I saw a post going around on Facebook the other day. It was of some alleged bounce/security guard downplaying the efficacy of jiu-jitsu in real life scuffles. He said something I hadn’t heard in ages; “I don’t want to be caught rolling around rolling around in a real situation.” I’ve heard other variations of these in the past as well, like “You don’t want to be rolling around on the ground with someone when they might have a knife.” These are the sort of comments that come from people who have no clue how grappling works. Anyone who’s never grappled in their life is fooling themselves if they think they’re going to do anything but get taken down and submitted or grounded and pounded, at least controlled should they fight a grappler. Sure, two fairly equally-skilled grapplers who both have very “rolly polly” styles may very well roll around with each other, especially if they’re wearing gis.
The point: Anyone who thinks they’re going to gouge someone’s eyes or pull out a knife against someone who has complete control of their limbs is just plain fooling themselves.
In fact, this reminds me of what another martial artist once told me: Boxers box for points. His point was that a boxer isn’t looking to knock you out, and so you can use that to your advantage. He obviously had no idea how boxing actually worked and was simply talking out of his lack of knowledge and false assumptions. I may write more about that in a future post. In any case, here is what a Navy Seal has to say about Jiu Jitsu and Boxing.