Martial Arts

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: ‘combat sport’ or ‘martial art’

29 Sep 2010 By Meg Smitley

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is part of my martial arts journey. For me, to describe (and confine) BJJ as a ‘combat sport’, strips away so much of the value and depth of the art, reducing it to a much less multi-dimensional pursuit of validation through medals and athletic achievement; I see jits as a more esoteric pursuit of personal growth and improvement. While I certainly see competition as a valuable learning tool, to me it is all about emphasis and, to my mind, competition is an important complement to BJJ training, but not the end for which training is the means; my perspective is neither ‘right’ nor ‘wrong’, but it is mine and this blog is my party.

No Consensus

There is no agreement in the BJJ community over whether or not Brazilian Jiu Jitsu should be termed a ‘combat sport’ or a ‘martial art’. Those who prefer the term ‘combat sport’ seem to wish to distance themselves from the douchebaggery popularly associated with martial artists as famously personified by Martin Kove’s John Kreese in Karate Kid or Diedrich Bader’s character, Rex, in Napoleon Dynamite, as well as from the mysticism portrayed by Pat Morita as Mister Miyagi. This is evident from responses to a poll run by the FightworksPodcast questioning whether or not practitioners consider themselves ‘martial artists’, where ‘no’ respondents pointed to the lack of formalised spiritual learning, ceremony and other ‘hokey’ trappings commonly associated with traditional martial arts or at least the popular perception thereof. In this case, a majority of respondents argued for BJJ as a ‘martial art’ and ‘yes’ respondents highlighted BJJ’s capacity to promote personal development on and off the mats:

I can honestly put my hand on heart and say that I have changed thru the training on the mat and that that change is evident off the mat too and that’s why I say that I’m a martial artist. The principles of jiu jitsu influence most of my off-the-mat activities (diet, relationships, work, gym, studying…etc.) and I am very grateful for that. I’m a part time grappler, but I’m a full time martial artist’ – Liam Wandi author of Part Time Grappler

While I empathise with the desire to distance one’s self from pretentiousness and cornball mysticism, for me, Wandi neatly summarises why I embrace characterisations of BJJ as a ‘martial art’ and reject the label ‘combat sport’. BJJ is very challenging and very rewarding. It requires a fully harmonised mind and body for proficient performance and I am absolutely convinced that my struggles and successes on the mats have helped me to become a better human being. While I recognise preparing for and participating in competition to be an important aspect of training and have personally found the experience an invaluable learning-tool, I heartily concur with Rickson Gracie’s assertion that tournament work constitutes 30% of jiu jitsu. My understanding and practice of BJJ as a martial art, where competition is a significant but minority element, is coloured by my roots in the traditional Japanese art of Shorinji Kempo.

A Traditional Upbringing

I started my martial arts journey in 1998, in the year between my graduate and post-graduate studies, in an American ‘ninjitsu’ system called IOMASDA Ryu; yes, I was a big enough douchebag to assert to the man I was to marry, on our first meeting, that I was a member of a ‘ninja clan’, but I was only 23 and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge, so forgive the transgressions of the young. Point is, that first year got me completely hooked! My instructors were kind and enthusiastically supportive and I jumped in with both feet, training with an almost fevered passion, dedication and consistency in and out of the dojo. When I moved to Glasgow, UK to pursue my PhD, a major priority was to continue my training; within a month I’d found Shorinji Kempo, fell in love with the club and by 2002 I’d attained the rank of shodan.

Until recently, and certainly while I was active in the community, Shorinji Kempo was a recognised religion in Japan; the art was designed as a system of physical and spiritual progression to develop the individual’s full human potential. Promotion included both a test of the kenshi’s mastery of the syllabus as well as written examinations on the philosophy of Shorinji Kempo. While I have travelled far from those days, the core principles I came to cherish as a kenshi remain with me and very much guide my training in BJJ.

