What in the World is Jiu Jitsu?

If you’re reading this and you know me from anywhere else besides Pacific Martial Arts—my jiu jitsu school—you probably have very little clue what jiu jitsu is, why it’s different from other martial arts, and why someone might want to do it.

I’ll answer those three questions here. This won’t be a history lesson!

 Jiu jitsu is a martial art—a style of fighting and self-defense—that prioritizes grappling—grabbing, holding, moving, controlling—rather than striking. Its techniques allow a smaller, weaker person to control and submit a bigger, stronger person. By “submit” I mean force them to submit to you. Force them into submission. We can apply chokes (strangles, technically) to threaten unconsciousness (or death if applied for extended periods of time), and joint locks to cause pain or broken bones. Generally, (I don’t speak for everyone) we don’t want broken bones, unconsciousness, or death. We want submission. Compliance. Peace. Submission is your adversary saying, “You win, I give up, I surrender, don’t kill me.”

The general method of jiu jitsu (summarizing John Danaher) is: take a person to the ground in order to take away the bulk of their athleticism, get past their dangerous legs, move through a hierarchy of controlling pins, and then get them to give up using a strangle or joint lock. (We say, “submit them”)

On average, it takes 10 years for people to get their black belts in jiu jitsu.

There’s a lot to unpack there, I’ll do it another time.

The main difference between jiu jitsu and other martial arts is the sparring. Because jiu jitsu doesn’t (generally) practice or utilize strikes, you can actively spar with another person, and perfect your techniques against a live, actively defending person. You could do the same thing in kickboxing, however you would be shortening your health-span due to impacts to your head. Sparring against a live opponent is the foundation of jiu jitsu, and what makes its practitioners so effective—they’ve done the work. They know exactly what they are and are not capable of.

Every class has sparring incorporated because it’s the only way to really test your technique, and to fine-tune it so you can do it to anyone.

When building a physical skill, we do an action repetitively to build muscle memory.

In other words, we are changing our nervous system and the incorporated muscles to be able to consistently repeat a particular action, without conscious thought. We turn the conscious thought into a bodily reaction. If we only ever “drilled” a move, or practiced on a dummy or went through the motions alone, then the muscle memory we would build would not match a live scenario. So we spar (we call it rolling) so often that we build the muscle memory for proper, effective reactions into our bodies. This is skill acquisition!

This is all well and good from a self-defense standpoint, and I appreciate that aspect, however I think the people who stick around for belts beyond blue don’t do it for self-defense. I think most do it because jiu jitsu vs jiu jitsu sparring is so damn fun.

Once you have the proper reactions to most scenarios (e.g. framing and shrimping rather than squeezing someone on top of you) you begin the game phase of jiu jitsu. This is the part where your moves are countered by the moves of another. Your correct reaction creates an opening for a new action from your knowledgeable opponent, and that action, too, has a viable and useful reaction. That chain of events is actually a web that contains all the possible connected positions two people could be in, and your success in jiu jitsu will be defined by your body’s knowledge of that web.

You don’t just need to know what you must do in your mind, you must have the physical connections in your nervous system to make it happen at the correct time.

If that appeals to you, you will really love jiu jitsu.

If you like rough housing with your friends, you will really love jiu jitsu—you don’t need to think about all that last part, just come in and have fun.

I do jiu jitsu because I love GAMES and the acquisition of skills. Jiu jitsu is one of the most difficult and therefore rewarding games there is, and the number of skills involved is ridiculously high. It’s just pure fun.

That’s not to say it’s not very very uncomfortable sometimes, but that’s part of the fun, certainly.