For those who aren't in the know, submissions are special holds that get a persons arm or leg in a position where you can either break your opponents arm or leg, or choke a person out. They were brought into the sport by the Gracie family of Brazil.

It has ruined the sport because anyone who learns the basic skill of getting a good submission hold can take out any opponent regardless of that opponents strength, skill, stamina or fighting spirit. It's like a get out of jail free card, and now the sport revolves around avoiding the holds more than it revolves around what one would actually consider fighting.

*sigh*.

While it is true that the Gracie family made submission attacks famous by representing Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) in mixed martial arts (MMA), everything you just posted is - and I almost never say this - completely ignorant of the sport and martial arts as a whole.

Submissions were not brought into "the sport" - and by this, I assume you mean MMA - by the Gracies. The Gracies, as I wrote in my BJJ sift, took the judo/jujitsu taught to them by Mitsuyo Maeda and developed the newaza groundwork into a new system, focused on establishing positional improvement and dominance before the application of submissions. It was this conceptual change from the general judo mindset of throw-and-fall-or-scramble-to-position, rather than the submissions themselves. Judo, for the most part, has all the submission BJJ does, it just generally doesn't train them as much or as well. So really, the submissions were brought into the sport by judo, which was brought into creation by Kano through adaptation of the teachings of jiu-jitsu. If you want to argue about fighters using the submissions, sure Royce Gracie made use of them famously in UFC 1, but the first UFC tournament was set up to ensure no other submission grappling styles, including judo, was entered to make a clearer differentiation of style versus style, among other reasons. When such fighter picking was stopped, submission fighters from many styles sprung up in MMA competition.

If you're not talking about modern MMA, then consider the fact that pankration from Greece in 648 BC was the first Western MMA competition, and chokeholds and joint locks were widely displayed and documented.

Consider that catch wrestling can be traced in nearly every culture, from Lancashire catch-as-catch-can wrestling to the US hook wrestling to the Indian pehlwani.

Or you might even be referencing the infamous gong sau of China, where kung fu masters would challenge each other for the rights to open schools in villages or cities, matching style versus style, starting from millenia ago and continuing to the present day. Of course, dubious as the documentation surrounding those matches were, and as stupid as kwoon-storming is, there have been accounts of Chin na masters defeating other strikers through armbars and rear naked chokes.

As for "ruining the sport", I can only assume you're talking about the present version of MMA, as represented largely by the UFC and Pride FC (which have recently been merged as one organization. The UFC and Pride, as you may know, evolved out of the Vale tudo competitions in Brazil and Japan, which when brought to the US were imitated and televised. Of course, you should also be aware of the fact that vale tudo tournaments were largely organized by Helio Gracie, the original creator of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and his descendants. The UFC was created largely as the brainchild of Rorion Gracie, Helio's eldest son and BJJ black belt, as well as Art Davies, one of Rorion's student. In fact, according to many inside sources who were present for the UFC's founding, it was created in a large part to showcase BJJ for the US, just as Pride FC was created in a a large part to showcase Rickson Gracie, another one of Helio's sons, versus Nobuhiko Takada, a famous Japanese shoot-wrestler and mixed martial artist who also trained in a form of submission wrestling. So how exactly do you figure that modern MMA, which exists largely because the Gracies wanted to showcase the effectiveness of submission fighting versus pure striking styles, is somehow ruined because it did exactly that?

And finally, you have absolutely no idea about submission grappling. If you think getting a submission hold is a "basic skill" that can beat anybody, and the sport now revolves around using and avoiding those holds, then how do you figure that only one of the five current UFC title holders is a well-known submission specialist, and even HE won his title fight two days ago by knockout? If it's such a get-out-of-jail-free card, why doesn't everybody just use those magical subs? How come sprawl-and-brawl and ground-and-pound are becoming such dominant strategies of fighting in MMA fights? Oh, and what did you mean by "strength, skill, stamina or fighting spirit" having no effect on submission grappling? Superior skill, strength, stamina, and fighting spirit is what submission grappling is all about. The fighter with the greatest combination of all four will win, just as with any other art in MMA. Look at Yuki Nakai, the grappler who continued a fight despite being eye-gouged illegally to the point of complete blindness and yet continued on not only win his fight by submission but also fight AGAIN the SAME night against the most feared grappler in the world at the time, Rickson Gracie. Look at Ronaldo de Souza, aka Jacare, who had his arm broken in a fight but continued to fight and win. Heck, look at Rickson Gracie, who is well-known for having an insane cardio routines involving sandy beaches and mountain running. Or any of the MMA athletes at the top of the sport, who train and spar and weight lift and run and work out for hours on end each day and every day so they can become strong and build up endurance and improve their skills, all thanks to their fighting spirit and determination to be the best.

If you doubt me on any of those facts, just get yourself to a real, honest-to-goodness MMA gym, and tell the first MMA fighter you see that submission holds are ruining the sport. Seriously. I'd like to know what happens.

