brazilian jiu jitsu

Anyone here practice it? I've been doing some kick boxing at my local gym and there is a bjj place nearby. Totally different and nothing like what I'm used to doing but it looks really beneficial for health, fitness, flexibility.

@unharmed but he hasn't been on here in ages

Been looking in to it recently. I don't know exactly how good it is for you though, there's plenty of ways to get injured.

I don't train it, but I train my Muay Thai at a mainly BJJ gym here (Arruda BJJ) and frequently train when they're on the mats, and the guys are awesome. I did a few sessions, just before I became father, and then I had to make a call as to how I dedicate time to anything.

From what I can see

a) it's super technical, with more techniques to learn than in any other martial art
b) people seem super fit, although all that do it say that strength doesn't beat technique
c) it's good for young kids. The kids just love tumbling around and the atmo is less strict than japanese martial arts.
d) good for ageing martial artists. Many guys get into it after they had to scale back in their respective striking martial art, and still get very good at it. Prominent examples: The guy that plays "Al Bundy" got a black belt unde gracies, Antony Bourdain the TV chef now has a blue belt.
e) I am deffo planning to send my daughter there when she's 5 ish and then join in myself
f) most injuries seem to be fingers, toes and matburn

Not sure how much it'd help in a street fight; last place you want to be is on the floor where a lot of this takes place. It was great seeing practitioners using it to subdue and win titles in the bleak early days of UFC.

Well, they learn stand up wrestling and throws too, so...

+1 to what Pascalo said.
I trained BJJ for 3 years and definitely advocate it for health, fitness, flexibility. There are other benefits if you find the right gym. In my humble opinion and relatively limited experience, a traditional BJJ trainer brings a family mindset to a BJJ club; train together, eat together afterwards etc. Club cohesion is a big part of it, which makes a good BJJ club a really pleasant place to train and make some new mates.
I can recommend GFTEAM at Earlsfield BJJ if anyone lives down that way. A great bunch of people and the trainers embody the family ethos.

The standout aspect of bjj is the way it's trained. It seems to be trained at a higher intensity than a lot of other martial arts. I did a pretty all encompassing Chinese system for a few years and there was nothing that I saw in bjj that wasn't in the kungfu...its just the grappling and ground fighting was emphasised and taken a few steps further than in what I was doing. We did kind of ma exchange and one on one the bjj is very effective.
I would like to add that I am not "hard" at all, was rubbish at martial arts and you could all totally kick my head in.

Gracie bros ftw

Didn't it come out on top of all the marshal arts when one of those Danny Dire type programmes, exactly because it wins on the ground where most fights end up?

As for fitness, I've only ever seen it practiced when I did Muay Thai. And while I'd agee everyone looked Chippendale-ripped, so much of the training I saw seemed to be uber technical and on the ground that I'd have thought something like Muay Thai (or kickboxing? or boxxercise) would be better for overall fitness. But those may have just been the sessions I saw.

Depends what your aim is an how much time you have. I found my Muay Thai was pretty much impossible to keep up with unless you went 3 times a week minimum - it was so physically intense. Something more strength and technical might work better if you have less time(?).

Anyone been to the Eddie Kone gym?

got offered a opportunity to invest/start a club with a Gracie coach, will see what comes
I've boxed and done muay thai, and seen a bit of mma training in Holland, not got a lot of ju jitsu experience, last UK Muay Thai was a club run by a Thai father and son in Colliers Wood, they asked me to fight for them, but I was out galavanting too much at the time and knew I wouldn't have commited to training for a fight, whilst sparring without a head guard when I'd considered fighting for them I got a kick in the right temple, came up like a donut on the side of my head , I lived up the hill but wound up driving to my Greek Cypriot ex's in Wood Green where I got nursed with some frozen haloumi cheese, I still got a little dent there today

Don't get me wrong I rate BJJ highly. If I were to be a fighter I'd this with muay thai; a deadly combo. I'm just saying that with the number of cunts in the world, you end up on the floor in a street fight and someone will be looking to kick/stamp you in the gulliver. There's no honour out there. For organised fighting there is a fucktonne of merit. Indeed if your strike game isn't absolute top draw you going down at some point. Actually fuck it, you'll be down even if you're a great striker...Ask Conner...

But how many people who start fights actually know what they're doing?

So many people kick off and have no clue.

Well, i can only talk from the 3 session i did and otherwise watching, but i think it to be a very different fitness if you will.

Muay thai is cardio and explosiveness for me. Bjj seemed slower but a lot more tension and pressure from the other guy, and it sort of zapped my strength in a very different way. I guess in muay thai you get it in clinching where decent strikers just get drowned in it by a guy that just clamps on and all the energy is gone.

I found it very difficult, crushing and was covered in matburn after. And that wasn't even rolling, just live drills.

BJJ is surely damn good it comes to sports. Still, if shit would hit the fan, I'd rather I had studied Krav Maga (or combat Sambo and their ilk).

what I took from the litttle jj i tried is not to panic when the body is understress alien to muay or boxing stresses, and that there is a fight strategey to it, eg, working an oppponent into choke/submissive holds

re stress, my good pal won in less than 50 second a seniors mma belt recently, he told me after an mma bout the body goes into shock

BJJ is the bomb. I trained it seriously for a couple of years and if I had the spare time I did when I was 18 I still would.

Whether it works in a street fight is a moot point when Kickoff Kenny starts windmilling at you because as soon as it gets past a few seconds his lads will jump in and start stomping.

@NoFuckingChance

Well_is_it in reply to @MultiGrooves
But how many people who start fights actually know what they're doing?

So many people kick off and have no clue.

But they do have friends with little honour. I've seen women go into Zola Bud mode: off come the shoes, twatting fellas locked in combat with their heels at full pelt.
And that was at primary school.

i know a girl who bit the tip off a love rivals finger, got a not guilty on intent though

Brazilian jiu jitsu (alongside wrestling, muay thai and boxing) is still possibly the most important martial art to have mastered in order to be successful in the UFC. Heavyweight and Lightweight champs both bjj black belts and all the others practice it so some extent.

i think it's important, but not the most, a balance of all ftw imho,my pal here won with a head kick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekc_BglssvA

Possibly the most if you had to pick one, although really it's a tossup between bjj, wrastlin, boxing and muay thai. Obviously it's best to have balance though you're right.

Fuuuuck that's a helluva KO!!

This guy is the one to watch if you like head kicks, future champion for sure.
He completely dominates former champ Johny Hendricks:

http://mmaversus.com/2016/02/07/johny-hendricks-vs-stephen-thompson-fight-video-ufc-fn-82/