Sparring is going against a teammate in a fight, where enough rules are set to avoid injuries. Often sparring is a good way to gauge someone’s skills, especially in BJJ.
Now the big question is, should you spar? Or better yet, are you ready to spar?
I can still remember the first time I was asked to spar. I sparred with this blue belt guy. In sparring, no one gets to lose (well, getting choked or being submitted counts as losing.) The idea of the spar is quite simple: knowing your skills so when you hit the competition arena, you know where you stand, and know how well you can do.
Anyhow, I sparred with the guy, and sad to say, I was submitted 8 times within 5 minutes. After all, his belt level is higher than mine – but it was a tough lesson to learn: there is no BJJ miracle. You have to work hard to get the skills to become really good at it. I thought that I was going to get a submission, but it was far from happening back in the day.
However, sulking as anyone should be after being submitted that much in less than 5 minutes, I began to focus on what I needed. I began working on a gameplan: not getting submitted.
In the following weeks of sparring, I was able to ward off attacks and subs, but I knew that it would not get me anywhere if I did. However, being able to learn how to defend myself is the key to learning the very basics of the guard and the counters.
With sparring, I started becoming very good at my skills. I started to learn how submissions really work. And it’s all because of sparring.
I’ve seen students who refuses to spar, or at least are too shy to. But the lessons to be learned from sparring are really great. Remember this: BJJ is a skill-based art. It’s something that you need to be able to do and not just know how to do. It’s training your body. It’s feeding your mind to develop muscle memory.
Make it a point to spar at least once a week. Think of it as a culmination of an entire week’s worth of training. Apply what you have learned. Get used to it and be good at it!
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a grappling martial art similar to Judo or Wrestling, where you learn utilize proper timing, technique, and leverage to control/submit an opponent after closing the distance and taking them to the ground. This goes against the philosophy of most traditional striking martial arts (Karate, Tae Kwon Do) that utilize kicks and punches to incapacitate an opponent. Striking martial arts, such as these, are actually quite limited in their practical application. They are really only effective when there is enough distance to launch an attack and when your opponent is smaller/weaker than you (i.e. a small person trying to punch/kick a 260-pound man is most likely just going to aggravate the situation). Unfortunately, both of these scenarios are quite unlikely in most self-defense situations, and even so, there is always the possibility of your opponent landing a ‘lucky’ strike that incapacitates you, regardless of their striking ability. BJJ’s approach to self-defense greatly minimizes the chances of this happening by taking the fight to the ground where there is no opportunity for the opponent to get ‘lucky’. This philosphy is put so eloquently by RCJ Machado:
“The ground is my ocean, I’m the shark, and most people don’t even know how to swim.”
Training
Another drawback to striking martial arts is that it is near impossible to train with the necessary intensity required to properly master the techniques. Because the striking arts are designed to injure an opponent with kicks and punches, you cannot go very hard while sparring, without great risk of injury. This makes it very difficult to get the proper feel for how quickly things happen in a real fight. As a result, you either have champions forced to retire early because of the damage sustained in training/competition (i.e. Muay Thai Kickboxing) or very impractical form-based training (Karate, Tae Kwon Do) that is simply a water-downed version of the original martial art it now mimics. Because BJJ has little use of strikes, relying instead on chokes, arm locks, and other submission holds, it can be practiced almost exactly the same way it would be in a real fight, without great risk of injury.
Application
Another important difference to distinguish between martial arts is the option of inflicting great bodily harm to an individual. Striking martial arts, by nature of the techniques utilized, require you to do physical harm to your opponent via punching/kicking. There isn’t an option to not injure the individual, which in many cases of self-defense, might have undesirable consequences. This is where BJJ really excels as a martial art. If the person you are facing is a friend who is temporarily out of his senses, you can control him/her without hurting them. However, if you are dealing with a criminal or a deliberate act to injure you or a loved one, you can apply a more suitable level of response. Because of this, BJJ is particularly sought out by people whose job is to subdue individuals without hurting them; such as bar bouncers, policemen and security personnel.
