The Gracie jiu-jitsu story

> Having experience in both, there are far fewer injuries in BJJ than Judo.

I'd actually be curious to know what the stats on that are. I certainly don't think either of our anecdata are sufficient to answer the question.

However, as noted in the wikipedia article I linked earlier, the judo's banning of various joint locks that are not banned in BJJ was done from a safety motivation. In principle, I'm open to the idea that these modifications of judo were not effective in their intended purpose to reduce injury. However, given some knowledge of (non-arm) joint locking techniques, an observed reduction in injury seems highly plausible.

In short, I'm open to the possibility that the locks in BJJ don't constitute a significant additional risk above and beyond judo. However, judo's ban on BJJ-sanctioned locks does not strike me as particularly ill conceived.

There is no striking in BJJ, just like there is no striking in Judo.

End of story.

> This suggests to me that this was in contrast to the norm, which would be to mount and then strike with the fist.

This was a dojo raid situation, which, believe it or not, used to happen quite a bit. A gym (of whatever martial art) shows up and challenges your gym because they say their art is better. So a lot of times schools would accept for whatever reason, and they'd have a fight. A different era, etc.

Say what you want about whether or not you agree with the challenge fighting, but schools would fight schools--Judo schools included. The point of my story was that they were able to defeat the school without striking.

On to a another point: if you are defending yourself on the street, you'd be an idiot to restrict yourself from striking if the situation is truly dangerous.

> traditional styles (karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, etc.)

those are all to some degree combat sports. Also most of those would be pretty useless in a street fight.

> Completely inaccurate in my experience - people who compete in full-contact combat sports will almost always beat the people who don't, other things being equal.

Can you explain to me why generally armies teach their soldier something like Krav Maga which doesn't really have competition rather than boxing or BJJ? Don't get me wrong, armies sometimes teach boxing or BJJ as well but it's definitely not the main martial art.

> The techniques don't have to be lethal to completely destroy your opponent, and BJJ was made for choking people out or breaking their limbs so badly they literally cannot continue the fight.

They also concentrate on fighting on the ground which is pretty fucking useless IRL. It's also useless against say multiple opponents. Or are you expecting them to wait for you to choke them out one by one?

> Not to mention there's a plethora of illegal techniques ranging from neck cranks to spinal locks, removed from competition because they're far too dangerous and can kill or paralyze you.

Yeah. So what? Are these practiced in BJJ or what? Because they are in other some arts.

> The best tournament practitioners are a lot more likely to know these and be able to apply them than people who sit around theorizing about them.

You have no clue how some of the more lethal martial arts are practiced. The good schools definitely aren't just 'theorizing' and sparring is an essential part of the training.

> if you challenge a boxer and he caves your face in people don't get right up and say,

A boxer learns to fight in accordance with some rules. With those rules being absent IRL, he's at a disadvantage because he's not expecting someone to say kick his knee out.

> One of my best MA memories was getting my ass kicked in 5 seconds by a guy half my size who was only using one arm because the other was broken in a recent grappling tournament.

What am I supposed to do with this statement. Maybe you are just a shit grappler.

> I'm not a fan of some of the MMA culture that bleeds over into BJJ.

Nah, it's the attitude from BJJ that ended up in MMA culture

I'm curious if you'd care to mention exactly what "more lethal martial arts" or "good schools" you're alluding too. I also specified "full-contact" previously, meaning live training - would be quite surprised to find legitimate schools practicing "lethal techniques" at anything close to full speed.

>Can you explain to me why generally armies teach their soldier something like Krav Maga...

The US military's combatives program is based mostly on combat sports[1], e.g. BJJ, judo, muay thai, boxing, wrestling, etc. The training is adjusted to their particular use cases, like trying not to lose your weapon, since soldiers with guns who can shoot are a lot more valuable to the military than ones who can grapple. That aside, and if you don't believe me fine, but most military guys will lose quickly to even an average BJJ blue belt. I've seen it many times, and anyone at an MMA or grappling school near a military base should be able to confirm as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combatives#Modern_Army_Combati...

>They also concentrate on fighting on the ground which is pretty fucking useless IRL. It's also useless against say multiple opponents. Or are you expecting them to wait for you to choke them out one by one?

Except it's completely not. Sure, ground fighting works best (imo) in a one-on-one fight against unarmed opponents, but if you're attacked by a team of people with serious weapons you're probably screwed anyway. BJJ (if that's the one we're focusing on) also involves a lot of wrestling, judo, position control, etc. No one forces you to go to the ground, and a lot of the actual Gracie self-defense stuff involves standing escape type techniques - "break the grip and get away." And again, it doesn't take long to choke someone out, a few seconds if the grip is right, and even less to just rip a shoulder or break a wrist. You can finish a kimura standing, for example, it's just easier to get out of if the person knows how to defend it.

>A boxer learns to fight in accordance with some rules... he's at a disadvantage because he's not expecting someone to say kick his knee out.

Opening up leg strikes certainly changes the game, but experienced boxers will have extensive practice in controlling their position, distance, making angles and avoiding strikes. If this comparison is still between people doing full-contact styles with live training, versus people not, he still has a huge advantage over an opponent with no practice in an actual combat situation.

You seem to be alluding to styles where people somehow practice "lethal" techniques in an effective manner without neutering the effectiveness of their training, but provide no suggestions of what styles and schools those are. If you could provide some examples it would be more convincing.

>What am I supposed to do with this statement. Maybe you are just a shit grappler.

Maybe drop the attitude? It was one of my first days of class, against someone with years of experience. I'm not really interested in debating it if there's no intention to reach consensus and just toss insults instead.