[DarkTriad]

(10-16-2018 03:14 PM)wellrockthecity Wrote:  

Re boxing - OP If you really love the sport the brain damage risk is a very negligible one.

I would discourage taking 1 on 1 lesson for the first year if not just for integrating with group classes.
Your coach will only be sparring with you at like 15-20% while in a group class you would get way more aggressive guys that will force you to step up your game. Also sparring with different partners really helps in understanding the flow as every person has different patterns.

Point can be made about jiu jitsu not being super useful in a street brawl as most of them don't really even end up in the floor and you are at risk of getting hit by multiple people, but honestly boxing + bjj or muay thai + wrestling are killer combo. Train those consistently for 2 years and you can stand your ground with 90% of tough motherfuckers out there.

BJJ certainly has it's limitations, but

Quote:

as most of them don't really even end up in the floor

isn't really a fair one. It's not a matter of "ending up" on the ground, it's you putting him there, and he has zero takedown defense so he has no way of stopping you. I know there are some modern schools based on tournament scoring that don't emphasize takedowns as much as we did back in the day, but even their weak takedowns are going to be better than some fish's nonexistent takedown defense. And if you're doing it for self defense instead of tournament scoring, just train old school and do a lot of stand up grappling with the guys that are good at it during open mat, and turn a "high probability" into a "damn near certainty.".

And I 100% agree with your point about mixing striking and grappling skills being the way to go.