The Three Types of Self-Defence Part 2 — Self-Defence Against Hard Violence
Two Types of Violence
Basic and other safety techniques are a necessary part of training safely and being prepared for accidents in daily life. When most of us think of self-defence however, we are more likely thinking about dealing with violence.
Violence can take different forms — hard violence, the attempt to hit or injure; and soft violence — unwanted touch.
Hard or inflammatory violence includes situations in which a potentially bigger person is getting aggressive and trying to hit or hurt us. Jiu-Jitsu not only gives a simple, proven-effective strategy for overcoming a bigger person, it gives us the training to feel confidently prepared for it.
Inflammatory Violence: Self-Defence Against Aggression
What separates BJJ from other martial arts is that it provides us with a gameplan — one that actually works, as demonstrated in the early days and subsequent decades of MMA.
Those deep in the “self-defence” world, may comment that MMA is not true self-defence — there are countless other considerations — environment, multiple opponents, weapons, etc. These are all notable considerations, but when teaching a child math, you wouldn’t start with calculus. You would teach addition then subtraction, multiplication and division — you would start with the most basic situation first.
The most basic self-defence situation is facing a single, unarmed opponent in a neutral environment — if you don’t truly know how to defend yourself against one unarmed person, how are you going to actually be able to protect yourself against many? Even if you want to study other arts which dive deeper into more complex situations, BJJ would arguably be the first one you should start with. Given the enhancements to agility, coordination and awareness that BJJ instills, it will make you better at any and every other art.
True, BJJ may not be the ideal art for dealing with 30 opponents wielding scimitars in a spike-walled room that’s on fire, but hey — let’s start with level one before we get to level two. 😜
If you would like to learn and really understand Jiu-Jitsu, I have created two video courses — the Beginner’s Guide to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and The BJJ Blue Belt Curriculum. You can pick them both up at BJJ101.tv.
