For anyone who missed it, there was an incident that occurred recently involving famed coral belt, Pedro Sauer, and some very misguided man who groped Sauer’s daughter. The video of this incident has spread like wildfire, and as with anything else, there are mixed opinions.
Some people are saying that Pedro took it a step too far when he hurt the individual who was already subdued and sitting down. Those people are entitled to their own, wrong opinion…
One thing that I will agree with is that this wasn’t a display of self defense. The person that Pedro came after wasn’t a current threat to Pedro or anyone else. However he did something unacceptable and Pedro deemed it necessary to punish him for it. I’m not a father, but I am an uncle, and if anyone ever touched my nieces like that, they’d be very fortunate if I showed them the mercy that Pedro showed the guy who groped his daughter…
I am going to go back now and contradict what I just said: Pedro’s abilities that he has cultivated over his many years of being a jiujiteiro gave him the confidence to be able to assert himself the way he did. Therefore Jiu Jitsu allowed him to defend himself and his family, not physically but from insult, because that is essentially what this was.
Jiu Jitsu, and on a broader scale, martial arts training gives us the ability to determine how we want to handle situations like this one. Without Jiu Jitsu Sauer may not have had the ability to handle this situation, or he may have needed to resort to a greater degree of violence to get his point across. The ability to decide how to handle insult and assault is one of the greatest benefits of jiu jitsu.
A few years back I had an incident in which a person who was drunk started shoving me. Because of my Jiu Jitsu training, I secured a wrist lock and was able to reason with him from there, giving him the option of either a broken wrist, or simply backing down. If I didn’t have the skill set that I have, I would have possibly needed to resort to a greater level of violence, possibly getting kicked out of where I was or arrested.
Jiu Jitsu gives us options as well as confidence in ourselves. Those options and confidence were clearly demonstrated in Pedro Sauer’s incident. Whether or not you agree with the level of violence that he exacted (personally I think more would have been just fine,) it is clearly apparent that he was in control throughout the entire incident. Moreover, had the guy been much larger and more imposing, Pedro STILL would have been in control.
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