The Truth About Self Defense…

Recently I was discussing ‘street‘ techniques for self defense with one of our BJJ black belts at Texarkana Jiu Jitsu.

I mentioned a old video that showed a Gracie fighting someone in a backyard. The opponent had apparently tried to do something dirty. I don’t remember if it were a bit, groin attack, or eye gauge.

Anyway, apparently it really upset the Gracie guy. He mounted him and proceeded to bite off his ear while the guy was completely helpless to do anything about it.

Not something I advocate but it speaks to how helpless people are against a good Jiu Jitsu practitioner

Here Bas talks about a group of ninjas coming in to train with him.

We had a similar situation before when a huge karate and Japanese Jiu Jitsu guy took a class from me at Texarkana Jiu Jitsu.

He wanted to argue about everything, every technique. He was easily 400 lbs, probably 450!

He didn’t think a double leg would work on him. I asked him if he knew how to fall. He said yes, so I shot in and took him down with a double leg. I was younger and less risk averse back then!

Later we were working armbars and he said he would just bite my leg. I explained how the leg that was over his face would not be gently placed over it instead slamming into his face violently. Worse if he did bite, I explained that it would upset me and then my bridge into the armbar would be explosive and violent.

Going on, I told him that he would not be able to bite when his mouth was open yelling in pain uncontrollably.

A funny aside, after class I was out front with one of the guys. He said, “I was a little worried. He kept talking about biting and he looked hungry!”

Anyway, the truth is if you are getting completely dominated in a fight then it might cause you more harm to resort to ‘dirty‘ tactics that some self defense people are so fond of practicing. Too often “self defense” training means you learn to eye gouge, groin kick, and bite.

The truth is that all these things can be best applied if you have a dominate position like the mount as mentioned above. This position dominance allows you to choose the appropriate level of response to end the fight while at the same time remaining as safe as possible.

It also has to be mentioned that someone that has real striking skills could better deliver a strike meaning that a boxer would very likely be able to deliver a much more devastating eye poke than some ‘self defense expert‘ that is unless the boxer is under the mount of a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner. 😉

Coach Marc Hagebusch

4th degree BJJ Black Belt

Texarkana Jiu Jitsu