Several of my good friends are experts in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. By expert I mean that they have trained hard for over 10 years and they are ranked under guys like Marc Laimon and Geraldo Boone. In the dojo, they can give you all you want on the ground. They are also bouncers at a local bar. One guy who worked with them, and had done hard core BJJ training for about 3 years (a solid blue belt) had to ask a rowdy guy to leave one night. The confrontation went bad, and the rowdy guy ended up kicking the shit out of the blue belt. Another guy, who worked with them, and had only been training for several months rushed over stepped in, and after dodging several punches got the guy down and choked him out.
Now, this really embarrassed the blue belt. Not only did he get the worst of the confrontation, but a guy who had only been training a short time in the same style (and who was smaller than him) had done what he thought he should have done. Some people wonder about such things, but I understand how events like this can happen.
Like the guy who posted the line from Mike Tyson: Everybody has a strategy until you punch them in the mouth.
Sometimes this is more true than you can know.
You can train for years, and when it is time to execute...you just freeze.
Things can happen so fast that one second some guy is asking you what you are looking at, and the next second (before you could even say--'huh') the same guy is punching you in the face for the third time.
I saw one guy, an awesome fighter, get sucker punched one night. He was so stunned that by the time he snapped out of his I-can't-believe -that-guy-just-popped-me-in-the-eye-trance that the punk had darted out the door and was gone. He was left with a black eye, and people wanted to know why he didn't use his deadly Brazilian Jiu-jitsu on the guy. In the movies, the good guy often wins, but in real life strange things that are hard to explain happen.
I got to tell you about this crap that happened to one of my friends. He was very well trained in grappling and boxing. He had been in countless fights and only backed down if a weapon was brandished and he had none. That being said I will continue.
This guy goes over to his girlfriends house who is having a cook out. Besides the girls family being there, there are these two other guys present when he gets to her house. They are clearly flirting with the girl, and this makes my friend jealous. They start having words, and an argument ensues. One of the guys takes a plate of hot dogs and throws it on my friend's head, covering him with chilly and mustard. When my friend turned to face the evil hot dog attacker, the other guy shoved him off of the patio (now that my friend was distracted), and my friend rolled all the way down this muddy hill while his girlfriend and her family watched. By the time my friend got back up the hill the two guys had got in their car and left. My friend comes over to my house covered in mud, chilly, and mustard and demands that I go with him to look for these two guys. After laughing my ass off at the story, I told him that no beating he could give those two would ever make up for the embarrassment he suffered. He said that his girlfriend's family was even laughing at him as he rolled down the hill. I advised him to never go back over there again, and find another girlfriend. He would not listen, so we went looking for these guys for a couple of days (we never found them thank God). When word got around about the infamous hot dog incident, my friend ended up having to beat up 3 or 4 other guys before people would stop making fun of him to his face. The point is that no matter how good you are, there is no way to completely control the innumerable factors that could occur during a confrontation. And, to this day, I have yet to see a dojo prepare their students for a possible surprise hot dog attack!
Red Beetle
www.kingsportjudo.com