Honest to goodness REAL BJJ question

[CD Lee]

This is NOT a troll poll or anything of the sort. I just have a questions geared towards any real BJJ guys, and I know we have some here that do TCM as well. So here it is, just for my own curiosity:

In a bottom 'guard' situation in a STREET fight, what prevents a strong adrenaline pumped berzerk nut, from clawing your face, ripping your lips, teariing ears, or clawing at or into your eyes.

I was once taught by a Jui Jitsu (non BJJ)instructor a long time ago, in a street fight to grab at the lips if in close, and tear the membranes that connect the lips, which causes profuse bleeding. In other words, grab a lip a jerk as hard as possible. This just has always bugged me.

I don't think the BJJ guys would do the guard if it was that dangerous. But they do, so.........Whassup???

BTW, this is not a trolling thread, so don't even start it guys. Honest to goodnes, lets just have one civil discusion please.

[SifuAbel]

I think the only way to even attempt this is to buck the hips up so his hands hit the floor in order to support his weight making his face closer to you. Although, From there I like the striking elbow to the armpit / rib tactic.

Its hard to do a facial soft tissue manipulation to a sweaty guy. Or a guy that is purseing his lips or a guy with little body fat. If clawing at all , id rather go for the pectoral muscle and tissue by the armpit or the side of the neck that tends to have more tissue. If the guy is sitting up you'll have a hard time reaching the face.

[TheGhostDog]

st to get a few things straight first:
The guard is only used in the street as a last resort; it is only used when your opponent is able to get on top of you, and so rather than being stuck under mount, you use your guard.
In a street fight, the guard is not some place where you “camp out”. It is only a temporary position where you can finish your opponent with a submission, or reverse (sweep) your opponent and get on top to finish him.
That having been said, the reason those attacks you mentioned would most likely fail is that a BJJer will not just lay there while his opponent attacks him. The guard is about controlling your opponent’s limbs to stop him attacking or passing your guard. This can be done in many ways, including over-hooking and under-hooking his arms, controlling one arm and his head, controlling one arm and going to open guard etc.
If you get a chance to get in a BJJers guard, and let him know you want to attack him, and he will control your arms and your posture so well that you will have a very hard time doing the attacks you mentioned.

BTW, I’m a Machado BJJ Brown belt and have blacks belts in other styles also.

[SifuAbel]

oops my bad, Thought we were talkin about the other way around. ................nevermind


Street thinking:
Thinking about it, if the guy is on his back, walk away.

[SevenStar]

From the guard, you have a certain amount of control over your opponent - you can bring him close to you, or push him away. there are also many ways of manipulating an arm that is reaching in for your face. trap the arm and do something with it, be it breaking the arm, triangle choke, etc.

[SifuAbel]

How about faking a punch and kicking/kneeing him in the balls?

[SevenStar]

nah, not from the guard - your legs are wrapped around the opponent - unless it's an open guard. your opponent can hit you in the nads though.

[CD Lee]

Thanks Ghost, good info.

Sifu Abel: What are you talking about??? You are in the guard here in this scenario. No kicking anybody in the balls right?

Ghost, I understand it is definately a last resort for totally obvious reasons---in the street. It is an excellent sport fighting postion I agree. It is no different than boxers jerking their punches back in a boxing fight. They have too, because they have gloves on and can't grab the other guys arms. Therefore, they MUST learn to pull those punches back in immediately.

In the street the guard is not as good sure. But, if you did go down, and he is on top (probably out of shape), the guard is better than the other options.

I have watched too many UFC tapes I guess, and have noticed under the rules, that say shamrock can rest or lay his hands on Gracies' face sometimes. He can't claw, but I guess on the street, a Gracie would not lay there with the other guys hands on the face, right?.

I guess I am aksing, if you were to get into the guard in a street fight, could you expect to take a fair amount of damage to the face (scratches, eye claws, fish hooks) within the first minutes before the fat mean guy finally tires? I guess if you get in that position on the street, you probably are already losing anyways ritght?

I am also assuming that there are no other 'friends' around, or you have your own. Otherwise I don't know what you would do except get kicked in the head a lot?

Also, what would be the alternative to a guard if you did actually get knocked on your ass and he mounted, and his friends were there??? I guess the guard would work better than laying there eating knuckles for 10 seconds until you are out!? Right?

