BJJ Trolls

You don't have to participate in conversations about martial arts very long on the internet before you may be shouted down by people who are angry that you are interested in any martial art other than Brazilian Jui Jitsu (BJJ.) All of the BJJ practitioners I have trained with in real life were very good people, who always conducted themselves in admirable ways, had good personal values, and had a very realistic understanding of martial arts - as far as I can tell, they would have disagreed with the BJJ trolls on the internet totally and completely. Now I will illuminate:

1. The BJJ troll argument argument, 
2. why BJJ trolls act the way they do,
3. and why that argument and behavior is a problem for martial arts consumers.

BJJ Troll Talking Points: The Platitudes

BJJ is a decent martial art, but it is highly focused on one specific area of fighting, and that is fighting on the ground, unarmed. Some will try to say that they have some kind of formidable striking system, or some kind of reliable weapon disarm practice, and thus assure you that with BJJ they will teach you everything you need to know about martial arts. But the reality is the vast majority of their sparring, 90% or more of it, is on the ground, and it is very unlikely that in your first year of training you will even see anyone try to spar with anything like strikes.

When arguing online BJJ trolls then compensate for this with one of five platitudes:

First Platitude:"90% of fights go to the ground." When fights on the street involve people who have trained in striking combat sports, most of the time the only people going to the ground are people who have already been knocked out:

Second Platitude: "The UFC proved once and for all that BJJ is the best martial art." This asks us to only watch the first few UFCs when the fighters were carefully cherry picked to make BJJ look good. Us strikers in the Pacific North West at the time called BS on those right away, and as soon as one of us was finally allowed in the UFC, Maurice Smith, he went straight to the top and became UFC champion. It is true that BJJ is an exceptional martial art, but there are also many other exceptional martial arts:

Third Platitude: "If you can't beat one person, you can't beat multiple people." Ground fighting is a poor strategy for fighting multiple people, because you can't move to avoid strikes from the opponents you are not grappling with. With this platitude a BJJ troll suggests that to deal with multiple opponents, you would have to get so good at fighting on the ground that fighting on the ground would become the best option for you. There's absolutely no recognition what so ever that any martial arts are better at anything than BJJ is, when the reality is that going to the ground should NOT be your FIRST choice in MOST self defense situations. If you stay on your feet, you very well may be able to handle multiple opponents even if you don't have a professional fight record:

Fourth Platitude: "In that situation, you should just run." So in any situation where you are against multiple opponents, or against someone with a weapon the BJJ troll is confident you should simply run. The BJJ troll believes in you as an athlete, that you will always be able to outrun someone with a weapon that you now have your back turned towards, but even more importantly, that out of a group of attackers, you will be faster than each and every one of those attackers that you are turning your back on. Unfortunately the BJJ troll isn't taking you seriously, completely forgetting that if you were someplace, you likely had a need to be at that place, and that you may not be willing to sacrifice someone in your care for the convenience of only learning ground fighting:

Fifth Platitude: "MMA IS BJJ!" Because so many early UFC fighters cross trained in BJJ to make sure they understood what the BJJ tricks were for winning MMA fights, the BJJ troll begs you to believe that most of what you see in an MMA fight originated in BJJ. Never mind Sambo, Wrestling, Catch Wrestling, Muay Thai clinching, and virtually all of the stand up fighting that happened since Maurice Smith started fighting in the UFC. The BJJ troll wants you to believe that if you learn BJJ ground fighting, all of the rest of MMA will just flow naturally to you, so there isn't much point in training in other MMA skills anyways. However, almost every combat sport outside of MMA and submission grappling defines success very differently than BJJ for important reasons:

BJJ Troll Strategy: Self-Righteous Fury

If you dare question the BJJ troll's platitudes, then comes the hate, outrage and anger from the BJJ troll, with the personal insults and general dismissal of you as a martial arts consumer. They will make numerous broad accusations towards you so there isn't time to address all of their accusations. The ugliness is extraordinary, it is severe, it is conversation killing, and in many cases they will even admit to what they are doing by telling you to "go away." They are just trying to kill any conversation that would suggest anyone might do anything with their spare time other than BJJ.

But where does all that foul ugliness come from? It comes from two places, a "parallel process" of a martial art effecting how a practitioner acts outside of participation in that art, and it comes from a contempt for other martial arts. First, BJJ's strategy is "position before submission." What this means is that in a fight, before trying to do a successful attack, you should get into the right position first. Being on on top of someone is better than having them on top of you, and that once your are on top of someone that's the best time to start launching attacks.

