Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is often considered the most difficult martial art to become proficient at, let alone develop expertise in. On the one hand, Jiu-Jitsu can be very powerful when applied correctly and a little bit of Jiu-Jitsu can go a long way. People with very little Jiu-Jitsu training can soon best their friends in friendly grappling matches and may even be successful in a small real life self-defense situation. Compared to those who don't train Jiu-Jitsu, the student who has 6 months to a year of training can be quite formidable... sometimes.

The difficulty comes when you begin to measure your abilities and knowledge not just against those who don't train, but when you measure them against fellow Jiu-Jitsu practitioners. What's more important than how you stack up against others is how you stack up against your previous self. This is the metric of personal progress and while it may be difficult to keep this in perspective, your personal progress is the most important metric in all of Jiu-Jitsu. 

Making acceptable levels of progress at any new endeavor is both difficult and important for practitioners. Unfortunately, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu  is notoriously difficult for people to make progress in. There are many reasons as to why this is, but there are at least two specific reasons that are absolutely critical and which are both under the direct control of the student.

For years ICBJJ has offered a training scholarship to full time local police officers and troopers. In the past the scholarship was for one year of free training to the officer followed by a discounted tuition for the rest of their time with us.

In an effort to encourage officers to train more and to help them achieve a higher standard of minimum training, we are changing our LEO Scholarship Program.

"In a street fight do this", "In a street fight, do that", "You should never do that in a street fight", "A person would never do this in a street fight", "This works in competition, but you never want to do it in a street fight". 

​Since I started martial arts, 39 years ago, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu almost 30 years ago, I have heard everyone from a white belt to a red belt talk about "street fighting" in one aspect or another. The reasons to use BJJ in a street fight tend to come from those who are jiujitsukas. The reasons not to use BJJ in a street fight tend to come from all those who are not. The reasons to use Tae Kwon Do in a street fight tend to come from the people who do that, and the reasons to not use it tend to come from those who don't. It's all seems to be rather subjective. My goal in this article is to try to clear up a very troublesome issue with both sides of this argument and attempt to make the argument have a more objective conclusion based on defined terms and real world data. The central theme that needs to be clarified by any martial system making a claim about it's effectiveness in a street fight is - What do you mean when you say "street fighting"?