R6Laser
The reason I ask is because one of my sons age 22 is interested in taking some sort of martial arts classes. To me it would make sense to have him take something that would provide a useful set of tools. I seems to me that Brazilian jiu-jitzu would accomplish this. Does the training provide a good all around experience...i.e. mind, body, spiritual etc... Or does it just give you a lot of confidence knowing that you could dismantle someone rather quickly and efficiently.
On my opinion Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is a great art to learn. Alot also depends on the instructor and how he or she teaches the class and what purpose the training is for. My instructor would start the class with excercises then we would start different drills depending on the technique we were trying to learn. Finally after class, it was open mat, where you could basically choose a partner and practice what you learned on the day. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu basically revolves around being on the ground most of the time, even though there is also stand up, and that might turn some people off. That's why our instructor also incorporated some standup like muay-thai so that you learn both and are well rounded. I don't know if you have seen Sport Jiu-Jitsu in action but its pretty intense, basically imagine wrestling with submission moves.
One thing that helped me was like I said getting into an open mat session first without signing up full time. I think most schools do that now, where you can go in to the class and try it out for one or two sessions and see if that's what you want.
There's a lot of misconceptions about mixed martial arts, but it has to do with all these years of promoters who didn't care for the sport and only wanted to show people beating up each other. The martial artist who actually trains and does it because they find it fun are very skilled, and it takes a lot of hard work to become good at it.
As far as the saying that the gloves used in Ultimate Fighting are not safe, that's another myth. Do a search on it and you'll find many reasons on why. Take for example Boxing where the objective is to hit someone as many times as you can in the head. Just because the glove is bigger doesn't mean its not doing damage. Also in Ultimate Fighting you don't get hit on the head as much as in boxing, there are many ways to stop a fight. The boxing glove was built to protect the hands of the boxer not the head. Research it on your own and you'll see that even with all this bad rep, mixed martial arts is not as dangerous as boxing, or other sports. Sports in general are going to be dangerous, take for example football, soccer and so on. Hell its more dangerous me driving my motorcycle down the street!
Engaging in mixed martial arts or stepping up in the ring has nothing to do with self esteem. I guess if you haven't trained or experienced it you can't really now what's the motivating factor. Once again I'm talking about trained fighters not these guys who go to a bar and just sign up to a toughman contest and beat each other up withou knowledge of the sport. I also found that when either stepping in the ring or sparring with someone, there's certain respect that you have for your opponent and when its all said and done it all ends with either a handshake or bowing down if you are in a traditional martial arts school.
