@nickodemus
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Re: Krav Levels/Rankings/Belts?
quote Jeremy Stafford:I have never looked at my studio as a place for fashion statements… taking your argument to the next level, I’m sure someone in Japan looks at people wearing gi pants and t-shirts while gnashing their teeth and wailing on about how no one would wear Converse and a Kimono. The belts are there for the students to have a physical symbol of their achievements and to allow Instructors to quickly segregate the students into groups. I could give a Sh!t less about how it looks, bro!Guys who show up with matching rash guards and fight shorts tend to get made fun of at my gym. I like to wear rashguard and gi pants to limit skin-on-skin contact. Sometimes it’s a t-shirt and fight shorts day. Occasionally we will have a full blown gi day, jacket, pants and belt. Typically we will were belts for the segregation purposes that you mention earlier as well as some training techniques involving use of the belt.
Re: Krav Levels/Rankings/Belts?
The belt is just a strip of fabric to control your hips, get your arms tied up in, and even to be choked with LOL. But what do the colors symbolize for you KM guys? I’ll tell you how it goes in BJJ from my exposure to the culture. This is somewhat idealized because it sometimes gets corrupted for one reason or another in particular instances.
BJJ Belts – White, Blue, Purple, Brown, Black, (Red*)
White – you came in off the street and are new to BJJ. You attend the beginner’s class and only do drills until you feel comfortable to roll. You begin to learn the techniques of BJJ and are tapping a lot to higher belts. You start to be able to submit other white belts but most of your time rolling is spent defending attacks while stuck on the bottom. This is a difficult time but you must stick with it.
(62% of students at the gym)Blue – (1 to 4 years typically, most in 1-2 if they are dedicated) You have not only memorized all of the fundamental techniques from every position in BJJ, you have drilled all of them at least a dozen times. Most classes are repeated techniques with maybe one or two new tricks salted in per week. For the most part you’ve stopped getting hurt when you roll and can force submissions on a fully resisting opponent. Your love of BJJ is overflowing now that you can utilize it instinctively. You start to get a feel for strategy, balance and timing and use less strength and speed. You also gained the first target on your back for lower belts who want to claim tapping a blue, which is ok. You are used to tapping often and so you commonly play with your less than optimal techniques to increase experience with your game, even if it makes you lose in training. The only white belts that give you a hard time are previously trained athletic wrestlers and judokas, as well as experienced white belts getting near blue. Sometimes in MMA they will give a fighter who trains BJJ a blue early because of in-ring accomplishments, even if they are missing some technical knowledge of the fundamentals of BJJ. The same early promotion may happen for a really good and experienced wrestler that is just missing the whole BJJ specific repertoire. I believe it’s irresponsible to fight in a MMA format without at least a true blue.
(25% of students)Purple – (4 to 8 years, typically 6) The grad school of BJJ. You may begin formally teaching. Your game is airtight and you have a well developed personal style with good flow from one technique to another. You have pretty much seen and experienced everything BJJ on the mat. You rarely waist time or energy while rolling. You spend more attention on the timing, feel and tricking of your opponent because you have nailing the technical knowledge on auto-pilot of what you’re doing. Your technical skills may be similar to that of a blue, but the blues can be slow and sloppy and you are deliberate and clean with everything, and have a slightly bigger game. It’s just experience. At this level you have to start to care if you get tapped by a lower belt, but not until this level. When you try something new if it fails with a lower belt it doesn’t often set you back much.
(10% of students)Brown – (8 to 12 years, sometimes 8-10) You no longer make mistakes. If you are submitted it was by a brown or black and one helluva fight. Of course sometimes you may let lower belts advance on you and get close to a submission so that you have a sporting fight to practice your defense. You have a stack of tournament wins and have spent a significant effort teaching, giving back to the BJJ community. Most often when you roll you expend very little energy and have your opponent running like an exhausted scared rabbit. 99.9999% of the world cannot hang at your level. You definitely have a flawlessly executed personal style which contains multiple solutions and contingencies for any 1-on-1 unarmed position and situation, and you recognize them occurring many steps ahead of time to exploit them.