[TheGhostDog]

’ve you get guard on the street then you are not necessarily losing, as the guy could have caught you unawares.
The first thing I personally would do is overhook one of his arms, and his hook his head and pull him close. Move my hips out to the side and it’s going to be *very* difficult for him to attack me or claw at my face. From here I can either work for a choke, get both of my legs(hooks) in and sweep him, or work for an armlock etc. I can also put a foot in his hip, push him back and get back to my feet if I feel more comfortable. As I said, guard is a temporary position, to be used to stop the guy mounting and to enable you to attack your opponent from underneath.

As to an alternative to guard if he has mount, the only viable alternative to putting him into your guard is to bridge and roll him off so you end up in his guard (although most people won’t even know what a “guard” is.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

cd lee . .. i think sifuable was joking.

the lip thing works standing for sure. my sifu ended a bar fight real quick by pulling a guy into a flurry of punches by his bottom lip.

i understand what you're saying about being underneeth a guy like that, but if we're talking about clawing and fish hooking ending the fight wouldn't you have your chance as well? i know it would be much easier for the guy on top, but unless you are severly limited on reach such as myself you should be able to reach his face when he can reach yours. i'd be more worried about a ground and pound, but i have had no experience in a situation quite that serious.

[Whambo]

Well, I don't know how much I can say that hasn't been said before, but ya basically you've gotta use your guard different than say a sport BJJ match. If I use my guard, I personally will probably be trying to tie up your hands immediately, and creating space by going into a scissor sweep type position. From here it's good, if you can tie up say their left hand while you're on your left side you can start kicking them in the head. Also on most inexperienced people you'll land the scissor sweep almost everytime....stick to the basics. Keep in mind if you're extending your arm to grab my lip, you've just exposed that arm, and a good BJJ player will spin on that arm before you even know what hit you. Really the way I see it is almost as sensory overload. The BJJ should be throwing out sweeping/submission combo's that you'll never be able to keep up with. When your off balance or having to defend really the last thing on your mind is gonna be grabbing the lip. I also sorta take it to a classic UFC fight Rhodes vs Ettish. Ettish was obviously totally out of it, but even still Rhodes was having a hard time finishing him, in the end finishing it with some pathetic choke. See, even basic things like punching someone become much harder when you've never practiced groundfighting, because you have no established base. It's interesting when rolling with someone with no experience, the simplest movement can throw them off balance, so no need to get fancy.

[Ford Prefect]

The thing that keep the guy from clawing etc is the same thing that keeps the guy from knocking your head off with punches. If he is untrained as you said, then controlling his hands and reversing him isn't that hard. With a little training though, this becomes a lot harder.

[LEGEND]

CD LEE good question...the guard is the last resort. Most people that study BJJ are small and no amount of standup training can prevent them from being taken down by a bigger guy. What usually happens is the bigger guy will then POUND on the SMALLER GUY. The Guard u saw in the first several UFCs was like the BOXING TIE position...in order to prevent someone from POUNDING u...u tie him up using your legs and arms. Now the clawing and biting...NO BJJ guy will just sit and chill in this position. ROYCE vs. SHAMROCK...ROYCE had no choice cause SHAMROCK is bigger and an experience grappler also...so ROYCE was totally unable to sweep SHAMROCK. A SWEEP is the reversal from the GUARD to the top position. It's like a scissor move done when u're in the bottom...most inexperienced peeps are easily swept! I have no problem at 155lbs to sweep 220lb guys! However if the 220lbs guy knows how to wrestle or knows BJJ...I'm "F"! LOL. Whenever u do spar the BJJ guys...u'll prob. be on da bottom position...u will only see the guard if u initiated a takedown or if the BJJ guy just wants to play with u.

[jimmy23]

another thing is, if hes in your garud and reaching towards your face, hes setting himself up for some nasty stuff, or a sweep, at the very least.

[CD Lee]

Very very good replies. Exactly what I was interested in finding out. I am small myself (at least my skeleton), and have short arms. I guess experience is the key here, as far as being able to imagine non NHB event scenarios for guys like us. And I think we all know, things work on us that don't work on guys in the UFC. Can we take 250 punches to the face like a boxer does in a 10 round fight? Probably not.

Anyways, I hope to be able to try some BJJ after I learn my current system of Xingyi for at least 2-3 years. I think BJJ principles are very much similar to the internal KF arts. Sounds like blasphemy I know. Xingyi is extreemly devestating on the inside, especially against someone unfarmiliar with Xingyi, and adaptability is very similar to BJJ philosophies I think.

Thats the problem with UFC and other professional type fights. Their counters and pain tolerance are so effective and developed, you almost never get to see the effectiveness of normal techniques that would actually work very well in 99% of street situations.