RULES OF STRUGGLE

A common question of beginners (and even more experienced) is how BJJ fighting differs from other skills and especially Judo, since these skills are quite similar in terms of techniques, uniforms, environment of sports fights, etc.

It should be noted that there is a distinction: martial arts (self-defense) and sports fights (defined by the rules of combat and sports ethics).

Martial arts are compared to self-defense, while sports are called sports. These are different terms and should be treated as such, except when a link is formed between them that allows constant training of self-defense in sports (MMA, BJJ, etc.).

Martial arts that are practiced without fights or sports fights (sparring, competitions) do not have a real sense of stress that is necessary for self-defense. Practicing fights without rules is short-term and due to the extreme stress that is experienced, changes the personality and everyday life and is difficult to control in accordance with today's society. Therefore, sports fights are far milder and easier to harmonize with the functioning in society or professional orientation of today, due to far less stress that is experienced by daily practice.

Since BJJ and Judo are almost the same disciplines, instead of comparing BJJ with others, we will deal with a comparison with the most similar, i.e. Judo.

The biggest difference between Judo and BJJ is the concept of a sports fight. Since judo became an Olympic discipline, the rules of the sport have been adapted in order to maintain popularity and audience, among other things, and therefore it has remained at the Olympics. With this, a huge and crucial part of the sporting struggle has been lost, which makes it functional in the self-defense part, i.e. skills. A step further, the official IJF Federation banned its competitors from practicing BJJ. We are not saying that it is wrong in terms of competition results, but that it is sometimes misinterpreted by practitioners who have not yet begun their orientation towards the Olympic cycle or are not at all interested in dedicating themselves to it, i.e. improving their combat capabilities.

Since the Olympic sport, for the sake of the highest results, imposes on competitors all the time the way of training in such a way that they do not have time to deepen their knowledge in the art of Judo, but only to improve their form and experience in sports Judo fights, over time it has lost its importance in terms of self-defense. It's not that good people are incapable of defending themselves, on the contrary. However, the sports rules of the fight do not allow judokas to engage in sports fights further in the direction of real situations, and therefore their self-confidence in that sense is not at the level of their results, and therefore their improvement outside of Judo is reduced only to the attempts of individuals who want it or see the value of it.

What Carlos Gracie Sr., Helio Gracie and later their successors Rolls, Carlos Gracie Jr., Rickson and others did to create the rules of combat exceeds the expectations of the average BJJ practitioner today. It was this training and competition in other disciplines that led to the realization of the value and later the way to actually train self-defense by training sports BJJ. This is exactly what allows BJJ practitioners to be extremely competitive both in their sport and in other sports disciplines!

BJJ as a sports discipline has something called progressive scoring. This scoring is designed so that by practicing sports combat, we practice fighting in real situations.

Progressive scoring leads the fighters of the sports fight in the direction of self-defense, i.e. more realistic situations. As a realistic fight puts us in better situations than our opponents, we get more points in a sports fight. As you progress in the sports fight, the individual scoring of each move increases (throw-knock down 2 points, pass guard 3 points, mount 4 points, etc.). In other words, as you progress in combat, the advantage within the time frame increases, which is important for the simple reason that you learn that you don't have infinite energy and that you have to conserve it in battle. This method of training allows practitioners to directly practice the techniques themselves and their effectiveness, and indirectly to strive for positions that allow them to continue fighting in safer and more efficient environments for them. Going through this way of training and sports fights is extremely unpleasant, but necessary in order to feel the fight as it is - unpleasant.

This is exactly what makes self-defense what it should be, and that is not techniques, but constant practice, and staying in unpleasant situations for as long as possible, so that they cease to exist and so that the practitioners are able to replicate them if they ever find themselves in them. By this logic, self-defense courses are absolutely meaningless because, in addition to giving information on how to defend yourself, they do not give the most important thing, without which everything is useless, and that is precisely staying in unpleasant situations and the routine of constant practice through various inconveniences that are experienced in the process.

Self-defense is constantly practiced and it is the way of sports combat that is ideal for this because it is interesting, dynamic and guided by sports ethics for safety and perseverance in every way.

The idea that someone knows and can physically defend themselves in unpleasant situations really gives confidence and a good feeling, but if you are not constantly active in it, you can hardly know what your real possibilities and expectations are in accordance with the current situation in which you find yourself or determine whether negotiations are better than physical defense because it is really difficult to control yourself with a weak body and spirit. 

This scoring system is designed to give beginners the opportunity to create habits and subconscious actions so that they are able to practice self-defense at the same time in every training, within a sports fight. This is probably one of the biggest advantages of BJJ over other fighting systems.

Because of this way of scoring and practicing the skill, the idea of the founders was that all practitioners eventually become complete fighters, not just fighters who please the audience with the incompetent in reality.

The attitude and way of teaching within our school Gracie Barra Belgrade is such that our students practice exclusively according to these concepts, focused on development through the rules of fighting that are prescribed by the two largest Jiu-Jitsu Federations in the world, whose rules are linked to the names of the Federation for easier orientation (by clicking on the names of the Federation can be read).

IBJJF - Internation Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation

UAEJJF - AJP Tour - the federation within which we compete the most and record notable results

 

Author's text - Danijel Brajčić