(2% of students)Black – (10 to 12, mostly 12+) You are the white belt that never gave up. Now you get to control where and how the fight goes with rare exception. You are expected to open your own school and make contributions to the technical development of the art. Virtually no one but other world class elite grapplers can hang at your level. Not only do you do everything perfectly down to the smallest detail, you know where others tend to go wrong from all of your teaching experience. Other elites and celebrities come from far and wide and you travel to meet them, for the best gym battles in history.
(1% of students)*Red- Red is reserved for the founding fathers of BJJ. No one in our time would get a red belt unless they made contributions to the art that literally turned it on its head.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
Nice video yoshi! I watched it muted because my wife is still asleep but I get the idea. I learned something new. I wonder if it would work the same on a hi-power magnum? As catapult said they definitely got jammed. Looks like an induced FTE malfunction. This makes me wonder if you could push the slide back, partially ejecting the round from battery and disrupt the initial discharge all together while they decocked the gun with the dud hammerfall. Probably not wise on a DA. That sounds like a long shot on top of already risky business. Sort of like grabbing the cylinder of a revolver to prevent it from rotating.
A lot of good BJJ instructors will visit schools for seminars. That is actually useful and less hostile then what they used to do in Brazil which was a bunch of BJJ a-holes go visit a MA school and challenge the upperclassman. I kinda think seminars are learning and forgetting but if you take the time to practice it will stick with you. They are great game enhancers once you build a foundation and are looking for more esoteric technique. The main difference between the new-school and old-school BJJ is that now we assume our opponents also know how to grapple and it’s no-gi. For example once-upon-a-time guys would mount you and wait for you to bench press them off of you and that is when they would take your arm and armbar you. Well as you could imagine after awhile no one goes to bench press you off of them because they know its gives you their arms to break. The techniques and strategy now focus more around your opponent KNOWING it’s COMING and UNABLE to do anything to STOP it. In the above example now we have to fight to peel that arm away from your chest. This is most often done by applying pressure with your shoulder or forearm to the nerve bundle under your jaw back by the hinge and neck intersection. Pressure on this location will also disrupt enough blood flow to KO you eventually if the pain compliance is not enough. So the idea is that your opponent is in agony and wants to relieve the pressure, totally demoralized they do something to make space and that is when you get the arm to gift wrap or whatever. They would rather give it to you and try to get a head start on their armbar defense then continue to eat the pressure.
As you said you don’t necessarily have to take them to the ground and submit them as a goal for grappling. In fact some may be surprised to know that a lot of the positions you have seen are the BJJ guy MAKING the BEST of a BAD SITUATION and he would rather not be there. I’ll use half-guard as an example. I have a strong half guard, although I hate being in the position. The reason I developed it was because I could sometimes catch an opponent there instead of them passing all the way to side control or mount. The whole guard concept is a defense posture that still allows you to attack and improve your position. If you can take their aggressive momentum and sweep them underneath you or get back up to standing then it worked. There are even good submissions from there. It’s for when you are getting overrun and just so you have tools to protect yourself and hopefully turn the table. It’s a fallback position, not your primary attack.
Ideally one-on-one I feel comfortable grappling and I’d prefer to go to the mat and be on top. It offers better offense and you exhaust your opponent by making them carry your weight. Your opponent is more limited in offense on bottom. I’ve learned that when I’m out weighed and out powered while on top it’s best to control their hips first then work your way up their body. They will use their superior arm strength to stiff arm you away and keep you low on their body so don’t locate yourself where they can have good form to apply arm strength. Anchor to the back of their neck and use shoulder pressure to make them weak and you own the side mount position.
Something that I’ve always found interesting is what the variation of opponents brings out in your game. Some guys are very strong in one area and weak in another and there is no rhythm or reason to it. For example you may have an opponent who taps to an incomplete leg triangle as you still have one hand on your shin and one on your knee and are tightening it up, not even locked your other knee over your ankle yet. For a different guy you may have to complete a fully locked triangle and then do additional steps like swimming an arm under his leg to turn off angle to him, pointing your knees together and pulling his head down to get the tap. Then you might get a technical MFer like me who pulls your choking leg down to the mat and sprawls out, walks around and pops his head out all together and uses his stuck arm to pass your guard! But when you have the first guy who tapped easily to the triangle in an omoplata he doesn’t tap and you could be quartering his shoulder like a chicken! So you have to transition to something else. The other two guys could tap to a shoulder lock as soon as you get the grip and start to increase pressure. Flexibility is a weird and variable thing and so rolling with the same guys all the time tends to adjust your game for who you’re playing against. You may win the first match then they find a hole in your game or vise versa. It’s how we all get better.
I’ve got a couple weak spots I’m trying to iron out right now. One is if I’m foolish enough to get caught in the front headlock position by a good wrestler. I don’t worry about a guillotine or the like because when they changed grips I’d have an opportunity. If they don’t risk anything and are waiting me out, (it’s uncomfortable on bottom of a front head lock,) I just can’t do much to get out other than sit down, scoot my butt back and pull them into full guard. It’s a dead spot. The other problem I’m having is when I’m side mounted I’ll let them run north-south on me to avoid my attempts to sweep or pull them back into guard. When they go north-south I get my knees under me and sit up. They lose the mount but not the location up by my head and I’m stuck back getting spent in that darn front headlock position.
My advice to improve your grappling is to use the stuff that is new and you are weak at, while you roll. At first you will fail and it will get you tapped but don’t sweat it. After putting in the experience the techniques will start to work for you and you will grow a more capable game.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
quote PinkGloves:No groin, no Krav Maga.In sparring, groin kicks are completely allowed.
Groin strikes would be something that you would discuss with your training partner.
“Hey man, while we roll if you get a chance to check me in the nuts go for it, I need to work on protecting the boys… Yes, I’m wearing a cup.”
I don’t think I’ve drilled groin strikes directly in a class but those crotch rippers from X-guard are brutal. Sometimes guard passing will land a shin or knee on you. Sometimes when you bar a limb joint you can be, ahem, out of alignment with their elbow/knee. I wear compression shorts underneath to minimize exposure and usually forgo the cup, just twist my hips appropriately. I fare OK in that department but people of course are not intentionally going after that.I forgot to mention that we do some small joint manipulation but not pulling fingers back, it’s more for peeling their grip off or controlling their arm by their hand…
Have a good weekend everybody!
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
PinkGloves,
Stop beating up your untrained boyfriends! LOL
When my brother lived in TN he visited Memphis Judo and Jiu-Jitsu a few times when I was in my first couple years of training down here. I’m not sure if that school is any good because my brother was a great high school wrestler but hasn’t trained BJJ and he didn’t stick with it. He did say they fight dirty in there! Women do very well at BJJ, it’s an equalizer particularly in the gi; chokes tend to be more effective for women than joint locks. A tight and locked triangle is a tight and locked triangle regardless of sex; it’s just a matter of getting your opponent there.You should remember that the idea behind Helio’s BJJ was for a weaker, less athletic and smaller opponent to overpower a larger, stronger, aggressive, meathead opponent. That is why there is a heritage of using the leverage of our whole body against a smaller part of our opponent, take advantage of opponent’s instinctive reactions, and emphasis on positional dominance before attempting submissions. Since I’m in the lower size of the mostly male training group I will often get pulled in as a grappling partner for the advanced women in the class. I used to feel very awkward rolling with women because I didn’t know how to apply myself honorably yet still not go easy on them and give them the quality of training that they need. My solution was to level the field by using the least amount of my strength necessary. Believe it or not what I saw as a PITA previously really ended up helping out my game. Lots of strength is not needed with good technique and conserving it saves the gas tank. The women enjoy a clean and technical roll instead of being made to eat shoulder pressure the whole time. It allows me to focus on perfecting the steps in techniques that I wouldn’t yet attempt on a stronger man who could use power to exploit my sloppiness with the new technique I’m attempting. I’m glad you’re grappling; a wrestling class can really help if you want to stay on your feet. I’ve rolled with some very good wrestlers that just have a fantastic base and hips and are very hard to take down. It has amazed me before and forced me to alter strategy. That is part of the fun.
