Street Fighting

This is the Honest part of the Martial Art
This should be the focus and thoughts when your in any position during a fight.

The constant thought I keep asking myself during light or heavy sparring.

Can I get hit?

If I can I consider that I've lost the fight. Before making any moves I make sure to protect myself while also being able to control the opponent while attacking with chokes and joint locks.

Only high percent techniques should be utilised. The reason for this is simple, why attempt difficult moves to defend life threatening situations when there is a more energy efficient, safer way to solve the problem? Generally wrong moves in a street fight situation are perfectly acceptable in a Sports scenario, often people generally find sports moves more exciting as there is more freedom of the body when strikes are not permitted. High percent moves also include ones that any body type can perform, which increases the reliability when the time comes.

The amount of times I've practised certain moves where muscle memory does kick in, even when I'm trying to learn new moves - its hard to shake what you've practised a thousand times to learn a new way of doing it. THIS is why its best to learn the fundamentals first before sport application as the first things you pick up are generally your go to moves.

1. Always stay on top when you can.

This is a very important part of grappling and fighting in general. Just because Jiu JItsu teaches you techniques to be able to submit and control opponents from your back, doesn't mean you should choose to in a street fight. Typically there will be obstacles and hard ground in real life that obstruct your area and make fighting on your back MUCH harder. When the chance present themselves in street fight, fight for the top position and control.

2. When your not on top Control Opponent with your whole body - Not JUST your hands but your legs and core.

The major mistake students make when fighting off their back is overusing their hands and forgetting their core, legs, feet. To be able to control the bigger, stronger and heavier guys who could easily bench press double or even triple your body weight requires the understanding and use of the body as a whole. Creating a frame that is supported by your skeleton provides the structure to be able to move vast weights will no loss of endurance and valuable energy. The object of submitting an opponent with a joint lock or blood choke makes use of using the strongest structure against the weakest areas of a persons body, that muscle can't really resist.

Sport

This is the practical side of the Martial Art.
The sport area of Jiu Jitsu aims to create rules for the style to judge the areas what techniques are effective in a grappling only setting. Competing can be seen as a way to judge yourselves against peers, although its only as good as the amount of opponents that enter the competition in your particular weight class.

The sports area within Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is far from perfect but for some who enjoy competitive grappling its the pinnacle and their reason for training. I myself have not yet competed as I enjoy the challenges of learning the art at my own pace and eventually will compete in 2018 to find for myself what I get out of it.

Art

This is the area where new moves, technical varieties can be found and tested in safe environments. New guards, sweeps and counters are created from nothing because of the artistic freedom that this allows. Think of this as the expression of ones creativity that can imagine and solve new problems faced with the ever changing form of Jiu Jitsu and fighting arts.

Exploration

The best way to explore within Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as I can best describe is the same way as Shadow Boxing. In Grapplings terms its Flow Rolling, where each partner takes a turn in doing a movement, submission and then allowing the other partner to react, with hardly any strong resistance but being receptive to keep the sparring moving and never halting with any type of stalemate. Through this I find you gain maximum positional variation that excercies your technical ability to recall techniques, positional control while also reduces fatigue and allows you to train exponentially.

A 10 minute roll that contains 50 positions and 20 submissions is more effective for learning that attacking with 1 submission in the same position - while being afraid to move on when met with resistance. Both students only learn from the Flow Roll when not only submissions are practised but defences, movement, awareness and sensitivity of the movement of their opponent.

A Bit of Background History

Those who made it this far! Well done

For anyone who is interested in learning the history of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the creation of the UFC, Rener Gracie has
done a multiple part series explaining his families legacy.

Source: Art of Manliness
I don't own this video but am posting for anyone that is interested.