Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is a martial art and combat sport that focuses on grappling and especially ground fighting with the goal of gaining a dominant position and using joint-locks and chokeholds to force an opponent to submit.
The system developed from a modified version of pre-World War II Judo including some techniques from Japanese Jujutsu and with a focus on ne-waza (ground technique). It promotes the principle that a smaller, weaker person using leverage and proper technique can successfully defend themselves against a bigger, stronger assailant.
BJJ can be trained for self defense, sport grappling tournaments (gi and no-gi) and mixed martial arts (MMA) competition. Sparring (commonly referred to as ‘rolling’) and live drilling play a major role in training, and a premium is placed on performance, especially in competition. Competitions are held regularly around the area and interstate for those students interested in competing. Students are never forced to compete, but are encouraged to try it out and see if this is an avenue they would like to take in their training.
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is also a fantastic physical workout, and can give students immense strength and cardio fitness gains due to the drills and exercises performed in class to better their technique. BJJ is also very relevant to many street attacking scenarios, where a large percentage of attacks end up on the ground. Due to this, BJJ is excellent for females to learn as it makes them comfortable dealing with attacks in this environment and is an effective anti-rape training tool.
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