Full contact requiers 16 oz boxing gloves to protect your fists (the extra 4 oz of padding is for your partners face...). The greater the level of resistence the greater the likelyhood of you being able to use it in an actual situaiton. If that criterai is met we can further the discussion. If its not, it stops the discussion- regardless of whatever style you may be speaking of.

Kicks should ideally be made with the shin and not the instep or ball of the foot. Simply stated the shin is the only part of the leg worth hitting with that’ll survive a significant impact. So if you’re going to power, go with the shin. This does not mean one *cant* use the instep or ball of the foot when kicking however.... Most snap kicks are done so as to sacrifice power for speed, and usually help with those that are less flexible. In other words, getting your shin to someone’s head is difficult for more people rather than less. As a trade off you can snap the kick and end up with a karate style kick. It does the trick if it lands clean and still has KO power. Think of kicking with your shin as swinging a bat- you don’t care so much precision because it’s going to wreck whatever it hits. A snap kick is like a whip- if it hits its intended target (usually the head) it’ll do damage... but it has to be precise

Of course, mostly because we’re just too cool for school and are the awesomist evar! Seriously though say you’ve got a bjj B.B. training 10 years- that’s still 10 years of grappling experience he’s got over his peers who would have 1-2. The reverse happens often too. You see many former wrestlers get into bjj that hold a significant advantage over their peers (other blue belts) because they bring in 15+ years of grappling experience against an average of 2-4

Ignorance is probably the most common reason. Most people merely do not know any better. They also assume (just as you did) that anything worth doing would be done. You are making very dangerous assumptions and I’ll further explain why. First off, you’re assumi that whoever is teaching whatever is some how qualified, or that they’re even good at what they do if they *are* wualified. A good majority of martial arts schools I s come across have never been in an all out fight in their lives. As such, there’s no testing ground- everything is merely theory. This leads to several dangerous leaps of faith, one being that this guy is teaching you something that’s even applicable. We live in a capitalist society. If someone wants to learn how to defend themselves effectively, they need to partake in a program that’s about 6 months long 2-3x a week with regular sparring sessions at or close to full resistance. This is reality. Many don’t like reality. As such when someone comes around and promises them success in a short time without hard work, many are intentionally obtuse and buy the product. This allows them to live in a fantasy world with others that did the same thing- while simultaneously attempting to avoid reality.... Now I bring this up because we’re talking about fighting. There is a large group of people who do not do martial arts for any martial reasons as it were. Therefore many of these statements would not apply tonthem

Still, no. Styles are not created equal because they don’t all teach the same Thing. Even among those that do (judo and bjj) with the emphasis on different things, the outcome and skill sets are like night and day- so YES what style you train in absolutely DOES matter. The Gracie’s challenged people to fights. No rules no muss- 2 guys go st it until one can’t continue, just like real life would otherwise be. The kickboxers who turned the fights down did so because they knew they’d most likely lose. It wasn’t that they wanted different rules- they wanted no rules. Most weren’t prepared for that.

Not really. Leather itself simply lasts a long time- a LONG time. The only reason people put Vaseline on their gloves is in preparation to spar so as to limit cuts. I mean you could try it otherwise as I don't think theres any cons to doing so- other than a small mess.

I feel like if one is just their training, and they just wear their regular uniform and belt to have the complete uniform, and they aren't necessarily pursuing rank in that school, then I think I'd be ok with it. If they would happen to decide to start trying to attain rank in that school, then it might change the situation. I'm not. Too many frauds out there with blue belts in BJJ teaching grappling techniques with a black belt on because its a karate school. They are being intentionally deceptive. I nor any black belt I've known has ever "accidentally" worn their BJJ rank to a Judo school. We all put on our white belts. The same can be said for any of the Judoka that have ever jumped into a BJJ class. Its perfectly ok if you're not pursuing rank in that style, but then that means you're a white belt, eh?

In terms of injury prevention, you are absolutely correct. One of my first coaches was first and foremost a strength and conditioning coach- for numerous professional athletes and fighters no less. He was quite clear about the importance of strength over flexibility for injury prevention. I remember him saying that strength is THE number one factor for injury prevention, and flexibility was far down on the list, like number 4 or something like that. I can attest to this on a personal level. I was insanely flexible when I started jiu jitsu. Not strong so much. Who got hurt all the time? Me. Who didn't? the bigger stronger guys. Of course, I was also doing something like 17 classes a week so....

Are you even wrapping your hands prior to putting on the gloves? With wraps, 16oz will fit the smallest of hands. For bagwork I'd recommend 10-12 oz gloves, but you will need to wrap your hands. For sparring you'll need a pair of 16oz.

I can’t speak for anyone other than myself and the places I’ve been. By the same token, I’ve seen bjj guys go to judo with their blue belts on.... in quite certain there aren’t blue belts in judo.... I wear a white belt in judo because that’s my rank- in judo. I hope that the belt you were wearing would be whichever tank you’ve acquired in THAT style would be implied....

Whats with the incredibly short videos man? If you really want a critique, do a 3 minute shadow boxing round. Maybe vid a heavy bag workout. But a 2 second video?

I like you- we should hang out The only thing I’d add is that self defense is step one, whereas actual fighting and combat is what happens after step one. This coincides with the “one strike one kill doctrine” of most eastern styles. A single strike- and that’s it. It often won’t incapacitate your opponent, but the idea here is that a quick strike distracts and disrupts and the next thing you’re supposed to do is run. I can’t stand people who try to invert this philosophy. For anyone who’s a full time student, indeed a professional fighter for example, self defense is laughably easy. I’d say the only reason why it’s of great important for instructors is to teach someone else how to do it....

Well first, let’s start with that hair. It’s a little too long. High and tight is the way to go. Your shirt also needs to be ironed too. It’s a T-shirt so you could just spritz some water on it and toss it in the dryer. You appear to shave on a daily basis though, and with no toilet paper your technique on point. Hope this helps.... .... .... ... .... Ok seriously now, if you’re trying to learn how to punch or get critique of it, we need to see your hips and feet. You’re moving neither nor are you moving your shoulders. Elbows should be in nice and tight for a good punch (imagine being at the top of a chin up). In all fairness I usually keep my elbows wide mostly because I’m a defensive fighter and I’m looking to clinch, but if I’m looking for power, they go low and tight...