First BJJ class

drop bear

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Just wondering, why is turning on my stomach bad? I hope this isn't like asking why it's bad to be on your back in judo, because then I'll feel stupid. But wouldn't giving your back be better in a self defense situation, protecting your face and head and such? Or does it have to do with points in competition?

Ok. I do the stomach thing a bit because I tend to escape through turtle. Hands and knees. But if you are just rolling away you give up your back and you take away your ability to use your arms and legs to defend yourself.
 

Headhunter

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Just wondering, why is turning on my stomach bad? I hope this isn't like asking why it's bad to be on your back in judo, because then I'll feel stupid. But wouldn't giving your back be better in a self defense situation, protecting your face and head and such? Or does it have to do with points in competition?
It's the same as turning your back to an opponent when boxing or kickboxing. You can't see what they're doing and can't defend what you can't see. In a real fight you're likely to get smashed when doing that in pure bjj you're in a position to get choked
 
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stingrae

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It's the same as turning your back to an opponent when boxing or kickboxing. You can't see what they're doing and can't defend what you can't see. In a real fight you're likely to get smashed when doing that in pure bjj you're in a position to get choked

I see. That makes sense. By any chance do you know how the points system works in tournaments? The coaches touched on it a bit but not much.
 

Tony Dismukes

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I see. That makes sense. By any chance do you know how the points system works in tournaments? The coaches touched on it a bit but not much.
2 points for a takedown, sweep, or knee-mount
3 points for a guard pass
4 points for full mount or back control with both hooks in

In general, you have to establish position for 3 seconds to get the points, So, for example, if you pass your opponent's guard for a split-second and then they recover guard, you get no points.
 

JR 137

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Just wondering, why is turning on my stomach bad? I hope this isn't like asking why it's bad to be on your back in judo, because then I'll feel stupid. But wouldn't giving your back be better in a self defense situation, protecting your face and head and such? Or does it have to do with points in competition?

Turning to your stomach gives your opponent basically unlimited assess to striking your kidneys, the back of your head, your neck and spine. Not to mention making it pretty easy to choke you out.

Unless you're double jointed in your shoulders, hips and knees and can do everything on your stomach that you can do on your back, nothing good can come from being on your stomach.

Wrestlers are taught to go to their stomach to avoid being pinned. The above mentioned stuff isn't allowed in wrestling, so it's the best place to be. In BJJ it's the worst place you can be. In an actual fight it's also the worst place to be. The only advantage to being on your stomach in a fight would be to protect your face, but that advantage is easily outweighed if the attacker can think beyond "punch him in the face and knock him out."
 

Charlemagne

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The only advantage to being on your stomach in a fight would be to protect your face, but that advantage is easily outweighed if the attacker can think beyond "punch him in the face and knock him out."

Exactly. Watch the early days of MMA, and even now on many occasions, how often someone gets mount, starts raining punches, and then the guy on the bottom turns onto their stomach to get away from from being hit, only to get choked out in short order. If that is a real world fight, you might be dead. Far better to stay on your back, protect your head, and try to manage the distance taking away their ability to punch you, or to access a weapon. It's still a crap place to be, but at least you have some options.
 

Headhunter

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BJJ is Basically Just Judo but inverted in that the focus is on the ground work instead of the standing work. Everything you learned in judo is allowed in BJJ except some of the things that have been removed in judo due to the Olympic styling such as single leg and double leg take downs are still prominently used in BJJ. Due to the focus on the ground work, you'll probably be leagues ahead of higher belts in your takedowns/throws. BJJ has really fleshed out a lot of different guards for controlling folks from the bottom that work better for some folks than others. You'll learn a lot of closed guard and half guard in the beginning but later you'll learn variances on the half guard and an assortment of open guards: butterfly, de la riva, reverse de la riva, single x, double x, lasso, etc.

I've never been to a BJJ school that has been anymore formal than just bowing in and out at the beginning/end of class respectively. You usually shake hands with everyone at the end and here (a school in Hawaii), we all hug. The coaches are all called coach. When I trained in Japan, my instructor was called either sensei or Professor (as he was Portuguese).
Lol your first sentence reminded me of master kens video on bjj. He said something like "jiu jitsu is abbreviated to bjj which stands for bull **** just like judo" lol
 

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