It is a total myth that martial arts make people aggressive. It is usually the weak people who are more aggressive due to their insecurity and martial arts make people stronger
hence they lose their insecurities. What happens is that when people learn martial arts and develop the ability to subdue stronger opponents they become reassured and calm.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is one of the staples for those fighting in elite martial art competitions such as Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), it is one of the most effective fighting systems, especially when fighting on the ground. BJJ techniques have been specially designed for those with low strength to defend against those who are bigger and stronger.
Professor Arun Sharma is a Delhi based Brazilian Jiu Jitsu instructor, besides training senior military and law enforcement agencies he conducts self defense workshops for corporate houses like HCL, ERNST & Young, Samsung among others both in India and abroad.
Professor Arun ascribes BJJ’s effectiveness to its training methods and emphasizes on the importance of sparring “If you don’t train in a realistic manner then you won’t be able to apply the techniques when someone is really resisting, we learn the techniques which are based on the concepts of physics like leverage, fulcrum and angles. These techniques are specifically designed to work against a bigger and stronger opponent. After learning the techniques we do a lot of repetitions with some resistance and in every class we do sparring with full resistance with several training partners of different skills, size and strength level. Hence with time one learns to apply the techniques against a fully resisting person regardless of their body type or level of strength.”
Professor Arun dispels the belief that martial arts is solely about muscle power. “At the higher level all martial arts are the same, nobody is fighting strength versus strength everybody is diverting the force. By learning how to fight the weak angles one can easily subdue someone of greater strength, rather than fighting force head on we circle it out and divert it.”
He asserts that BJJ is a technical and a very gentle art hence a person does not necessarily need a very high level of physical fitness in order to learn it “Strength is not the criteria for learning Ji Jitsu, kids as young as 3 years and people who are 70 plus are practicing BJJ in my Dojo, besides this people with knee and back problems are doing it and so are people with very low physical strength or stamina.”
He emphasis on the versatile nature of BJJ “BJJ is a highly effective and versatile Martial Art, It gives you the option of controlling the amount of damage you inflict on the attacker, with BJJ you can pin your opponent down and talk to him, with it you could apply a joint lock to cause pain or even break the joint if necessary or you can choke the attacker unconscious in
matter of seconds. We have different gears to use, compared to this if you strike the attacker you can’t control the damage, you can’t punch or kick slowly can you? BJJ is strong enough to kill someone
hence it is used by military and Special Forces, it can be used to pin or control someone without inflicting damage hence can be used by the police for arresting people. At the same time it is gentle
and highly effective for Self Defense as it doesn’t rely on speed and strength so it can be taught to kids, the elderly and women for defending themselves.”
Professor Arun highlights how practicing martial arts could make a person peaceful “It is a total myth that martial arts make people aggressive. It is usually the weak people who are more aggressive due to their insecurity and martial arts make people stronger hence they lose their insecurities. What happens is that when people learn martial arts and develop the ability to subdue stronger opponents they become reassured and calm.”
