Poll: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ)

Despite the poll having a tie between TKD and BJJ, I decided to go ahead and cover BJJ first. I'd like to thank the people who voted on the poll and I hope you all keep visiting this site to enlighten yourselves about the science of mixed martial arts.

Any fighter of MMA is mostly likely to be familiar with BJJ. It's basically Japanese Jiu-Jitsu but modified so the practitioner will use less power and strength but more leverage instead. Black belts of this system are practically kinesiologists, knowing how their opponents' body functions and moves to locate their weak spots. This method is especially efficient when it comes to neutralizing an attacker without the use of strikes. This form of martial arts is a bit out of the ordinary because you can be on your back and still have an advantage over your opponent.

One of the most basic submission moves practiced is the armbar. Your arms are significantly weaker than your leg muscles so this is much easier to achieve than the knee bar. The weakest point on your arm is the elbow itself since it is not a structure consisting of solid hard tissue (bone). Although the elbow joint allows movement, increased movement means decreased stability. When the technique is executed correctly and the arm becomes hyperextended, the elbow becomes vulnerable to biceps tendon strain/rupture, ligament damage and possible bone fractures as well as other soft tissue damage. There are several ways to achieve the armbar, whether it's on your back, on top of your opponent, or even standing. The first position in which you learn to perform this technique during BJJ, is when you're on the ground, and to make things simpler we'll begin with the practitioner laying down with legs over the neck/chest and the hip under and between the elbow and shoulder (Fig 1) of the opponent.

ᵝ Fig 1. The black square is where your hip should be under the arm.


As a BJJ practitioner, you would use the opponents own arm as a second-class lever. For those of you not familiar with physics, a lever itself is used to help move mass with less effort. A lever can be a stick, a rod, or in this case, a forearm. A fulcrum helps pivot the lever, which will be the elbow of the opponent. A second-class lever has the load between the effort and the fulcrum. The load will be the forearm again but with the opponent's arm muscles pulling it towards his own body. The effort will be the force of your pulling that forearm so it can straighten out. In physics, the effort always travel a greater distance and is less than the load so very little work from you is needed just to extend your opponents arm. However, you don't want your opponents arm to stay perfectly straight. Instead, you want to hyperextend it by popping up your hips from the ground, creating more room for the effort to travel more with the forearm. This will cause the opponent's elbow to moving more than 180 degrees, causing hyperextension and making your opponent give up.

This submission is an example of many others that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has to offer without the use of strikes. The lack of strength and power needed to execute these techniques are especially useful against opponents who are much bigger and/or stronger. During the first UFC event, Royce Gracie, a BJJ practitioner, went up against significantly larger fighters like Golden-Glove winner Art Jimmerson who was 20 pounds heavier. He was able to defeat all three of his opponents during that event without needing to strike. That has also shown that since this combat system does not require the need of strength and power, it would help prevent the user from gassing out during competitions. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a clever system that has essentially been created so that less energy is needed, and its reasons to be viewed respectfully has been shown time and time again.


ᵝ Edited picture of a cadaver's left arm (1)

1)Elliott,Darryl."Clinical Kinesiology: Elbow & Forearm"[Power Point Slide].Kinesiology.Northeastern University.pg23.27 March 2007.