“Not all Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is created equal”. This is a short-hand phrase that I use to get people’s attention and begin to educate them about the different incarnations of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu has really grown in popularity over the years, to the point that it is now often cited as the world’s fastest growing martial art. However, what the public may not realize is that there are at least three distinct “systems”, “arts” or bodies of knowledge calling what they do “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu”. These activities can be quite different in what they do and why they do it. Therefore, I’m going to give you a quick overview to help try and eliminate a lot of the confusion.
It is really pretty simple, at its very most basic, there is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for “the mats”, there is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for “the cage”, and then there is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for “the street”. These major divisions of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu attract different kinds of people who have quite different motives for why they train. Therefore, If you are interested in self-defense or Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training you should understand the differences so you can find a school or instructor that shares the sames values and goals as you do.
Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for the mats is essentially the sport version of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Sport Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training consists almost entirely of ground grappling using the Gi but without any hard contact or strikes allowed. Therefore, it is very easy to confuse sport training with the standard Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training method, know in Japanese as “Randori”. Randori or “free-play” is often Anglicized or described as “Rolling”. However, Randori or rolling is not necessarily sport training despite their apparent similarities.Therefore, I like to use the Japanese term to help distinguished it from the sport approach.
Randori is at the heart of all Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training and philosophy but it is not necessarily a competition. It is really just a training method and a training philosophy that can too easily be sportified and turned into a crude ego battle. nevertheless, as a training protocol it is an indispensable one for anyone looking to develop real world applicable fighting or self defense skills.
The reason for this is because Randori allows you to relax, because there is no fear of being struck or hurt. This in turn enables you to concentrate on learning spontaneous attack and defense while being soft and sensitive to your opponents movements and attacks. This is one of the true secrets of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu because it allows you to learn to conserve energy while performing attacks with “maximum efficiency”.
This really is a brilliant training experience and all Brazilian Jiu-jitsu practitioners engage in plenty of Randori, but it is just that, a training method. Without the other training methods that contain realistic contact, techniques and scenarios your Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training would be dangerously incomplete as a system of unarmed combat and self-defense. Randori is not “fighting”, it is not meant to simulate actual fighting conditions but is a preparation for that, by installing technical reflexes of attack and defense.
In recent years some Brazilian Jiu-jitsu schools have started to only practice Randori or “sport rolling”and nothing else. Years ago this was almost unheard of but now days so many instructors of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu have never been taught the full curriculum that it may be the most common kind. Therefore, their training is largely based on what is allowed in the sport version of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and is not the complete system . This kind of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is not necessarily over competitive and is a good format for women and children. In addition, some schools will also teach some uncontested “standing grabs and holds” which they usually call “self-defense”, in an attempt to keep the old tradition of self defense alive and be able to say: “we teach self-defense”.
However, many of these types of schools only emphasize sport Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and have given up any pretense to being a fighting system. They only practice the increasingly complicated, flamboyant and often unrealistic techniques used on the modern mats and in the non-contact tournament format. While this can be a great workout, a lot of fun and enjoyable to practice it also makes “mat Jiu-jitsu” extremely artificial, overspecialized, one dimensional and the least practical for real world conflict. Moreover, at the far end of the spectrum, in some schools much of the training philosophy of “Randori” is replace by heavy conditioning, strength and athleticism, creating a kind of crude anti-Brazilian Jiu-jitsu devoid of much else but selfish competitive desires.
Thus, if you are looking for real world training then be careful of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Instructors who try to impress you with their Gi tournament medals or victories. There are many Brazilian Jiu-jitsu “Black Belts” trained in this method, who think you are going to pay them to teach you self-defense but who have never faced a full contact punch in their life or any punch for that matter, not even in training! At one time this would have been laughable in most Brazilian Jiu-jitsu circles but as I have mentioned, it is more and more becoming the norm. I call this kind of approach to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu “mat jiu-jitsu” because the mats or tatami are the only safe place to use most of these techniques.
Next we come to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for “the cage”. This is Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for “no holds barred” or Mixed Martial Arts matches. Therefore, you could also call this type of training Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for single combat. I kind of like that, because it is both accurate and a term that conjures up images of the honorable knights of old. “Cage fighting” for better or for worse produces a very different imagery.
This kind of MMA based Brazilian Jiu-jitsu training is a different animal entirely from mat Jiu-jitsu. Unlike sport Brazilian Jiu-jitsu , where the competitors use the same techniques and strategies in a safe highly regulated format, MMA matches evolved from brutal “no rules” “challenge matches” between different fighting styles.
These “no rules” fights were anything but safe. Called “Vale-Tudo” in Brazil, they originally were designed to leave only one man standing in order to prove what martial art or combat method worked best in a real bare knuckle fight. One of the primary reasons that Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is such a formidable fighting system is because it used this dangerous and unforgiving laboratory to test and develop its techniques and fighting strategies. Many of the lessons from this kind of reality fighting have been lost in the curriculum of sport based schools.