The Fukudoku-Hon – the textbook of Shorinji Kempo philosophy that guides kenshi to shodan-level – defines 6 characteristics of the art, the first of which is ken zen ichinyo (body and mind are the same). The pursuit of a unified and balanced mind and body has been central to my martial arts journey. While I am grateful that Shorinji Kempo articulated this notion, formally emphasised its importance and that I had the opportunity to seek development of this principle in myself through Shorinji Kempo, I find that Brazilian Jiu Jitsu allows me to more effectively pursue this aim and to evaluate my progress.
My BJJ practice – and that practice is shaped by myself, by my training partners and my instructors at Dartford BJJ – acts as a barometer for my life’s equilibrium. Since my Shorinji Kempo days, a personal motto has been ‘balance in all things’. Of course, striking a perfect balance in all things may not be a practical goal, but it is all in the striving. Life is fluid and demands a ceaseless process of prioritisation, re-evaluation, re-ordering, negotiation and implementation; those readers familiar with the mats will recognise that here ‘life’ might be substituted with ‘BJJ’. BJJ practice has taught me that I perform best when fully engaged and present in ‘the now’ both cerebrally and corporeally. When anxious about what I must or mustn’t allow to happen, what I must or mustn’t do, my performance suffers. Similarly, if my mind and body aren’t in balance, my performance suffers: if I eat too little before training, I’m sluggish in sparring and unable to make the best of the opportunities that present themselves; if I train too hard for too many consecutive days, my sparring is loose and lacks intent; if personal or work pressures are getting the better of me it is difficult to let go, get with the program and roll with focus. Because Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is such a physically, emotionally and mentally challenging discipline it very clearly reveals to me when my life’s balance is out of whack; once I’ve re-tuned it is clear from my rolling when the discord has been resolved.

Conclusions

This is the first in a series of three pieces in which I hope to interrogate my own motivation for BJJ practice and to unpack my rather traditional approach to this non-traditional art. This is just one woman’s truth; leave a comment below about how you see BJJ. Is it a ‘combat sport’? Is it a ‘martial art’? What do such labels mean for you?

A Response to Questions on the Treatment of Women in BJJ

18 Jan 2010 By Meg Smitley

It is an exciting time for women in BJJ in the United Kingdom. In recent years a critical mass of players has developed, and seminars and women’s open mat events in 2009 included white to purple belts and women and girls of a wide age range. Though still very much a minority presence, the increased visibility of women in clubs and at competitions has attracted the interest of the wider (male-dominated) grappling community with blog and forum threads responding to the emergence of a larger female presence. These discussions are interesting and, to my mind, highlight the broad base of support for women by their BJJ brothers, yet a discussion around Slideyfoot’s article, Kyra Gracie and the treatment of women in BJJ, demonstrates continued gender tension in the BJJ/MMA/grapple-verse.

‘Juan (Pancho) Valquez’, a respondent to Slideyfoot’s analysis of women in BJJ, which highlights the emphasis that is placed on female athletes’ appearance at the expense of interest in their skills, makes a number of claims in an effort to demonstrate a hypocrisy of gender equality in BJJ/MMA/grappling. Valquez’s expressions of malcontent regarding female grapplers’ retelling of experiences of sexism in their sporting community is incited by Emily Kwok’s suggestion that female grapplers struggle to be taken seriously as athletes and receive less media attention than male counterparts.[1] There is little doubt that the main hurdle women in sport face is ‘to be taken seriously’, or that the greatest attention of sports media is on men’s sporting achievements,[2] and Kwok’s claims are certainly supported by studies of gender and sport. Valquez’s argument seems to centre on two themes: 1) women objectify men, so discussion of female athletes’ appearance is not a sign of sexism; 2) women are physically inferior to men and therefore aren’t men’s equals.

I certainly find male athletes sexually attractive, and find athletes’ bodies inspirational. However, I think it is naive to suggest that because men and women can find each other attractive, there is no difference in how this notion influences popular perceptions of male and female athletes. The salient question here is not, ‘do women objectify men’, or even, ‘do men objectify women’, it is, ‘does the objectification of women often obscure other qualities of a woman in a way that is both different than for men and more distracting from women’s athletic achievements’. I believe that it is. While the double standard surrounding the influence of appearance on popular perceptions of male versus female abilities is a wider societal phenomenon, let’s focus on its manifestation in sport (in Anglo-North American culture).[3] Chris Isidore has discussed how marketing drives to increase female athletes’ sex appeal has, ultimately, detrimental effects on popular perceptions of female athletes’ abilities.[4] Similarly, Laura Robinson notes, ‘The media is not interested in covering strong women, it is interested in covering naked women’.[5] What is significant is not that male bodies are never objectified, but rather that portrayals of female athletes tend to emphasise passivity rather than the performance of sport (as is more common in representations of male players), and work to highlight the pleasingness of women’s bodies to men within a hetero-normative context while obscuring a woman’s athletic achievements.[6]

