What does “gentle” mean in “Gentle Art”?

In a previous post, I discussed whether or not Brazilian Jiu Jitsu qualifies as art. Finding the words to explain how a sport in which two opponents attempt to force the other to quit or lose consciousness or use of a limb for a few months could possibly be a thing of beauty can be difficult. Elucidating on how this art can then justifiably be described as the “gentle art” is even harder.

Seen in Everything: What Can the History of Video Games Teach Us About Jiu Jitsu?

Since moving to the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, I have become familiar with the king of all tween Friday night hangouts: Funspot. If you’ve seen the documentary King of Kong, you might recognize it as the site of the International Classic Video Game Tournament. There are coupons that give you an extra $10 worth of Funspot tokens when you buy $20 worth scattered throughout the Lakes Region in gas stations and diners. Needless to say, when each game costs one token and you have a Solo cup full of them, you get very familiar with old video games after one or two visits. You will notice a couple things about these games if you’ve never played them: the graphics are horrible, the games are slower the older you go, and they are hard.

It takes a special kind of person to fall in love with these games. In the aforementioned King of Kong, we meet a few of these people. For some reason, they never took to the quickly-evolving video game industry. They weren’t drawn to the flashy graphics, all the bits and polygons, the explosions, the…uh…this. They fell in love with the puzzle and dedicated their time to mastering it. They have put aside the desire to have sensually satisfying and immersive experiences with video games. Solving the puzzle in the best, most efficient way that gets them the highest score is their goal.

What does this have to do with Jiu Jitsu, you might ask?

“Submission Only is Better for Self Defense” is a Silly Thing to Say

According to the Gracies and Eddie Bravo, submission-only competition is the one true way to express Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. If you ask Royce Gracie specifically, this gets taken a step further to “meet me in a dark alley” proportions. The argument that submission-only is the best form of BJJ competition for some rests in a desire to express the art of Jiu Jitsu freely and openly with no restraints on time, stalling for advantage wins, or pressure to always be attacking from the top and scoring. For many, the argument against point tournaments goes right back to the playground: “It’s not good for the streets.”

How I Cut Too Much Weight

If I were to write a Jiu Jitsu FAQ, there would undoubtedly be a section on weight cutting. If you take part in forums like Reddit or Sherdog, you have undoubtedly seen at least one thread about cutting weight in the last few days. Questions about what gi is best to wear weighing in, how much weight to cut, saunas, salt baths, exercise bikes, and more have come up time and time again in discussion. Frankly, the topic has been talked to death. I believe the discussion has reached a critical mass and it now imploding on itself, leaving the process of weight cutting clouded by too much banter. For my purposes, I needed to simplify.

Thoughts on losing to a black belt.

I had a tournament this past weekend and I did well. I won three matches (two gi matches by points, one no-gi match by rear naked choke) and dropped one. Nobody scored a point on me. I didn’t get submitted. The gi match I lost in the finals I lost by advantage to a near-sweep. The guy who beat me was a black belt. I want to make it clear off the bat that by no means am I complaining or unhappy with the results of the weekend. I performed well, I dogged out a great weight cut, and I won more than I lost. I took home two new pieces of hardware and gained some experience.

Is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu art?

art – noun – 1. the expression of application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power (Oxford) 2. a skill in doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

The term “martial art” is used to describe any sport which involves combat. The more traditional the art, the more we as a society tend to use the term “martial art” to describe it. Tae Kwon Do, Wing Chun, Karate, Muay Thai, Judo, and Jiu Jitsu, for example, are more often described as martial arts than boxing or wrestling, which are more often referred to as sports. Relative effectiveness in combat aside, the intent of all of these systems is most definitely combat and there can be no question about the “martial” aspect of the term. Some of them, such as Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, or Wing Chun contain larger components of performance and demonstration than boxing or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and are more easily defined as “arts”. If you were to show footage of a full contact martial arts competition to a group of people, however, very few would describe what they are seeing as artistic. It isn’t cooperative, it isn’t staged or choreographed, and it is violent. In describing what you do when you train Jiu Jitsu to the uninitiated, if you were to boil it down into simplest terms you might say that you are learning how to most efficiently break a body or turn it off entirely. This idea clashes with the ideas our society traditionally associates with artistic endeavor. While we often describe Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as a martial art, we often do not think about the term and what it actually means. This leaves us with a question: Is Jiu Jitsu art?

Make him fuck up.

Kurt Osiander is famous for proclaiming that if you end up in a bad spot, you “fucked up a long time ago.” What he means to say is that in order to get trapped under a guy in side control, you gave up some very fundamental defenses that would block your opponent from pressuring into you and grinding you out.