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I used to join some boxing and Muay Thai trainings a long time ago. When I was actively training and sparring boxing I really liked the feeling that I had some idea how to stand up for myself if anything happened. Also nowadays I am in meh shape (but not horrible, I run and play tennis) and nothing ever got me as fit as regular sparring so I really would like to pick up a fighting sport again. I would like something where I can train against other people with some force without getting concussions (so no more boxing, I used to have bad headaches after sparring rounds..) and without kicking (very injury-prone in my experience, also some orthopedic problems making this uncomfortable for me).
I will probably drop by a nearby BJJ gym later today to check it out. There is one Gracie gym and one independent well-reviewed gym in my neighborhood. I have some doubts though: BJJ looks like memorizing a fuck ton of technique of dubious value without the constraints of the sport (hitting, biting, gauging etc). Also I am afraid the classes will be a long series of "technique/combo of the day" without long term structure as I often found martial arts classes to be, and I will lose interest.
I know a bunch of people here do casual martial arts so I am fishing for some recommendations. I live in decent size city so I could probably find a gym for most things you recommend.
Edit: just went to my first class and apparently it was cancelled. Great start
I do it more than 'casually.'
If you are concerned about self-defense, the strongest argument against BJJ is NOT that it doesn't work as a system. You can say that about a lot of arts like Aikido or traditional Kung Fu, which fail on their own terms.
BJJ is surely better than not being trained. But it is less likely to work if you're fighting outside of the gym context:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZpTctLEKV9Y
Since you do not get to pick the time, place, nor manner in which you are attacked, the system has to be adaptable and, unfortunately, cover as broad an array of scenarios as feasible.
But its a great workout, and it appeals to nerds because you're literally solving a geometry puzzle involving two human bodies, while they're fighting back, so you're not just 'mindlessly' punching things.
Me, I train Krav Maga. On the one hand there are internet memes about people who think it turns them into a badass overnight. On the other, it is designed, from the ground up, to first make someone 'proficient' at fighting (read: can beat an untrained attacker consistently) as quickly as possible. Then to build on that base to an ever-broader set of skills (multiple attackers, armed attackers, ground fighting, and offensively deploying weapons).
We know what works the best in one-on-one MMA fights, but its still a very, very open question as to what substantially increases your odds of surviving a life-or-death street brawl. If anything. Other than cardio and being able to run further and faster than the attacker.
The focus on 'efficient' techniques for debilitating an opponent means most of them CAN'T be trained in sparring context, but I run weekly 'light sparring' sessions to give people the experience of being punched in the face in a friendly context.
Oh, and BJJ is also pretty injury prone, because so much joint manipulation goes on and a badly-applied technique can do DEVASTATING damage to the impacted area.
If you try Krav Maga the only recommendation I do have is find a gym where the instructors can trace their training heritage to Israel, which I say mostly to 'ensure' that they're legitimately well-trained. My org is the USKMA.
My issue with Krav is that it really doesn’t teach fighting. It’s basically a system that can teach you how to use things you know, providing you learned them somewhere else first. And because most schools are not quality controlled in the least, you often have guys who have never been in an actual fight teaching things they don’t understand how to work to other people who know nothing about fighting. BJJ has faults, as does boxing, but at least in those systems, the to-KO or to-tapout rules of competition and the fact that the culture around those arts insists on winning competitions, you can be pretty sure that the guy who’s teaching you how to get the other guy into a chokehold has done so numerous times on an opponent actually working to stop him and knows how to make it work. It isn’t just something he demonstrated in class, he learned it by using it in competition. And that same competition will teach people how to think about fighting. You’ll learn how to see the next technique being keyed up, learn to think 3-4 moves in and how to control range. If you can’t do those things having “efficient techniques” doesn’t matter. If you can’t control range I can be out of range quickly or step in and be inside of where you wanted me to be.
Quality control is definitely the biggest issue when trying to choose a training Gym for any martial art. MMA at least has the necessity of pressure testing for purposes of preparing to compete, frauds get revealed QUICKLY.
It so happens that our gym also has boxing classes, AND has BJJ classes trained by black belts, although the emphasis is not on competition.
So I would not hesitate to say that its probably one of the highest quality Krav programs in the U.S. (yes, this is tooting my own horn), if only because it gives students the chance to sharpen those individual elements as well, rather that just teaching them a few choke breaks and groin kicks and sending them out the door.
And end of the day, what you learn in boxing and BJJ is constrained by the 'rules' of the competition you're training for.
Is there any point in BJJ where you train how to handle two attackers at once? Not shark tank where you go one after another, but two guys trying to pile onto you simultaneously? I'd assume no, because that's a scenario that doesn't ever happen in competition.
And that likewise informs the tactics that are taught. BJJ guys want a fight to be on the ground.
