I Told You So

People talk like martial arts has arrived, and that we have good solutions for teaching every day people with an every day lifestyle effective fighting skills that they can reliably use to protect themselves, and that we can do this without injuring them worse than they would be if they were mugged on the street. But we don't, martial arts has a long ways to go before we have any such training developed.

There are 4 Olympic Sports, 2 striking (Taekwondo and Boxing,) 2 grappling (Judo and Wrestling.)  1 striking and 1 grappling have Gi (martial arts uniforms, Tae Kwon Do and Judo) and there is a striking and grappling art that do not have Gi (boxing and wrestling.) Of these 4 arts, Judo (Gi grappling) is the most injurious and Wrestling (no-Gi grappling)  is the least injurious: https://combatsportslaw.com/2020/11/23/study-judo-has-highest-injury-rate-among-olympic-combat-sports/

I have been concerned for a while now that the more over-specialized a martial art gets, the more disconnected it gets from applicable self defense technique, and the more there is a risk of repetitive stress injury. My personal experience is that grappling in a Gi is far more injurious than grappling in regular exercise clothes, and that fits well with the Judo rate of injury vs Wrestling rate of injury listed above. I have been particularly concerned about Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu becoming both more dangerous and less applicable to self defense the more disconnected it gets from MMA.

I told you so in 2023 in regards to my own experiences and observations, in regards to Icy Mike seeing huge mobility problems from long term practice of BJJ, and based on Joe of Fight Bible getting his neck broken in BJJ practice. One study found that 2 out of 3 BJJ practitioners are injured in their first 3 years of training: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8721390/

Now BJJ advocate Rokas has gotten a taste of how much BJJ improves your ability to defend yourself: