Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the most effective martial art in teaching self-defense. As outlined here, it can shut down attackers, win street fights and be applied successfully in MMA. However, although BJJ is great for combat it is still not perfect and some of its flaws should be addressed.
Table of Contents
Ignoring takedowns
Takedowns are a fundamental part of BJJ and fighting in genral. This can be seen in various high level matches. ADCC puts a high emphasis on securing takedowns and penalizes pulling guard. Whilst takedowns are an important part of overall grappling, they can be ignored by BJJ guard players.
The temptation in the gym may be to pull guard and sit as opposed to trying a takedown. In a competition, this is also completely fine. Many IBJJF tournaments have been won without attempting a single takedown.
The problem with no takedowns are that it can create a good BJJ player on the ground, who simultaneously has bad stand up. There is little point learning BJJ for self-defense if takedowns are ignored. This is because, if a fight does happen and your stand up is poor, your ground game can become completely useless as a result as it won’t reach the floor.
With this in mind, it’s suggested to get comfortable at takedowns even if you don’t enjoy them. Basic moves such as single and double leg takedowns are a good place to start.
Unrealistic guards
Undoubtedly some guards are born purely for competition. For instance, the Worm guard often gets criticized by MMA practitioners as it has no crossover to fighting and goes against the roots of BJJ. Whilst the Worm guard is a great guard in the Gi, it is non-existent in Nogi. The same can be said for inverted closed guard and also 50/50 to some extent.
However, what is worse than this are other guard situations. For instance, stalling in three-quarter guard to win on an advantage in sport Jiu Jitsu is not a good idea when fighting. This is because the opponent has access to your upper body with little reply. Because of this, in a fight situation, you could get knocked out with relative ease.
Other examples of bad guards for street or MMA fighting are various inverted guards, here if you get stuck for even a short while you could be punched in the head or slammed on your neck.
Again, that’s not to say guard playing is bad or lapel guards are bad. However, learning basic sweeps and positions and being aggressive from them is equally as important if training for self defense.
Oldschool BJJ was designed to get to a top position and stay there. This has been somewhat forgotten with point fighting.
Striking changes everything
Fans of BJJ are naturally pro-Jiu Jitsu. There’s nothing wrong with this and it can be seen in all forms of martial arts where practitioners favour their own style. However, striking definitely changes a lot. For instance, the legendary Roger Gracie went 67-7 in BJJ as a black belt and never got tapped. This is a massively successful win rate. However, his MMA record is 8-2. Whilst this is still an impressive record, it proves that even BJJ legends can get knocked out and that striking brings an element of chaos that is not seen in sport BJJ.
Similarly, the iconic Marcelo Garcia’s BJJ record was 80-11 but lost his only MMA fight by the lesser-known Kim Dae-Won. This doesn’t take away from anything he has achieved but shows that fighting is different from BJJ. If your striking is not on point, your BJJ can literally be the best in the world and you can still lose the fight. A classic example of this was when Kazushi Sakuraba fought the Gracie’s in PRIDE and would happily kick and punch through their open guard’s.
Against multiple attackers
This is a common critique against BJJ which is a bit unfair. For instance, a good boxer would still struggle against multiple attackers. However, UFC champion Mike Bisping has gone on record to say that doing BJJ with other people around is risky. He said you could have a top position and end up getting kicked in the head by the opponent’s friend. Because of this, there’s definitely a time and a place to be doing BJJ and with bystanders it may be risky to go to the ground.
BJJ does not really give you an upper hand if there are 2 or more attackers. Even if you are a very accomplished black belt, you can only take down and choke one person at a time. Fights are not like Kung Fu movies and the people who are attacking you will not stand around until it is their turn unfortunately!
Weapons
In fairness to BJJ, this is a weakness of all martial arts. Despite what some people will claim, it is extremely difficult to defend yourself against an opponent who has a weapon. In summary, it pretty much matches a white belt against a black belt if your opponent happens to have a bat or a knife. If the attacker has a gun, then you may as well have practised origami, it will be about as useful as your BJJ.
Overall, BJJ is not a silver bullet solution against everything. It will certainly improve your chances of winning a fight, but it does not offer any promises, even more so against weapons.
Summary
At this point, there’s no doubting the success of BJJ and it clearly works in MMA, street fighting and in sporting competitions. However, as outlined above it does have some weaknesses.
With this in mind, whilst BJJ is effective, it does not offer a magic solution to becoming an invincible fighter. However, it definitely does help. Perhaps the best solution is to train BJJ and do a bit of boxing or wrestling on the side to make yourself a more rounded martial artist who is comfortable in all areas and doesn’t rely on only one skill set.
