There are many reasons to train BJJ – fitness, camaraderie, having fun, taking on a challenge, spiritual development, learning to deal with challenges, wanting to compete – but at its core, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a martial art.
Martial arts means self defense. Self defense is a very big topic, but it has to include choking an attacker into a unconsciousness if need be.
Here are two videos I’ve recently published on this topic…
The first video talks about good vs bad jiu-jitsu schools, the Gracies, the necessity of learning basic striking, clinching, takedowns, and strike defense on the ground.
In the second video (below) I argue that the differences between ‘self defense’ and ‘sport’ jiu-jitsu have largely been exaggerated.
The real magic of jiu-jitsu is in training against resistance and learning to deal with pressure, not learning a set of magical ‘self defense approved’ techniques.
If your interest is in self defense then you should still train at the best BJJ school you can find and, if necessary, supplement the curriculum with a little bit of additional training.
The bottom line is that a A BJJ purple belt training for competition isn’t going to have problems dealing with most unarmed single attackers in the street.
To listen to this conversation you could press play on the embedded audio player below, but then you might miss out on future episodes, wouldn’t you?
So the best thing to do is to subscribe to The Strenuous Life Podcast using the podcast player that you almost certainly already have on your phone!
(For example, if you have an iPhone then it’s the purple app with the antenna-like thing in it. Just click the Apple Podcasts link below and it should open up that app for you.)
Here are the links to find the podcast on various players (These are episodes 136 and 139)…
- Apple Podcasts (the purple app on your iPhone)
- Google Podcasts (the new google podcast app)
- Spotify (it’s free)
- Stitcher,
- Soundcloud,
- Google Play
Or you can listen here:
and here:
Click here to see a selection of other podcast episodes from The Strenuous Life Podcast that I host and publish!
