The video also critiques the wisdom that "90% of fights end up on the ground," something I've said myself after watching the first year of Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), in which most fights did end up on the ground, giving the advantage to anyone with grappling experience: practitioners of jiujitsu, judo, aikido, hapkido, and Western forms of wrestling. People who studied only striking (taekwondo, boxing, kickboxing, etc.) got their asses kicked regularly. UFC made it obvious to everyone that a complete fighter would need both a striking game and a ground game, and that's why, these days, there is a such thing as "training in MMA style" (shootfighting has a lot of overlap with MMA). Bruce Lee's jeet kune do might seem rather specific by today's standards, but Lee's idea was in consonance with MMA's ideals: incorporate principles from disparate fighting systems to create an integrated whole that allows you to be more adaptable and effective on the mat or on the street.
I've long seen Brazilian jiujitsu's main disadvantage as a total commitment to a single opponent. You've got your opponent on the ground in a Royce Gracie-style crab hold, but then the guy's three friends show up and start kicking you in the head. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe BJJ teaches how to deal with multiple opponents (a standard part of the taekwondo syllabus). I'm sure someone will set me straight in the comments. Meanwhile, this source says BJJ and other grappling arts aren't good for dealing with multiple opponents. This other source disagrees by saying no martial art is effective against multiple attackers. This third source talks optimistically about how BJJ can be harnessed for use against multiple attackers.
BJJ, as it is practiced by most people, is definitely not good for multiple opponents. Striking arts are more effective in multiple-opponent situations because you can distract, delay, or temporarily disable one opponent without exposing yourself (too much, at least) to attacks from the other opponents. I would agree that no martial art is ideal for multiple opponents, but some are definitely better than others.
ReplyDeleteCould you adapt the techniques and principles of BJJ to handle multiple opponents? Probably, in terms of making it not nearly as awful in such situations, but I would still prefer striking. Although, to be honest, if you find yourself up against multiple opponents and you have the option to do so, your best strategy is probably to run like hell. If you're cornered, target the guy blocking your escape and then run like hell. But if you find yourself cornered by multiple opponents that means you weren't paying attention, which means you already gave up the advantage.
(I know I've been scarce around these parts. Things have been busy. And very recently I've been... distracted... by stuff. I may email you about it at some point.)