Authentic Brazilian Jiu-jitsu has evolved this way since at least the 1920s and had remained basically “undefeated” all that time. In fact, you can go back even further to the original Jiu-jitsu/Judo practitioners coming out of Japan, these men like, count Koma, routinely fought “mixed matches” under various conditions all over the world to prove the superiority of their art. This tradition was passed on to the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu fighters who developed and embraced it as their proving ground while “mixed matches” largely died out other places.
Despite this, conditions in Brazil somewhat retarded the full development of MMA style Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and prevented it from reaching its very highest potential, or being a bigger part of the regular curriculum at most academies. This prevented most people from benefiting from this knowledge.
The limited numbers of practitioners and the infrequency of the fights, along with occasional out right banning of Vale- Tudo events by politicians kept it a marginalized activity. On top of that, poor financial incentives and the overall “secrecy” involved in preparing for highly hostile “challenge matches”( that were often viewed not as sporting events but near life and death “affairs of honor” ) discouraged the proliferation of these very effective combative methods and the development of truly professional Jiu-jitsu fighters, events and organizations.
Moreover, cross-training was frowned upon and jiu-jitsu practitioners were forbidden to fight each other in public; to do so was extremely rare and considered sacrilegious. The result was that the most effective aspects of Brazilian jiu-jitsu were largely held back from most students and this “vale-tudo” or “anything goes” type training was treated as quasi-secret and reserved for a tiny elite who were trained “behind closed doors”. This kind of fighting was often referred to as “professional fights” because of the commitment needed from the fighters but who were often unpaid.
This encouraged and led to the odd over emphasis on sport Jiu-jitsu in some schools, which was the only way one Jiu-jitsu practitioner could “fight” with another. Even in schools where there was easier access to Vale-tudo training , most students did not participate because they did not see the point with no “amateur” versions and only very select students allows to “up hold the honor of the academy” and fight in public. Hence, the competitive emphasis was limited to the sport jiu-jitsu that every one could participate in and was encouraged to do so.
Therefore, a kind of myth was encouraged that the best sport Jiu-jitsu player was the best “fighter” in order to prevent real fighting with in the ranks of the Jiu-jitsu “family”. Silly ideas, such as the notion that you had to train many years with the Gi in sport style in order to be a good MMA fighter were treated like gospel and helped perpetuate the myths.
This all changed when Brazilian Jiu-jitsu and Vale-tudo came to North America where cross training and hybridization was the philosophy. Vale-tudo soon evolved into the new sport of Mixed Martial Arts.This new sport spread to Japan and around the world and with it developed a large industry that could support truly specialized and professional athletes. This exponential growth in the number of MMA fights and Brazilian Jiu-jitsu trained fighters also produced a technical revolution as more and more people with vast fighting experience developed new and innovative techniques and tactics to win in the cage. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu practitioners routinely fight each other in the new MMA arena and this further fuels the development of the best methods. Because The fighting conditions of MMA matches much closer resembles the conditions of real fights compared to the artificial Brazilian Jiu-jitsu sport matches, the addition of these techniques to the self-defense Brazilian Jiu-jitsu curriculum has super charged them.
Finely, we have “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for the street”. I am not always comfortable calling authentic Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for the street” because it gives the impression that it is the rougher, cruder or more violent version. In reality however, self-defense based authentic Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is the broadest in scope, the most useful and the most technical in nature. (For my part, I also find it the most interesting.)
This is because “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for the street” begins with the very realistic premise, that in the street you are going to have to face larger, stronger, more aggressive and perhaps even armed opponents. Therefore, you cannot have any weight class considerations like you would in mat or even cage Jiu-jitsu. Defending yourself against larger stronger opponents is the very reason for the existence of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu in the first place.
You could call this approach simply “self-defense Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” and it is, but many people confuse the term “self defense” with just the standing grabs and holds portion of the curriculum that too many schools just practice in an uncontested “kata” kind of way. In essence the entire system is “self-defense” and “standing grabs and holds” is just part of that over all “street effective” philosophy.
Therefore, self-defense Brazilian Jiu-jitsu encompasses all the other aspects and training methods of the other more narrow approaches to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu plus the situations and scenarios that can only occur in the real world. Things such as multiple opponents and being caught in positions of disadvantage such as sitting down, against a wall or even having to defend yourself against a weapon attack on the ground. If it can happen in the real world, then “Street Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” has to have an effective and proven solution for it.
Therefore, “mat Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” is like the classroom, “cage Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” is the full contact laboratory and “street Brazilian Jiu-jitsu” is being prepared for “the field”, or in a sense the “battle field”. Thus, if you are looking for Self-defense training through Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, which I do believe is your best choice, then be aware of the differences. A whole lot of people call what they do “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu”; However, It all may not be equal to the task.