Most students of bjj rarely encounter street fights yet most people (statistically around 80%) who start training in martial arts because of self defence.
Search Youtube or World Star for street fight videos and we have a vast library of examples of street battles between mostly untrained combatants.
For the student of Brazilian jiu-jitsu who is interested in training bjj so that they are equipped to deal with a possible street attack here are four things we observe in common street fight scenarios:
1) All the fights start standing
Some posturing and dancing around before some wild swinging and a clinch. The adrenalin is high and wild looping punches that seldom connect are how it goes down.
For the BJJ student: You need to spend some time on closing the distance to clinch against an opponent throwing a right cross or right hook.
Practice your trip takedowns!
2) People will grab the head
Untrained fighters will grab the opponent’s head and attempt to headlock throw or guillotine. And they use 100% of their strength!
For the BJJ student: guillotine and school yard headlock escapes ( both Standing and ground ) are essential to understand for real life confrontations.
You must be accustomed to the intensity of someone trying to squeeze your head or you can panic.
Practice freeing your head from the strong grip of a determined head lock in these positions.
3) Don’t stand with your arms at your sides
In nearly every “sucker punch” video, we see 2 people posturing and talking tough. One of the participants has his hands by his waist to show that he isn’t intimidated.
Big mistake as they are defenceless against an unexpected sucker punch.
BOOM!
For the BJJ student: Learn to keep a ready stance with your hands up to avoid the all too common sucker punch. Block the round punch and control the opponent’s arms to takedown.
* There are numerous street fight videos showing takedowns ending fights.
4) People have no sense of balance
When the fight hits the ground there is a lot of rolling around with the top person often flopping over to their back.
Most students of bjj face palm at the easily lost mount.
For the BJJ student: It is easy to get on top of untrained opponent but practice your mount retention against a wildly thrashing opponent.
Don’t get needlessly reversed to the bottom!
4 Things that BJJ Students Can Learn From Internet Street Fight Videos
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