BJJ for MMA
Jiu Jitsu inside an octagon
Gladiators were armed fighters who would fight opponents and animals in the arena. While the sport was performed for public entertainment, gladiators were fierce and entirely ruthless in their fights. Gladiatorship is no longer a sport, however its distant cousin, mma is thriving today. Mixed Martial Arts involves opponents in a cage, they are unarmed and rely on striking and grappling.
The sport allows full body contact with most mma fights ending on the floor. It is a mixture of multiple martial arts ranging from kick boxing to jiujitsu.
Weight is a common criterion to categorize fighters in mixed martial arts, to eliminate any kind of weight or strength advantage. This allows fighters to take on an opponent of a similar stature, to balance the odds of winning. However, the very reason Brazilian jiu jitsu was created was to be able to easily take on a stronger and larger opponent. In the early years of UFC, Royce Gracie embodied the art of taking on a bigger opponent by defeating several physically dominant fighters, thus allowing bjj to garner widespread attention. Therefore brazilian jiujitsu teaches you to not be intimidated by the opponent, but rather to develop the skills needed to take on a person of any physicality.
The longer you stand and trade punches with someone bigger and stronger, the higher are their chances of hitting you with the damaging strikes. The stronger the opponent the harder they will hit, the bigger the opponent, the more damage they can take, the longer they reach easily they can hit you without getting hit. Superior reach and powerful strikes are both mitigated when grappling on the ground.
This fighting art is divided into four phases:
Closing the
Distance
Taking the fight to the Ground
Achieve dominant
position
A skilled grappler can end up putting you in many uncomfortable positions. These positions are unfavorable because they might end with a defeat. Jiujitsu teaches you not just how to get out of chokes, submissions and smashes, but also how to reverse them to get into a favorable position.
More advantages from the bottom position: In most martial arts, lying on the floor in defence or ‘guard’ is seen as a vulnerable position. An experienced fighter will take advantage of this vulnerability and put you into trouble. The gentle art of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu takes a different approach to the guard position, where practitioners are taught how to convert this vulnerable position into an advantageous one. BJJ offers a catalogue of ways to find the opportunity in disadvantaged situations. It teaches recovery not just in terms of escape but also in how to gain vantage points out of tough circumstances.