bjj has it's strengths and it's weaknesses.
bjj could definitely aid a person of any martial background, but as a stand alone art it is very weak against weapons and multiple opponents. Note that these two weaknesses are something not present in mma bouts which is why bjj is able to flourish in such setting.
For example if the knifeman fought a bjj dude and bjj somehow managed a takedown without getting cut up then bjj dude now is fighting in really close quarters with a knife. I think bjj can deal with a knife if a person trains for it, but a normal bjj dude will get cut up quick without special training. This by the way isn't just my guess on it, I was in a class of a different style with a bjj person present and he went through the normal bjj game plan and the other person just drew a hidden training knife and bjj guy was hit quite a bit with it before he responded to the knife.
I think bjj is great supplement art and I think all striking artists should have some exposure to it, but you can't claim it to be the best art and such.
Apples and Oranges comparison. Knives vs. Jiu Jitsu is almost like comparing Gun Fighting to Boxing. Weapons vs. Non-Weapons. There is no martial art in existence that doesn't use weapons that will give you an advantage over somebody with a weapon. The person who is armed always has an advantage. Even an untrained assailant can swing around a knife dangerously and unpredictably enough that the most experienced martial artists are at a disadvantage. The best course is to get away.
Take your pick. Do you want to learn to fight with a knife or without one? Keep in mind the legal ramifications of using a knife in self defense. I can promise you that you will NEVER get into a knife fight like in the movies. By the time you know you're defending yourself against a knife, you'll already be carved up. People that intend to do you harm don't show you their intention, people who are all bark and no bite are the ones that will pull a knife and show it to you because they want you to walk away so they don't have to use it.
Everybody's goals are different, though. For self defense, I'd rather have some mace than fight it out. Just figure out for yourself what you'd rather do. Saying that BJJ is better than Silat is like saying a Sports Bike is better than a Jeep. Better for what? The two have completely different uses.
I am from a Brasilian family and have been trained in Gracie Jiu Jitsu since i was a very small child. I will tell you now that GJJ is a tremendous art however the difference between GJJ and BJJ is that BJJ is made more for a sports application where as GJJ is made as a more of a self defense applicable art.
GJJ has wonderful techniques and skills to help any person learn to defend themselves however using the Royce Gracie fights as an example is not a good one simply because a fight is not determined by style alone it is decided by the practitioner using the skills they learned.
The guy who said the will to live is 100% correct and the fact that people make one style out to be superior to all others is ridiculous. It was something that Helio Gracie despised. He may have believed his style was great but no style is perfect and all should be respected. they are all merely tools to better help the practitioner.
BJJ is a great martial art, but it cannot be called the best martial art at all.
In my eyes your brother is wrong. The biggest problem with BJJ is the fact that it is very hard to fight off more than one attacker.
I would love to see your brother try and grapple, GET UP CLOSE to a skilled Silat fighter armed with a knife or even the famous karambit. Your brother will probably die or get very injured. All it would take is one slash by the time your brother grabbed that guy, (in a hypothetical scenario of course).
Also note the guy in your brothers story was drunk not sober. If a weapon is involved it lasts less than a few seconds.
The problem with your brothers UFC argument is that once again, there WERE rules. I highly doubt things like eye gouging, hitting the back of the head and biting were allowed.
That guy was right. It is the person that matters most. I have seen people who were in great physical shape and had excellent reflexes who were able to handle themselves well in a fight with people who knew martial arts. I even saw two guys fight it out at a party. One knew judo and the other didn't. It ended with one punch and it was a knockout for the guy who was supposedly skilled in judo.
The problem with BJJ is that it has a lot of air-headed fan boys who think that UFC is actual combat and will act like BJJ is better than any martial art out there. It is not.
I am hesitant to say that any martial art is superior to another. Your best bet is to research both styles and determine for yourself which one best suits your needs. Silat has weapons training that BJJ doesn't have, and BJJ has ground fighting techniques that Silat doesn't have. Each system has various strengths and weaknesses. No matter what style or system you want to study, it is critically important to avoid getting suckered into a long contract at a McDojo.
There used to be PRIDE where the Gracies lost to many people and only one person who did only GJJ won a championship. The simple truth that most people forget or ignore is that UFC was made by the Gracies as a way to promote their style and it was not an open but rather people were invited. Even now, BJJ alone will not win the sport they made, I think Hughs proved that when he beat Gracie in UFC.
No martial art is better than any other, it is the practioner that os better (or not).
You don;t take your BJJ out of your pocket and hit someone with it, it is you that has to fight, not the art. You can have people that are great at any art and can make it work, and there are people that are garbage and any art and can;t make it work. The art is the same, it;s the people doing it that are different.
If there was one art that was superior we would all be doing it, different people have different abilities and skill sets, and different arts suit them better.
Did you try to do a search on Google?
A guy I know at my college practices Silat with emphasis on knife fighting.
I saw him running through his movements and my brother saw that as well. My brother walked up and said that he should also learn Brazilian Jujitsu. The guy said he will eventually but he never had the time.
After some conversation, my brother argued that BJJ is the best martial art. The guy argued otherwise saying that history has proven that it wasn't so much the art but the individuals willingness to live and his/her strategy.
Then my brother brought up a valid argument about UFC1 and how Royce just dominated the other fighters with his BJJ. Basically, this was a no-holds type of fighting with few rules. John Mccain even called it "Human-cockfighting."
The guy then said that BJJ is not better than Silat because not only did it depend on the person and circumstance, but silat fighters also train with knives a lot.
Once again, my brother brought up a story of how a guy who knew BJJ fought off a drunk with a sharp piece of glass.
So who is right? Is BJJ the best martial art? He said anyone who argues otherwise isn't paying attention to martial arts in the past few years.
