The Art of Striking

Despite what many practitioners (and even some instructors) might tell you, striking is one of the core components of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Along with Takedowns/clinch-fighting, Grappling, Standing Self-defense and Philosophy, it’s what allows a Gracie fighter to be complete. But, with the focus entirely on the grappling aspect of BJJ and many schools only teaching that part, many people forget this.
The other reason that striking is not so prevalent in people’s minds is because the striking in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu serves a completely different purpose than striking in other arts (boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, etc.). First, we have to remember that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is, first and foremost, an art of self-defense not fighting.

 

This means it has a different goal. In fighting, your goal is simply to win. In self-defense, your goal is simply to survive the encounter. You may do this by winning but there are other ways. The thing is in self-defense, we are being very conservative. If I have to take a big risk to win, then it’s probably not worth it. Why? Because if I’m truly in a situation that calls for me to defend myself and things go bad, I can’t “tap out” or have a ref step in to stop the fight. The only way the fight stops then is when my opponent decides to stop and that could mean a deadly outcome.

 

This mindset is what is different from these other arts (including competition Jiu-Jitsu). In competition, you have to put yourself out there to be able to win. You have to put yourself in danger to an extent in order to attack. And, this is absolutely a valuable skill to have and a great way to train,

 

BUT, we also have to train the survival mindset as well. I teach my students that the most important thing to control in a fight is distance. This applies to grappling, striking, weapons, any conflict. In grappling, we generally do this through shrimping and frames. Standing, you do this with footwork, frames and strikes. In most striking arts, your goal is simple: be able to strike your opponent while taking as little damage to yourself as possible. But, in order to effectively strike my opponent, I have to hover just outside of his power range. This is simply so I can effectively get in and out. If I’m too far away, it’s hard for me to hit him. But, by being so close to his power range, I am taking a substantial risk.

 

Now, knowing that I’m competing with a ref or with restrictions (weight classes, skill divisions, gloves, time limits) then I am not in danger of things going really badly if I make a mistake. But, take those things away and you would be very wise to change your concepts. Staying very close to that power range could prove extremely dangerous.
This is the striking mindset of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. The idea was to be either completely outside of range, or all the way into the clinch range. The first offers complete safety and the second offers it relatively.

 

 

In general, I describe the power (or daaanger) zone as follows: If your opponent extends his lead arm and I extend mine so that our hands touch, then from his elbow to mine is the ideal striking range. Many striking arts teach to be just outside of your opponent’s fully extended range. And, technically he can’t strike me here. But, with the smallest step forward I can be back in his striking range. This is a great place to be if I’m committed to strike him because I also don’t have to move much to hit him (or to take him down), but the same applies in reverse.

 

So, all things being equal, I have a 50/50 chance of winning the exchange. If I train my striking, my odds go up. But, if my opponent is stronger, more athletic, bigger, etc. then that can outweigh my training. In this case, I don’t want to take the chance. I will stay completely out of range. Generally, for self defense this is two arm lengths away. At this range, it’s hard for the guy to catch you by surprise with a strike or a takedown. This is the Primary goal of Gracie striking: distance management. If you look at the early fighters, this is why they kept that lead arm always out or using the Pisao kick. It was to constantly check and keep that greater range. Again, because they were trained with the mindset of real world fighting (survival) not competition (win).

But, because modern MMA has rules such as time limits and is concerned with exciting action, you don’t see opponents being more cautious. Interestingly, the only one really using this old school method anymore is Lyoto Machida but he caught a lot of flak for his more intelligent way of fighting.

 

Also, ironically, staying at a greater range made it easier to get the clinch since an opponent would have to commit himself more fully forward to strike you, thus making it harder for him to defend you coming forward and clinching.

 

But, again most arts don’t teach this “safety first” mindset and focus more on just teaching two relatively equal opponents how to fight each other. Despite their claims that this works best for protection, it ignores certain realities. These include obvious things that many instructors/styles will say aren’t that big a factor such as:

There are no rules; there are no restrictions on setting and obstacles; there are often extreme size and strength disparities. Trying to just stand toe to to and box or kickbox is very problematic when we take those realities into consideration.

 

Let me give you an example. I was very lightly play sparring with a girl who trains MMA and she would step in throw a combo and then back out to just past my reach. She is way smaller and weaker than I am and it was very easy to move in and get my own combo in. I kept trying to convince her to back further out, but she told me her coach had trained her to stay there (just beyond my finger tips). At any time, I could’ve dropped her because she was so close. Again, against someone her size, she was probably doing the right thing. But, against someone like me who is a lot bigger and stronger, she was training to put herself somewhere dangerous.

Just to clarify, I am not saying don’t train another striking art any more than I am saying to not train Judo to better your takedowns. Any good striking art will help you with timing, effective striking techniques, movement. But, it’s important to also train striking the way Helio designed it – as a method of controlling distance and staying safe at all costs. It’s also important to not let anyone tell you that there is no striking in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.

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