Yes, but according to the experts that I've read, you are more likely to face a striker than a grappler--again, it's that "best odds" thing.
I think you would make more sense if you yelled out, "I resign." If YOU put someone in an arm bar, you can yell, "Checkmate." Of course, if you slip, you can say, "J'adoube." Just thought I'd say that en passant.
In my opinion, as someone who's studied several martial arts, BJJ is probably the best art for self-defense, but not for overall fighting. This is because BJJ doesn't involve any striking, gouging, etc. which look bad in a courtroom, whereas merely restraining your opponent without injuring him wouldn't be badly looked upon. When it comes to fighting, though, it just doesn't always work. The whole "X percent of fights go to the ground" thing is utter BS, as I've seen many fights between untrained individuals that never went to the ground. If A pure BJJ guy is up against someone who's both a skilled striker and is good in the clinch, he's going to be in serious trouble. While BJJ has a part of the solution to fighting superiority, it isn't the be-all end-all style. Ironically, this is what most MMA/BJJ guys berate TMAs for doing: claiming their style works great and covers everything, when it's obvious they have only one small piece of the puzzle. BJJ is exactly the same; grappling is a part of fighting, but it needs to be practiced in conjunction with other fighting styles that are effective in their own areas of specialization (i.e. good striking/clinch fighting styles).
1) That doesn't make any sense 2) um. what is? You do know the stock BJJ answer is "no single art covers everything, cross-train", right? All they say is that their art's the single most important to include in your stew BJJ's biggest schtick is that a pure BJJ guy has an overwhelmingly good chance of beating a pure (anything else) guy in a NHB fight. Untrained. exactly. How many times have you seen an untrained guy beat a BJJ guy? I bet that near 100% of fights with BJJ versus untrained go to the ground, barring reasons to keep it standing on the BJJ guy's part. Like Muay Thai? hahaha The problem with what you're getting at is that it's a strawman. In BJJ it's common to encourage cross-training - I'd be willing to bet that no other art is so commonly practiced in the same gym as other styles. Where I live, there's a Karate school with BJJ, a JKD school with Kali/Muay Thai/BJJ, and one pure BJJ place that frequently sends its students to go study Judo or Muay Thai elsewhere! Again, BJJ doesn't claim to be the only thing you need to be a "complete" fighter. It just says that it's something you do need.
You missed this sentence: "If A pure BJJ guy is up against someone who's both a skilled striker and is good in the clinch, he's going to be in serious trouble." In a pure style-vs-style fight, I would bet on the BJJ guy every time. If the non-BJJ guy has cross-trained, it is a different story.
I think in general with fighters of equal skilll level, the grappler will come out over the striker. The grapping can be submission, free style, judo, bjj. The reason is that it is easier for the grappler to cover up and close and grab than it is for a striker to evade the clinch. However as been said earlier the key word is crosstrain. The US Army believes in the value of grappling over striking and has based their system upon it. However they obviously provide a lot of instruction on striking also. So pure bjj is best mixed with some striking skill set. Since I am not doing MMA I mix my bjj with some of the close quarter striking principles of the SPEAR system but there are many other good systems you could add to it instead. As always both skill sets need to be trained "alive" IMO.
It depends on what he means by "clinch". A Muay Thai guy is good at striking and the clinch but will lose to BJJ (Sudo v Dekker). If he means someone like Couture but without the BJJ training, who has good striking and awesome wrestling, well yeah. And even then the striker/wrestler has to worry about guard pulling because of having no idea how to defend submissions.
I assumed he meant 'clinch' in terms of takedown defense. It's a given a Muay Thai guy will have a good 'striking clinch'. Orlando Wiet was an excellent MT guy and he did not do very well in the early NHB days.
That's basically what I meant; I suppose guys like Chuck Liddel would be an example of what I mean. It's possible for a striker to force a grappler to play a stand-up game, although it's admittedly harder than it is for a grappler trying to force someone to the ground. First off, I meant that it's the best type of martial art for self-defense in that grappling doesn't look as bad from a legal point of view as striking does. That's a simple, logical statement; I fail to see what doesn't make sense about it. I agree with your second statement; I failed to consider cross-training in my reply, and was only discussing a pure BJJ fighter. For that oversight I apologize.
There are no pure strikers or grapplers left in the game, so stop using Liddell and Cro Cop as examples of strikers. Mirko Filipovic trains with Fabricio Werdum for christs sake. Remember the picture of Chuck with painted tonails doing the rubber guard at Eddie Bravo's 10th planet Jiu-jitsu? There are no "strikers with takedown defense" They're MMA guys. In a straight fight with pure styles and people with similar amounts of experience, I would bet on BJJ every time.
Not to take anything away from the scientists of striking (Bruce Lee, Ali, etc.) but it is rather... primative. If you have an average grappler, take him to a boxing expert, you'll have an average striker in about 6 months, maybe even a better than average striker. But if you take an average striker and give him 6 months in BJJ... he's still crap. Can we see the difference? In the street, you can't be serious about throwing punches to the head as being very reliable. Even Mike Tyson broke his hand in a bar fight. Gloves, even the small ones UFC uses, protect the hands. Out in the world, you don't want to damage your mits! If you can't use knees or elbows (which are 100X more deadly than a punch or kick [drawback is you have to be closer]), use a hammerfist, open palm, or chin jab, that kind of thing (like your grand-daddies in WWII). That is some serious stuff, and it's very easy to master those strikes in a very short time (weeks!). I love boxing, I love the science of it. I did 6 months 2X week with a former Olympic boxer. But it's no comparison to the complexity that I have found in BJJ. My BJJ coach last night said he did 15 years of karate, and dabbled in every striking art he could. After 2 years though, he was bored, same basic moves over and over. With BJJ, he said he discovers something new every day. It's limitless. I think that's very exciting (just adding another reason why I chose BJJ to the list!)
I don't think you will have average anything in six months. You can't be average striker in 6 months compared to people that have been striking for years. And if you compare them to people that have never done anything, they will be far beyond average. BJJ is more complicated. Going for submissions does take more time to learn. But in terms of self defense, is that really a good thing? If your real goal is purely self defense, I think you would be better off with 6 months of high school wrestling than anything else. Almost everyone knows how to do rudimentary punching, especially if you are on top of someone. Wrestling will teach you takedowns, takedown defense, and positioning better than anything else.
Adding ground fighting of any type to a striking skill is always beneficial. I have dabbled in ground fighting, and will continue, but I find it very complex and rather difficult to get any proficiency in ( but I will continue to try ) I think it is worth the effort. Just my thoughts.
Everyone's hands are like glass essentially, I broke my hands 52 times this year striking with no gloves on.
By average, I simply meant the average guy on the street you might get into a fight with in the bar parking lot, or a robbery or something--not pro fighters. Below average would be someone who punches with their thumb in their fist like a cat; average would be a nice solid puncher using the hips who knows how to jab, cross, and hook. Then you have amature boxers, and above them, the elite pros. I guess that's how I was looking at it. So, I agree with you, but just different definitions of "average".
Then what do you mean by an average grappler? As perhaps a side note I think that even if getting really good at submission grappling takes longer this is compensated by the fact that even basic groundfighting skills give you a big advantage over someone who knows nothing at all in that area.
Absolutely. Hitting hard is fairly natural (note I didn't say hitting "skillfully" is natural). Grappling takes knowledge. And that makes a hell of a difference. Just knowing the hierarchy of positions and how they inter-relate and transition is a massive advantage.