Since you brought it up lets talk about rules for a moment. Different grappling tournaments have different rules. The best situation for a BJJ guy would be a tournament with no rules and no time limit. When everyone is the same skill level typically he who runs out of energy first and becomes weak like a kitten will start getting dominated, even if that one was ruling the day a moment earlier. Most tournaments rules (timed matches) favor the more athletic and stronger fighter. The more powerful wrestler/striker trains to empty his cardio in the first 3 minutes and then gets a chance to recover between rounds. In the gym some guys will do this, and as soon as they get too tired they stop rolling. It’s very frustrating because while you were being economical with your energy and riding out the storm they were burning themselves out at your expense and once that exertion cuts into them they quit playing… Your best BJJ comes out when you are tired and every movement counts, you should train that way. Most grappling tournaments favor a point-based system and have 2 five-minute rounds. Training BJJ for tournament is a different style than for fighting. They stall out the clock when up on points and do techniques that would get you killed. It’s a wrestling tournament not a BJJ tournament in almost every case and they wont always go for submissions if it means risking points. That said it still is fun. I get tournament nerves. Just remember it’s a different game so play it by their strategy. You really have to look up the rules and point system of each organization. Some neck crank techniques are debated acceptable or not.Typical gym rules are:
Light to moderate strikes with partners consent
No hard slams
No leg locks on white belts
No eye gouge
No bite
No groin strike
Yield mat space to higher belts
That is about it.
When in doubt, tap early and just start over.The video – I certainly don’t want to take anything away from the students in that posted video. They all did great and I know that took a lot of mat time. I would have to practice for a while to play that game well. I’d love to train some of the weapons techniques. If you noticed there were several moments when he naturally encountered a grappling situation in these drills, as is what happens in just about every fight. I realize you all don’t care about landing on your opponent in a dominant position because then you’re on the ground with them. You also want your training partners to be able to break fall so riding them down will not be acceptable. That said, with many throws, if you release just past peak of the pendulum it would allow you to dash away and reengage and also give them the freedom to break fall. I think a lot of stuff could be integrated. I did see some rudimentary throws and chokes being applied. Peculiar to me, it looked like he grabbed the slide of the pistol at times while the opponent’s hand was in the trigger. I don’t know if any of you have done that when one is fired but I’d think the front sight would shred your hand.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
Thank you CJs Dad. I was called a troll LOL like I live under a bridge and eat people! HAHA that doesn’t sound too bad to me. Maybe he wants me to take it elsewhere because I remind him of the gaping holes and inadequacies in his personal training? I’m not sure what bothered him other then he thinks I’m stupid, which is a great advantage for me but whatever.
I AM looking for information. I have met a handful a KMer converts at my gym. I spent the most time talking about KM with a couple that had switched over. He didn’t like watching her get “kravved” as they called it, so I suppose preferred to watch her get smothered by one at a time… to each their own. My point is that I have no experience with guys who are gung-ho KMers and I’ve only heard stuff I won’t repeat by fighters who don’t train KM. For me the cure to prejudice is exposure and experience. That’s why I came here online first, to chat with you guys proud of your Krav and get a better idea of the real deal. I want to make sure I’m training the real deal. Incidentally I wanted to correct the BJJ misconceptions while I clarified my own perception of KM. You get it CJs Dad, others don’t. Some of these guys are so sensitive to this and insult me but haven’t conveyed any quality information so who is being egotistical? I hate to tell you this because you don’t like the ground but the best way to stay off of it may be to develop a dangerous ground game so your opponents are reluctant to go there while fighting you. If they know it’s a death sentence for them you may all of the sudden find yourself on the ground less. In fact when they are horse playing and you walk up they might even stick their hands in their pockets and behave. This works in the gym and horseplay with your friends, not applicable in the street of course but as you know having skills from there doesn’t hurt if you end up needing them. I think everyone should at least learn enough grappling to avoid submissions. Learning to submit a grappler is a lifelong challenge but making yourself harder for a grappler to submit takes far less training. I’d take the mat over concrete any day but you can learn to embrace the concrete. When throwing or tripping an opponent I’d prefer concrete, or when I have them mounted and are pounding there head on the floor ect… Hard ground can be tough on the knees and take awhile to heal before you can train well again.