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.” – St. Francis de Sales
Discovering Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was a life-changing event for me, and while I wouldn’t trade my career in BJJ for anything, thinking back on that time makes me a little sad, because it all started with an act of inexplicable violence. The year was 1993, and I was a young police officer on a metropolitan gang unit in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. I had never heard of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but I was definitely athletic. I wasn’t that long out of college, where I’d played football both as an inside and outside linebacker. I was also doing competitive weight lifting – going on later that year to break the police weight-lifting record for the state of Texas with a bench-press of 450 lbs.
Prof. Herman Young broke the state policeweight lifting record in 1993, also the year he discovered the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
A Fatal Stabbing
Being on the gang unit was risky business. In fact, for a period in 1989-1990, the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex had the dubious distinction of having the nation’s highest per-capita homicide rate. One of my best friends on the unit was Big Darrell, also a defensive tactics instructor for our department. One afternoon, Big Darrell responded to an emergency dispatch – there had been a violent crime at an IHOP in a gritty corner of the Metroplex, where, tragically, a man had stabbed his own father.
When Big Darrell arrived at the scene, the stabbing suspect was still armed, and violently aggressive. As the suspect rushed him, knife in hand, Big Darrell left his .45 holstered. He chose instead to draw his ASP bat, a non-lethal extendable baton, central to the defensive tactics methods being taught at the time. Using the ASP bat, Big Darrell deftly flicked the knife out of the charging suspect’s raised hand.
But the man continued to charge, tackling Darrell & knocking him to the floor, where they grappled until the suspect managed to wrench the ASP bat out of Big Darrell’s grasp. Next, he began strangling him with it. On his back, with the violent suspect pinning and choking him, Big Darrell somehow managed to draw his .45 semi-automatic from its holster. He struggled to pull the weapon between him and the violent man whose life he had tried to protect, but who now left him no choice. He drew the trigger once, then twice. The pressure on Big Darrell’s throat lessened. He started to be able to breathe again, as the stabber drew in his last gasps and went lifeless.
Blood-stained and shaken, Big Darrell arose from the restaurant floor, as grateful restaurant patrons surrounded him & began thanking him.
Big Darrell’s role that afternoon was an act of consummate bravery – he placed his own life in jeopardy to protect everyone in that restaurant, valiantly putting himself at even greater risk by forgoing the use of deadly tactics until the suspect left him no other choice. He was a hero, and everyone on the unit and throughout the department praised him.
“I Lost Control of the Situation”
But one fateful night, I had come into the office late, hoping to take advantage of the evening quiet to get caught up on paperwork. The office was seemed empty, but as I approached my cubicle, I began to hear a quiet sobbing noise. Concerned, I looked around to find its source. I found Big Darrell crumpled at his desk, head in hands, struggling to hold back tears that would not cease.
I sat down. “What’s wrong?” I asked with concern, drawing a chair up to see if I could help my friend.
“Everyone keeps saying I’m a hero,” he said. “But I lost control of the situation – one that I thought I could control easily. But defensive tactics training doesn’t teach you what to do, when you’re down on the ground, and your own life is in the balance. I didn’t want to take that man’s life. But I had to – and I can’t get over that. I can’t get past it.”
A Fateful Promise
Not knowing what to say at first, but searching for the words, I tried to comfort my friend: “You didn’t fail. The tactics failed. The training failed. There has to be a better way, and I promise I’ll help you find one,” I tried to reassure him.
That promise to Big Darrell was to be a turning point in my life, though I didn’t know it at the time. It started me on a search, leading me down a path to some great adventures. I tell you more about that later…
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK: “How I Got My Start In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Part II”
I can still remember the first time I was asked to spar. I sparred with this blue belt guy. In sparring, no one gets to lose (well, getting choked or being submitted counts as losing.) The idea of the spar is quite simple: knowing your skills so when you hit the competition arena, you know where you stand, and know how well you can do.
I’ve seen students who refuses to spar, or at least are too shy to. But the lessons to be learned from sparring are really great. Remember this: BJJ is a skill-based art. It’s something that you need to be able to do and not just know how to do. It’s training your body. It’s feeding your mind to develop muscle memory.
