The purpose of the BJJ Street Fight Breakdown series is to show how knowing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu could have been used in a street fight or self-defense situation for both offensive and defensive purposes. Knowing basic grappling and BJJ fundamentals that are taught during the first year of a beginner’s curriculum could mean the difference between getting out of a fight or self-defense situation with a few bumps and bruises or a major injury like a concussion or broken bones.
In this week’s edition of BJJ Street Fight Breakdown, we will take a look at an altercation between two crazy teenagers that fight shirtless in a cold field where you can still see small patches of snow in the back ground. The combatants in the fight, who I will call Saggy Jeans and Shorts, likely got into it at school and decided to settle their differences at a local park after the last bell. Like most street fights, this fight begins and ends within 30 seconds. Also, like 70% to 80% of street fights, this fight also goes to the ground, which makes knowing ground defense from closed guard, bottom side control and mount very important in surviving without a major injury.
Here are 3 Takeaways from the fight
Pull Up Your Pants: First of all, Saggy Jeans, is white and living in the suburbs. Quit acting hard by pulling your pants below your rear. The fashion of sagging pants started in prison where prisoners weren’t allowed to wear belts or pants strings to keep their pants up. Also, in prison, wearing your pants really low is a sign that you are really interested in being someone’s girlfriend. Finally and most importantly, wearing your jeans low, must have impacted Saggy Jean’s lateral movement on the feet and on the ground.
Whizzer: At 34:10, Shorts throws an overhand right at Saggy Jeans, then drops his level for a take down. Once they hit the ground, Saggy Jeans had a whizzer, with his left arm over hooking Short’s right arm, but he didn’t know what to do with it. Since he didn’t know what to do with the whizzer, Shorts, was able to do a reshot on the ground and put Saggy Jeans on his back.
The Whizzer is a common hold/position in wrestling that can be used to defend take downs, get back to your feet, or used to set up your own take downs. In many BJJ programs that have coaches with a wrestling background, the whizzer will be part of the curriculum. Here is an example showing how to defend a double leg take down with a whizzer and under hook then throwing his opponent by maintaining taking a back step.
Mount Escape/Defend Blows: After being put on his back, Saggy Jeans is instantly mounted by Shorts. Full mount is one of the worst and most vulnerable positions you can be placed in both BJJ and street fights. Knowing how to escape is crucial in preventing a major injury from punches and head butts.. Even bridging from side to side with the hips and legs can destabilize Shorts long enough to prevent him from reigning down blows. Knowing how to knee bump in opponent in the butt, can break down his posture enough where you can control the head and arm and reduce the significance of any strikes thrown at you. By lying flat on his back, with no knowledge on how to defend blows or escape mount, he was caught with several hard head butts to the head that dazed him and finished the fight. Here is a great series from Roy Dean on defending and escaping full mount.
Understanding basically grappling defense would have prevented from Saggy Jeans from getting rocked. From take down defense, knowing how to effectively use a whizzer to defend and get back to his feet, and how to escape full mount would have helped him dramatically in this situation. I don’t support street fighting and would much prefer settling differences through talking things out and coming to a peaceful resolution. This brief fight shows how quickly a situation can become violent if you are attacked and how knowing basic BJJ and grappling fundamentals can really mean the difference between a few bumps and bruises or a concussion.