Catapult, I watched the video. Very, very fun stuff, looks like a blast. With my training some things I would try differently such as how he did the occasional slams (or gentle lifts and drops as I viewed them; it would be just as fast and easy, more energy efficient and higher damage and keep your posture to dump them suplex style in those engagements when he is behind an opponent with his arms locked around their waist) you may have a reason not to suplex? Those guys gave up there back which is a big no-no for us. I see they disengage very quickly after a strike or two and I fear it wouldn’t be enough to put down your opponent (unless you stripped their firearm and it functioned for you of course). That video reminds me of what I originally considered Krav for. Have you guys heard of Rex Applegate? I figure you will either laugh at me or applaud him. After WWII he published stuff and I read some of it like for example rifle disarm – 1) get inside rifle distance and grab the barrel aiming the muzzle away from you, expect it to go off. 2) Place other hand on the guns receiver, pivot the rifle off their shoulder, crack them in the face with the butt stock while you push kick them away and shoulder their weapon. Very Krav-esk. My buddy and I even tried the looping inside and chopping their wrist strike to send a hand weapon flying, it works, and hurts! I was just curious if old Applegate had any place for you guys or if his stuff has become antiquated and outdated. I’d like a coach to tighten up these techniques with me.Friday! I’m off work this morning and headed to my AM class and then I have a fast rope that needs climbing… I love rolling out of bed and onto the mat (short drive to gym). Take care guys.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
quote unstpabl1:either way you pick a base system and expand the arsenel to fit your needs…just realize you have to empty your cup to learn new things then mesh the old with the new…..and thats hard because our ego’s will fight us all the wayI hear ya! I don’t mind starting at the bottom of the training scale in a new art and I think those early lessons are the most important fundamentals to build off of. I just want to make sure it’s worth the investment of my time and has the skills I’m looking to add to my personal repertoire.
I still don’t know if you guys pull plastic guns from each other, or learn how to retain them. Finding impromptu weapons when attacked is good but I’d like to learn to master the handling of conventional ones with world class technique. I’m a humble student with little ego, but I am competitive, serious and have been training a long time and many of these guys are probably only keyboard warriors who never train and can’t imagine the capabilities of someone who does regularly and so they call me arrogant. You have to squash your ego on the mat if you want to get better. This is because if you only do your A game for fear of messing up and getting tapped, then you never learn and try to develop new techniques to expand your game. We call that “world’s toughest white belt”. Really you shouldn’t worry about tapping until purple. Tapping often is part of the learning process and my ego never had a problem with that, better to fight another day. I tap early and I tap often when I have to. Off to bed for me guys. Have a good night.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
quote esquire32:OK before my lil bjj story. I think bjj is awesome, have an interest myself, and have many friends and family that do it very heavily. Now the story. BJJ guy comes to a krav class. He was a brown belt under machado i think. Anyways, after class we are talking stuff and he says lets roll around and I’ll show you some stuff. Cool. So he put me in some type of choke from the front ( like a cross choke or something) as a demo and said what would you do now as he started squeezing. He was wanting to see the magic Krav techniques in action I guess. Ps. Didn’t know any by the way. I reached out and bit his arm ( only enough to leave a red mark ) and he let go. He gave me a funny look and said what was that. I said only thing I could think of, but you let go. Never came back. Hmmm…..I roll with less skilled to practice my submissions and more skilled to practice my defense to submissions. The sweeps and transitions are always in play. I roll gently with guys from other MAs when they come in just to see what they do, its very curious to me. All the time new guys will tuck their chin when I go to rear choke them from behind and I just wrench across their jaw instead of their neck. The leverage is so great they tap to keep it from popping out of the hinge. They cannot bite because of the force; their skin would split on their teeth and mouth gets no purchase. What you may think will save you sometimes doesnt really work. Our BJJ is considered too aggressive by some of the Brazilians who believe everything should be finessed. I figure if a guy is serious enough to bite me I’m going to finish the submission bite and all. I’d have to, he has bad intentions for me. Human bites are nasty germy wounds. Realistically it hasn’t been a problem in training but I’d have to fight a biter very carefully. I do have one bite scar on my leg from a fight but that was long before I got into BJJ.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
No Tap out shirt here to go with my smugness. Those shaved head dudes never actually come into the gym for very long. They are more fans of MMA then devoted students. I’m one of the calmest guys you would meet. I’m not a big guy, only 165, I’m in good shape but I don’t think I look that intimidating. Most guys at my gym are at least 180 so my game is forced to be more technical. I don’t go to bars or like to get in fights. I get it all out in the gym. Confident/arrogant, whatever.