Valquez argues that female grapplers can never be regarded as equals because they can’t ‘win’ against men. It is difficult to unpick exactly what Valquez’s argument is here. He oscillates between suggesting that women can never beat men, ‘They’d [female athletes] be unable to compete against the men and so, as kids, would steer away from sports that they knew to be a dead end for them’ and that women can beat some men, ‘Most professional level female bjjers/mma competitors could probably make a hobbyist like me look like a fool’.[7] In the end, the core of his position seems to be an affirmation of sexual segregation in sport (which in some subtle unarticulated way seems to demonstrate, for Valquez, female inferiority) and the assertion that if women are equal to men, they should be able to best male competitors, as unlikely as he believes this to be, ‘Generally speaking male athletes usually win against female athletes if they are at the same skill level. That’s why we segregate sports by gender in the first place.'[8] I believe this assertion is untested, at least in Britain, as the opportunity to compete against men is rarely available to female grapplers in the UK. As Camilla Hansen’s excellent posting on EFN demonstrates, women are barred from competing against men at most UK tournaments. While Hansen notes that the Nordic Open allows mixed competition with a 5 kilo advantage, it remains aberrant in Anglo-North American grappling tournaments to offer mixed competition.[9]

I believe that the subtext to Valquez’s comments is offence at women entering what is perceived as a masculine arena. While women’s agency in the public sphere has increased since the Victorian and Edwardian women’s movement,[10] the public sphere is still in many ways elided with maleness and performances of masculinity. Female grapplers ‘intrusion’ into the male-dominated grappling space can therefore be viewed, by some men, as a threat to and a disruption of their masculine identity. In other words, the ability to undertake these masculine performances can, for some men, be ‘cheapened’ by the inclusion of women’s grappling performances. The insecurity which can arise from this perceived attack on masculinity can give rise to belittling attitudes towards women and women’s sporting achievements. I, like Kwok, have been accused of practicing an inferior form of ‘girl jiu jitsu’ and of having been promoted to a ‘girl blue belt’. Yes, as a lighter practitioner, my path is different from many of the men that I train with. There are no easy wins, ‘muscling it’ is never an option, and in common with other lighter grapplers I have to make the technique work to make progress. My approach may be different to larger grapplers, but ultimately everyone’s BJJ is unique and male or female we all have our own games, strengths and weaknesses.

In the final analysis, some peoples’ views are so entrenched that no amount of persuasion can bring them round to accept me or other female grapplers as valuable training partners or equally important athletes. I can only seek to ‘be the change I want to see’. I organise women’s open mats to provide a place for women to come together and train with one another, and I train hard with an incredible group of (mostly) men at Dartford BJJ, secure in the knowledge that I have their love and respect, just as they have mine.

[1] Slideyfoot, Kyra Gracie and the treatment of women in BJJ (2010).
[2] See Laura Robinson interview by Ellie Gordon-Moershel, The reality of women, sport and sexuality (2009). Author’s note, I heartily disagree with Robinson’s moralistic and pejorative description of women’s fighting, however, I find much of her argument persuasive and cogent as one would expect from a veteran analyst of women in sport.
[3] For example, Kate Fox, in her summary of SIRC findings, has argued that ‘women are judged on their appearance more than men, and standards of female beauty are considerably higher and more inflexible’. See Kate Fox, Mirror, mirror – a summary of research findings on body image (1997).
[4] See Chris Isidore, Sex in play in women’s sports (2002).
[5] Robinson and Gordon-Moershel, The reality of women, sport and sexuality.
[6] Robinson and Gordon-Moershel, The reality of women, sport and sexuality.
[7] Juan (Pancho) Valquez response to Slideyfoot, Kyra Gracie and the treatment of women in BJJ.
[8] Valquez response to Slideyfoot, Kyra Gracie and the treatment of women in BJJ.
[9] See Camilla Hansen, Should women be allowed to compete in men’s divisions (2009).
[10] See Megan Smitley, The feminine public sphere: middle-class women and civic life in Scotland, c1870-1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).

BJJ/GJJ: self defence (for women) in Dartford, Kent

10 Nov 2009 By Meg Smitley

Caroline Gracie promotes GJJ from women's self defence

Last week I was very excited to go ‘back to basics’ and begin at the beginning in Dartford BJJ‘s new Gracie Combatives class. Coach has always included an element of Gracie Jiu Jitsu self defence in our BJJ and MMA classes; his passion for this area has led to a formal Combatives class on Wednesday evenings. While I love rolling, sparring and working on developing my technique versus a skilled/BJJ-knowledgeable opponent, I have a lot of time for the less sporty side of BJJ: I’ve always been interested in effective self defence and began my martial arts journey in a ‘Women’s Empowerment Self Defence’ class and then progressed to Shorinji Kempo, a traditional Japanese art with a self defence focus.

The Combatives class is tailor-made for people new to martial arts and particularly for women interested in self defence and/or getting fit. Training is extremely chilled out and builds from a very fundamental base and so is appropriate for people just starting out (as well as for more veteran martial artists interested in rethinking their basics). The emphasis on core self defence techniques and body movements, rather than on ‘jiu jitsufied’ movement and counter movement, and the absence of sparring, allows women new to martial arts to develop their skills, physical ability and confidence while helping to overcome barriers around personal space before, perhaps, choosing to get stuck into a BJJ class and roll all around the floor with sweaty animals (ladies, believe me when I say, it is more fun than you might imagine).