Krav, we emphatically do NOT want to be on the ground, and so we train on how to both avoid going there, and at getting up as soon as possible. Every second you spend tangled up with a guy while working for a submission is a second in which his buddies could arrive and punt your head or he could pull a concealed weapon.
Boxing, well, if you're competent at that you'll be able to hold your own in a random street fight against unarmed opponents. But again, Boxing 'proper' assumes padded gloves, an enclosed ring, and a referee, so certain 'outside context problems' arise if you haven't trained again e.g. multiple attackers, armed attackers, or similar adverse conditions.
The (possibly futile) hope of civilian Krav is to give someone a sufficient set of tools to respond appropriately and effectively to almost any given threat in any plausible context, and hopefully have it ingrained enough that it comes out of them 'naturally' even when there's an adrenaline dump, which we assume will cause any strategic thinking and fine motor skills go out the window. Hence, some of the more fancy BJJ moves aren't really suitable because someone operating under their fight-or-flight reflexes won't be able to pull them off.
Just a distinct core philosophy that ignores any priorities that a 'sport' or 'competitive' system might include.
But yeah, people have to be able to train under pressure, hence why I host weekly light sparring sessions to at least offer the chance to sharpen the basic skills against an opponent that isn't just flopping along with the technique.
Of course, Krav Maga's real claim to fame is "It's used by the Israeli Military," and thus that implies that it has been tested under real, harsh conditions by soldiers who are very motivated to win fights. Association with the IDF might tarnish it in some people's eyes nowadays, but that is why I do suggest that the instructors you choose should have some training lineage that includes someone who trained in Israel where they have high motivation to maintain quality and they're more likely to have used it in a fight.
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Thanks a lot for the detailed reply. I have never thought of bjj as injury prone but this makes a lot of sense. Still a bit better than permanent brain damage I guess but not exactly something I am very eager about. And no I am not really drawn to the nerdy problem solving side of bjj at all. I was actually quite happy with the “drill some basics and apply them very well and hard and fast” part of boxing.
I will check out Krav Maga. I have only seen it in the context of disarming videos and that always looked like some serious bullshido to me. I can see why it feels attractive to teach to law enforcement (although still I don’t see how it’s ever good idea as opposed to running away or shooting the guy with the knife). What do you think about that?
If they start training you on gun disarms early, yeah its completely pointless. Even if you manage a disarm, you still have to fight off the guy who had the gun. So building the basic toolset is utterly necessary to making everything else 'work.' The flashy techniques are there to get attention so people check out the system, the basics are kinda boring but they're what works. Which is what I like about the system. There's no emphasis on any 'mystical' aspects, there's no pure "do it this way or its wrong" in the techniques. Its "DOES THIS WORK and can you actually use it."
I have been running an 'advanced' student class with some of our most experienced practitioners, and we have been training our gun defenses with Nerf guns (i.e. projectiles 1/40th as fast as most real bullets, obviously) to see how often we actually avoid getting shot.
Even the black belts (myself included) can only 'succeed' at our easiest techniques about 4/5 of the time. That means we're eating a bullet 1/5 times. Not amazing odds.
So our official position is that you should comply with the attacker's demands unless there is some clear reason that you shouldn't (do you have kids with you? Spouse? Are they likely to shoot you anyway?)
Yet, we are finding that you can be successful enough to avoid a bullet in the brain and instead only get a grazing hit somewhere less lethal, which allows you to at least fight the guy off once the weapon is neutralized. Its an improvement. But is it an improvement worth training for years to achieve?
Knife defense? BWAHAHAHAHAHAH. Nothing 'works.'. Survival is the only thing you can hope for.
Question to ask is, at what point do you consider a given attack scenario unlikely enough that its just not worth training for? If you just want to build the skill for the sake of building a skill, then just keep learning stuff regardless. It is fun! And obviously cops are significantly more likely to have to deal with a knife or gun attack, so it makes some sense for them to train it.
And of course, a lot of self-defense scenarios can be solved by just carrying a gun yourself. Although we ALSO train how 'simple' it is to deploy a weapon under stress or while tangled with an attacker and it turns out its fucking hard, so once again being proficient at fighting under an adrenaline dump comes in clutch. Learning more won't ever relieve you of the need to keep the basics sharp.
Let me close it out this way: our curriculum is based around training you for the most likely scenarios first and foremost, then get to ever less-likely scenarios the more you train. And we teach situational awareness to avoid bad situations and cardio to ESCAPE bad situations.
If your instructors are playing up the "you'll be able to demolish people instantly with these techniques" aspect of it, you're probably in the wrong place.
That said, of all the techniques we teach, the simple eye-gouge is probably the most effective for 90% of situations you might ever encounter. If only someone can develop the gumption to USE it. As I sometimes say "No matter how big the guy is, he can't train eyelids."
So the biggest challenge for training folks is getting them to overcome whatever mental barriers they have against hurting other humans when the time comes.
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