A gi choke is just an example that came to mind because it worked in a similar situation 2 years ago while I was pumping gas and a guy at the 7-11 thought I disrespected him because I asked them to turn down their music. It has been a long time since I was jumped or in a fight with this one exception. He came out of their car with his pop urban culture pants hanging off him, started shadow boxing and dancing around and then attacked me! I think to save face in front of his friend who never reacted. When he closed I put both my arms up in the stop position like wtf to make space and the choke was there. Do I remember grabbing the back of his shirt at the label, no, or pulling the other side across, no… did time slow down and it work lucky for me that day, yes! Before the manager came out the fight was over. Glad his buddy in the car was a deer in headlights and not a shooter.
Gi chokes can take a few seconds but you would be surprised how fast its lights out if you do it right and get a good grip before straightening your arms. They cannot effectively punch you while being choked if done right. An arm triangle followed by a hip toss is even faster and real easy to slide into while trading punches if you do it like a duck under off their haymaker. If you want to stay off the ground you could also attempt a standing Kimura followed up with a knee to the face once they are bent forward. I just list some to illustrate that BJJ has a lot of techniques for various situations. We drill so many techniques that some might think it limits the application. In reality that is not how it works. Your brain is a magical and wonderful thing. After a few months of training the technical information is memorized and not recalled verbally in your mind but instead appropriate options bubble to the surface as you constantly analyze the fight. Your brain recognizes the situation, your relative position, balance, orientation with your opponent and the appropriate techniques bubble to the surface without effort. It’s not hard because there are really only a dozen or so basic submissions and white belts and black belts finish them the same way. The difference is how you force them onto your opponent and there are tons of setups that all end with the same basic unstoppable submissions. We probably have some of the best awareness in the game for reacting to the actions of our opponents while also baiting and tricking them if not outright controlling them, timing, pressure, cardio, distance and space, the room around us as it pertains to training partners sharing mat space. You cannot pay attention to these things if you’re trying to review the steps of an armbar in your head. Those steps have to be on autopilot. Your body does it by recognition of feel from drilling, drilling, drilling. I’m pretty fast on the mat, a lot of guys say that, it’s not necessarily a good thing, it can make you sloppy. My quickness is not super reaction speed, it is from anticipation. I simply know that from this given position while he is eating my forearm my opponent is uncomfortable and wants to change the situation but he can effectively only attempt 1 of however many things. So with that anticipation you can explode into your next step the instant they move and you recognize what they are going to do. We also disrupt our comfort and desire to fight, demoralize and exhaust ourselves by working to breath and suffering under shoulder pressure. The idea is that when you are able to stay calm with stress you are more aware and creative, you do better BJJ. A survival fight and calm don’t go together so then you unleash at 100% with your A game and don’t let go when they tap… simple transition.
Of course firearms would trump unarmed combat. I own and train with those too. I like to develop unarmed skills because they cannot be taken from you and are ultimately concealable and always available. Besides, unless you carry a gun on your hip you won’t have it ready when you need it anyway. Also if it’s stuck in your holster while you’re laying on your arm mounted under a grappler it is useless. Guys who spend $1,000 on a pistol and no training yet think they are formidable amuse me.