So the first thing that is happening with these BJJ trolls is they are scrambling to try to get a good position in the argument first (hence the platitudes.) When going after you for daring to ask questions, they hit you with accusations too numerous or broad to defend against, because they are trying to position themselves for victory, just like in their martial arts practice. And you can tell when they think they have that position, because they then go for the submission, getting as absolutely personal as they possibly can: your career choices, your education, nothing is off limits for dragging through the mud, because their objective is simply to see you quit, to see you submit.

But what is far more concerning than this is that the BJJ industry seems to have real contempt for other martial arts, going back to the early UFCs where they tried to convince everyone of BJJ's superiority over all other martial arts. In combat sports and other martial arts, martial arts often complement each other. One can be a boxer or a wrestler, and all in both communities will smile if you choose to be both a boxer and a wrestler. Now with MMA on the scene, these arts now over lap together, and other martial arts are brought in such as Muay Thai. Resources are shared and access is increased for martial arts consumers in the community. Best practices cross pollinate, improving the experience for all who participate.

But not so with BJJ. Sometimes we see some people in the BJJ industry appear to make moves that work toward undoing the practice of other martial arts. (Within a 90 minute drive from my house, there are at least two cases where Muay Thai gyms had to relocate from their space, because BJJ franchise holders decided that only BJJ should be taught at that location.) The whole point of the UFC originally was to sell BJJ to the general public, so that the BJJ franchise could charge the outrageous prices that even today get more and more extraordinary every year. If you are doing other arts, the BJJ industry has lost market share, and they are the most aggressive martial art when it comes to cutting into other martial arts market share, at least since UFC 1.

BJJ Troll Toxicity: Misinformation 

When a martial arts consumer walks in the door, they are hoping for a finite experience where they learning to defend themselves effectively. When someone attacks them, they want to be able to put that person on the ground and walk away. Muay Thai, Knock Down Karate and many other sparring intensive martial arts deliver on this promise, teaching foot work, solid stances, foot sweeps, simple throws, punching, kicking and other strikes. The single most important part of all of this is that foot work: if someone has a knife, you are going to need to be able to control distance and be able to move around. Same if there are multiple opponents, same if someone comes out of the bushes at you without any warning. Footwork buys you time, gives you options, and keeps your hands clean legally.

What you get in BJJ instead of footwork is a skill set that demands that you close the distance immediately in order to defend yourself. You must take it to the ground so you can work your ground fighting magic. If you have no alternatives in your toolbox, you now find yourself on the ground with someone who has a knife, or someone who has friends kicking you in the head while you are trying to work a submission hold, or someone who has friends who are going to bear false witness against you when the cops show up.

The threat to the martial arts consumer is that the BJJ trolls will in some cases prevent the martial arts consumer from finding what they are looking for. Most boxing styles will work just fine against multiple opponents or opponents with simple melee weapons:

Many traditional martial arts that are into free sparring will work fine against multiple opponents or opponents with melee weapons:

Lots of different strategies will work for fighting multiple opponents or opponents with melee weapons. But pulling guard will not work ("pulling guard" is the most common takedown in BJJ, where you pull the opponent to the ground with you while you fall onto your back and try to control them with your legs):

If you are going to grapple against a melee weapon or multiple opponents, it better be like those aggressive wrestlers in that video, not like the guys on the bottom who were trying to get sneaky submissions. And in general in a real self defense situation you should avoid any of those compromising situations where you are tied up on the ground with someone.

Consider the misconceptions that this BJJ trolling can cause:

1. There is no point in trying to fight multiple opponents if you are attacked by multiple opponents?
2. Running is a consistent and reliable way to a to deal with people who have already corned you?
3. The best self defense strategy is to go directly to the ground as soon as possible?
4. Footwork/movement isn't a skill to train to enhance your effectiveness when attacked?
5. The quality of your stand up striking doesn't matter, because you can just take it to the ground anyways?
6. After a few years of training in one specialization, it is better to keep trying to get better at that one specialization, than it is to start learning new additionally useful specializations?
7. Because grappling escapes, knives, batons and numerous sparring-oriented martial arts did not appear in UFC 1 or 2, there is no possible good reason to study them?

These are harmful myths for someone training martial arts in order to get better at protecting themselves. BJJ trolling - not BJJ - is one of the biggest sources of misinformation about martial arts on the internet. Because I need more time to train, I am walking away from most of these online arguments, but BJJ trolls are a stain on the art they profess.