Our first class was a mix of adults and juniors and included a heavy dose of blue and purple belts as well as juniors and complete novices. We are following the Gracie methodology of building up a series of self defence techniques that, while effective in their own right, further teach basic principles of movement to condition and prepare the body for the sort of BJJ training that readers may be more familiar with. So, we drilled three techniques which reinforced foot work and posture:

1) Counter to a choke from standing.

2) Counter to a grab to the shirt.

3) Counter to a ‘noogie’ style head lock.

Each technique relied on similar foot work, but along different planes, as well as working balance, core strength and posture. Yes, these techniques are very ‘basic’, but I personally quite enjoy picking apart the fundamentals and considering them in the light of my existing understandings. I am absolutely pumped to be working through Combatives in a methodical way and look forward to building on these techniques this week. For my partner, who was in her third class, these techniques, drilled in a very non-aggressive and compliant manner, were a great way for her to rep fundamental principles.

BJJ for the people!

Zen and the art of skipping

25 Oct 2009 By Meg Smitley

I feel amazing! Epiphany while skipping! Letting go and operating in a state of detachment enhances ability (by avoiding fear and existing in the now). I’ve understood this, on a cerebral level, for some time and Coach, Marc Walder and other more senior martial artists I have the pleasure and privilege to train with have repeatedly emphasised this in classes, seminars and personal tuition. From my own meager competition experience I’ve had practical experience with being ‘in the zone’, but I find it terribly difficult to relax in regular BJJ practice.

I appreciate why this is, and my tension is particularly apparent when I go on the offensive. I’ve spent the last 4-5 years on the mats primarily in defensive mode, and I have a reasonable amount of confidence in my defence, feeling pretty comfortable with larger, stronger and less skilled opponents and offering, at least, annoying resistance for some (many?, perhaps that’s going too far) opponents that are larger, stronger and of a similar or greater skill level. However, I rarely ‘close the deal’ and submit these opponents.

A major barrier to my offence is my self-consciousness at being outside my comfort zone and the associated fear that comes with feeling exposed, ignorant and out of one’s depth. This manifests in gritted teeth, tensed muscles and essentially my whole bod telegraphs that I am up to something. This clearly isn’t optimal for working ‘multi-pronged’ attacks and flowing with whatever the opponent makes available. I’m aware that I have this problem, but struggle to overcome, and here is it is clearly my ego getting in the way; fear, self-consciousness, attachment, all bugbears to adapting competently to the fluid opportunities of a spar.

This evening I turned this around a wee bit and ‘skipped with detachment’. I’ve been working on flexibility, in particular working towards full side and box splits. This is a goal I’d hoped to achieve before last Christmas, but that plan was scuppered by MCL/cartilage injury. Ever since I matted my basement a few months ago and my knee has felt up to it, I’ve been trying to stick to a daily stretch routine. Today, I warmed up for my stretch with some skipping. Skipping can be boring, so I had fat ‘phones on and big dance beats pumping. I tried to make the whole thing more fun by skipping 3 times on both feet, twice on the right, twice on the left and back to both feet. I was absolutely sucking out! I took the speed right down and practiced just moving between each leg for 5 minutes, then started to build up the speed of skip and alternation and, then, the strangest thing. I noticed I was switching between feet every two beats at a quick pace – no problemo. It seemed that I’d tuned out *trying* to skip on alternate feet and just started bouncing to the beat and it was easy. As soon as I became aware of what I was doing and thought ‘I gotta keep it up’, I’d lose it. As soon as I became attached to the skipping routine my jaws clenched, my brow furrowed, my bod tensed up and I lost the groove. I kept working and after 30 minutes was happily skipping and transitioning between alternate feet, different variations of beats and etc with a lot less getting tangled up in the rope. I *felt* the difference between being all uptight about ‘having to do it right’ and, in Coach’s words, ‘doing it like it doesn’t matter’. Now I *know* what he meant. I am so very excited about this! I could absolutely identify when I was just enjoying what was happening and bouncing along and when I got too attached to keeping the skip going (and so ruined it). Was almost like that point just before sleep, when you’re not entirely conscious of yourself and your worries, cares or wishes and sort of floating in a limbo of consciousness/unconsciousness. I’m well chuffed with my wonderful little breakthrough.

Now the hard part, putting this into practice on the mats. We shall see, no doubt about it though, I love this journey.