I’ve never practiced biting an ear or jamming an eye so I don’t know how effective I would be trying that. I think I get the concept, that exploding with extreme brutal force creates the shock that allows you to get away. I just wonder if any of it would work against a real opponent who is ready for you to throw that hand breaking right cross at their jaw. We train for that opponent, to break all their limbs and joints and choke them unconscious. Unless you guys are volunteering to get your nuts bit in training or whatever I don’t see how those techniques would be A game go-to moves in combat.Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
quote catapult:I hope your overconfidence doesn’t get you killed sometime when you are “rolling” with a guy in an alley covered with broken glass and his buddy slips up behind you and slips a knife between your ribs.Ohh I’m sure you would just hate that!:D: This is the kind of ignorant BJJ bashing that I mentioned encountering online in my OP.
The BJJ scenario for that would more likely be the initial assailant throwing punches that set him up for getting gi choked with his own t-shirt while standing, him out cold in less than 10 seconds from when it all started and then thrown on his head. Engaging the 2nd attacker is a wild card. God help anyone outnumbered. Jiu-Jitsu guys are not idiots. We are not going to go to the ground in a glass covered alley. Recognizing the situation and an unfair fight should make anyone flee and evade. If someone sucker punched me in the alley and really rocked me, you know sent me reeling, I’d like to think my guard could keep me alive by protecting me, not submitting him, until I was more revived. If a BJJ guy is uncomfortable from closed guard don’t be surprised if he decides to push off your hip with one leg to make space between the two of you while he kicks you in the sternum with his other leg and pops back up to standing. It’s not all ground game and we all prefer to be on top, not bottom.
I’m not sure what “principle based system” means. We all have principles I suppose. There are so many dirty little tricks in BJJ. The original JJ had weapons and they have a science to them as well but much of those are outdated hardware. I always like thoughtful and effective techniques. I guess where I’m failing here is that I want a BJJ style class that covers the situations addressed in KM scenario. By BJJ style what I mean is that an instructor and partner demonstrate a technique, and then you drill it a ton with a partner while the coaches walk around and tweak and improve your technique. Then you all get on the wall and pair off or group to fight with what you have been learning, with emphasis on integrating the demonstrated techniques from that day into your game. That is the typical format. I have no idea how they do it in KM with shark tanks and such. We have a fenced in cage. I just want the same quality learning as BJJ but with rubber knives and multiple assailants and other cool stuff like that. Basically I’m looking to expand my game into new territory with techniques for situation XYZ. I certainly wouldn’t go looking for these situations. I just like to feel prepared for anything. I’m not sure if KM is for me or if there is a place in Tampa worthwhile. I see guys driving around with magnetic signs on their trucks offering classes.
Re: Krav related exercises?
I don’t have Krav experience but this question comes up a lot with what I do. My $0.02 are the best thing for you to do is simply MORE Krav! Don’t do any outside activities that could injure you and subsequently interfere with your training. Become a Krav gym rat. It will train and condition you for doing Krav better. That really is the most efficient “easy way” in the long run. Don’t forget to stretch.
Re: BJJ guy considering crosstraining in KM, but first…
OK, OK I re-read my post and I see that I sound like an elitist grappling a-hole. That is the empowerment of BJJ with no real way to boast it other than slapping hands on the mat… The other blue knows… go into any reputable BJJ gym. If you don’t know how to play our game it is tap, tap, tap city for you. That’s really all I’m trying to convey. You may not think it’s a well rounded system but I’d be hard pressed to find another that gives you so many powerful tools in the tool box for all of the positions involved in fighting an opponent, while keeping you well protected.
Back to my question though. Do you guys have good techniques for disarms against determined and skilled opponents, weapons retention, prisoner control… or not? Is there a place in/near Tampa that you may suggest for me to check out? I love learning new technique but want to make sure I’m not wasting my time at the wrong place…
