Sunday, 6 January 2013

Self defense aspects of Brazilian Jiujitsu

By Sensei Ken Sumner


BJJ trains physical action of self defense almost exclusively. However in actual self defense, physical action is used less than 10% of the time. That's strange in that the actual training is only actually used so little. However it's not actually all that strange if you look at what other benefits and why this training style is so effective

The reason being is that most conflicts can be diffused or avoided altogether due to a person's confidence and how they respond to an aggressive person. When an attacker starts an attack, how the person responds to the aggression is a huge indicator on how the entire attack will go. If the person being attacked responds with confidence, this will change how the attacker will respond. This confidence that a person needs comes from the knowledge that they can defend themselves. If a person knows that they can defend themselves, they are much less likely to get involved in an altercation.

A person is able to stand up, verbally, and phsyically standing up to someone comes from this knowledge that a person can defend themselves. BJJ builds this specific self confidence from the Belt system, and from the sparring practice during class. Martial arts specifically does this from having the students with a distinct goal, and then after practice and training recieving a concrete indicator of the achievement of that goal. The goal in Brazilian Jiujitsu is the colored belt. Self confidence comes out of this setting goals, and then going out and achieving it.

HOwever in a self defense situation, physical actions take over which is why we train the physical action so much.

Unfortunately there are times where confidence, or words fail, then actions need to take over. BJJ have spend a lot of time travelling the world to find the most effective self-defense. Recently I had a student, who was 16 years old and was travelling to Spain for a school trip. She had an encounter with a pickpocket who lunged at her, trying to get her shoulder.

Responding to this attack at her shoulder, she defended herself using the techniques she was taught. She was able to get him to leave both of them alone. BJJ awarded her the confidence to do this for both of them. For her the training in BJJ gave her a lot as she has said that if she did not train Brazilian Jiujitsu this self defense would not have happened. However also she wouldn't have been confident enough to take the trip in the first place.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment