Bring the Right Tools

My friend told me her girlfriend went out with this guy over the weekend to a bar where a band was playing. After the show, this guy gets into a beef with a white-supremist. The guy knows jujitsu so he takes down the white-supremist and tries to choke him out.

Unfortunately, the white-supremist's buddies rush in (I think they always travel in groups) and start bashing this guy with kicks to the face and the body. This guy ends up getting beat up pretty good. I haven't heard if there is any permanent damage, but his eye is messed up.

My opinion - if you want to defend yourself in the street where there are no rules, bring the right tools. Jujitsu is good, but it is not a silver bullet as this guy learned the hard way. You need striking tools, clinching tools, ground/grappling tools, even weapons if they are legal (folding knives, etc).

There is no one tool that fixes everything. Be as fluent in as many ranges as possible.

Of course if he managed to talk his way out of the fight to begin with, that would have been the best tool for him to use.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by raptor_prime:
My friend told me her girlfriend went out with this guy over the weekend to a bar where a band was playing. After the show, this guy gets into a beef with a white-supremist. The guy knows jujitsu so he takes down the white-supremist and tries to choke him out.

Unfortunately, the white-supremist's buddies rush in (I think they always travel in groups) and start bashing this guy with kicks to the face and the body. This guy ends up getting beat up pretty good. I haven't heard if there is any permanent damage, but his eye is messed up.

My opinion - if you want to defend yourself in the street where there are no rules, bring the right tools. Jujitsu is good, but it is not a silver bullet as this guy learned the hard way. You need striking tools, clinching tools, ground/grappling tools, even weapons if they are legal (folding knives, etc).

There is no one tool that fixes everything. Be as fluent in as many ranges as possible.

Of course if he managed to talk his way out of the fight to begin with, that would have been the best tool for him to use.[/QUOTE]
I agree.

That's the only problem with grappling, it's a one on one ground fight. If there are buddies helping your oponent one good kick to your head might end your endevour. IMHO it's best to try and take one out quick as possible and remain very mobile.

In my dojo we practice some standing grappling techniques. Some kata contain standing grappling techniques as well.

Not all grappling is BJJ or even on the ground.

Shouldn't have got into the fight in the first place. What was it Mr Myagi said?

"Karate for Self Defense"

Same could be said for Jiu Jitsu.

Grappling is not ground fighting only. It also covers stand up grappling(ie. the clinch) and throwing.

It is a poor carpenter indeed who blames his tools.

Hi raptor_prime,

Unfortunate incident for the guy...but your analysis is skewed. Jujutsu doesn't lack striking skills etc. that you noted.

What the guy was guilty of was two things:

1) Most Hate Groups tend to do just that...travel in groups, gaining bravado by the fact that the have their pals to both show off to & back them up. The guy made a mistake -- instead of extricating himself & the girl from the area...he chose to engage with either not noting if the guy had backup or disregarding it.

2) His mistake wasn't the use of an armbar...but in the use of it as a submission technique. The situation (( which sounds like it was avoidable & he chose not to )) was not in a gym...having selected the armbar he should have used it as it was intended...as an arm break. By using it instead for submission all he did was trap himself as an easy target for the idiots backup.

Jujutsu is not based solely upon ground fighting. There are over 800 styles of Jujutsu of which BJJ is only one.

In this guy failed first and foremost in terms of his awareness of his surroundings, followed by selecting a technique as a restraint that kept him from maintaining movement and allowed him to become an easy target.

Eric

I agree with your first point, he should have been aware of what was going on around him. Unfortunately a lot of self defense schools teach more about fighting and not enough on how to avoid getting into fights through awareness. If he had been alert he could have avoided the fight in the first place.

As for your second point, from what I was told he went for a choke, not an armbar, and he was jumped before he could finish. But even if he was going for an armbar, it still takes time to get the arm and execute it, time the bad guys use to surround you and beat you up if you weren't aware they were around (which was his first mistake). By going to the ground in the first place, he limited his own movement, and that made him an easy target.

Maybe other schools of jujitsu teach striking and stand up fighting (which would have provided him with more tools he could have used), but the BJJ he studied obviously did not since his first instinct was to take down the one guy and try to choke him out. If he had striking tools in his arsenal, he would have remained on his feet and had the option to stay and fight or run. On the ground his mobility was compromised and his options were limited.

His only tool was fighting on the ground, and it did not serve him well in this instance.