Brazilian Jujitsu, commonly referred to as BJJ, is gaining a lot of traction in North America, the UK, and Australia as both an effective self-defense martial art and a sport. This swift adoption rate is due to several factors, but the main reason is because it was, and continues to be used with terrific results in mixed martial arts (MMA) and no-holds-barred fighting.
BJJ is unique in the martial arts realm in that practitioners can attack from what would normally be considered a defensive position and vice versa. This leads many people to assume that a BJJ fighter is in danger when he might actually be attacking.
The underlying principles of BJJ enable a small fighter to attack and successfully defend against by applying leverage, and using strong muscles (or multiple muscles) to attack weaker muscles or joints. Early vale tudo videos (Brazilian for "anything goes") show many of these tactics in action.
BJJ practitioners can also end a fight with strikes, but these attacks are often opened as a result of traditional BJJ attacks, leaving himself vulnerable in the process; or directly through the application of BJJ attack sequences. BJJ attack techniques are engineered to render an opponent unable to continue a fight, either by inflicting damage to a joint or limb, or rendering him immobile or unconscious.
Most attack techniques can be organized into three categories:
1) Joint Locks: a fighter will isolate one of his opponent's limbs or joints and use leverage to move the joint beyond its normal range of motion. Some examples are arm bars, knee bars, Americana, Kimura.
2) Chokes: the word "chokes" is often used interchangeably with "strangles," but the two are very distinct, thought they both focus on the neck. A choke occurs when a fighters attacks the windpipe of his opponent to cut off or restrict air flow.
3) Strangles: with a strangle, a practitioner attempts to restrict the blood supply to the brain by constricting the carotid arteries. Strangles are most common when fighters are wearing gis (mata leo being a large exception), which are the traditional training and sparring uniform. You can view BJJ gi videos to see these tactics in action.
Brazilian Jujitsu is a compelling martial art. It takes a long time to master the many moves and positions, but sparring is excellent for physcial conditioning, and you spar at almost full speed, making the transition to self-defense situations much easier. To see how BJJ stacks up against other arts, you can view a large number of vs videos, which will showcase two martial arts head to head, e.g. kung fu vs. BJJ.
Chad Robinson has been training in MMA, submission grappling, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for over four years. He has competed in gi and no-gi tournaments, and mixed martial arts competitions. Chad also records bjj videos for his training school.
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