Do you know why I'm annoyed by your comment, Enzoblue? I'm annoyed because training submission grappling is not fucking easy. It is hard, painful work to train. It is expensive as hell, in terms of money as well as time and effort. I am shit-awful at it, and my only goal each day I step on the mat, which is every damn day, is to suck a little less than the day before, and sometimes, like today, I don't feel like that's happened, and I haven't been able to move my neck in certain directions for days because of a neck crank that got cranked on too hard. And yet tomorrow, I'm going to put on my smelly, sweaty gi, get in my friend's carpool, and go roll around on a mat with large, sweaty men who outweigh me by over 50 pounds on average for several hours, and come back tired and sore and cranky. (Hah, pun, get it? It's a joke because my spinal column isn't functioning properly.) And I'm happy with all of that, from the musty gym smell to the same old jokes my friends make about me being gay that they've made for years, because through my training I know I am acquiring a skillset that is not available or acquired in the general public, and yes, I do take pride in what I do because it is a part of my life and part of who I am, and also there's the fact that my training and dedication can and have helped me to choke fools out who are deserving of it, just as those things have saved the lives of friends and acquaintances who were attacked in ghettos and Iraqi villages. And yet here you come to say that I, along with every other MMA competitor who has devoted far larger amounts of their life to perfecting the art of submission grappling, am ruining the beautiful sport of mixed martial arts, a sport that I am, as well as those competitors far above me, dedicated to as well and one that I do my best to represent well in the public eye. No. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you say that, because you're wrong.

Consider this: the UFC and modern MMA changed what "one would actually consider fighting". People used to think those flicky, chambered TKD kicks would hurt, or that they could just avoid a takedown attempt with elbows to the spine, or even in later years, they could just fight out of guard. The sport has evolved, and anybody who has a half a brain can see that a good MMA fighter needs to train to fight out of the three ranges that have been established through the test of the fight, standup, clinch, and ground, as well as be able to strike, grapple, and submit from all three ranges if necessary, as well as defend against an opponent's attempts to do so to oneself. Submission grappling is part of the sport out of necessity, not because it's what people (and by that I mean Westerners) think of when they think about fighting, or because it looks pretty - it's in the sport because it works. The skills and abilities trained in sub grappling allow a more skilled fighter to beat a less skilled opponent, given reasonable size comparisons, just as with every other martial art that has been used with success in MMA. The concept of MMA is the extension of Bruce Lee's philosophy of Jeet Kune Do - take what works, and lose what doesn't. So in reality, sub grappling being used to win fights in MMA is really part of the evolution and development of martial arts, in fact it embodies what MMA and the development of effective martial arts is all about. And if that simple fact offends, then perhaps you don't understand quite as much about MMA as you might like to think you do.

awesome comment rembar

i knew a brazilian jujitsu expert who taught serious self-defense. during demonstrations in his classes he would say things like, "... so once I have him in this position I can grab a wrist with one hand and shatter his elbow like this, I can work on the back of his head and neck with my elbows, I can try to grab something from nearby or in my pocket and take it to his spine,..."

he was also a hugely muscular and intense guy, so it could get pretty,... off-putting

Haha, yeah, some of that self-defense stuff can be intense, although I've gotta say I enjoy more light-hearted stuff along the lines of Rutten's instructional, that stuff cracks me up.

Do you remember who/where this instructor was? If you do, you could message me privately if you want. The BJJ world is relatively small, especially for instructors and high-level belts, maybe I might know him.

Rembar, I appreciate your knowledge in this, it is enlightening, but it still doesn't change the fact that I've seen guys lose fights because of some cheesy move by a lesser man got them in a position where they could only continue by losing a limb or a windpipe.

They never got beaten, worn down, overpowered.. they got caught. Sometimes they even get caught before breaking a sweat and are still 100% after tapping out. That's not fighting the way anyone wants, we want epic battles decided by brute force and technique and spirit. Not by who gets the cheese move in first.

Compare to boxing if you can. In boxing, there are lucky hits, but you can overcome them. If you get knocked down, it's your strength of will that can get you back up, then your fighting spirit that can take you another round further, even turn the tables if you really got the right stuff. In this kind of fighting, it's game over. No second chance regardless of will or spirit.

Edit: Hell if groin kicks were allowed, the sport would be reduced to groin snipers - I'd even sign up to fight then, I would stand a chance, so would my gf for that matter...

Did you know, Enzoblue, there's a term amongst fighters in MMA for somebody who is hoping to win by some quick lucky break rather than any superiority of technical or physical ability? It's called taking a puncher's chance.

And yes, that comes straight from boxing. In boxing, sometimes there are lucky hits, and sometimes no, you can't overcome them. Because every so often even a high level fighter will look the wrong way for a split second or bob when he should weave and just by chance, just from pure random chance, the can that he is supposed to be destroying takes a massive swing and gets the flash KO. And the champ will hit the mat, and he won't get up. Will and spirit and whatever else you want to say has no part in it, the man is unconscious.

So when you're talking about MMA, understand that fighters often consider standup striking to be a far riskier prospect, in that there is a higher chance that an inferior opponent will catch a lucky punch KO than a lucky sub.

As for this: "That's not fighting the way anyone wants, we want epic battles decided by brute force and technique and spirit." I have already addressed the fact that submission fighting is just as much a measure of technique, spirit, and athleticism as other aspects of the MMA game. And what exactly is "fighting the way anyone wants"? Do you think MMA fights are supposed to look the way people imagine they should, or more to the point, the way you imagine they should? They aren't, that's what Tony Jaa flicks are for. If you want to watch good fights the way they happen realistically between real experts, then go to an MMA match.

One of my coaches quoted after somebody commented about what he believed was a lucky win, "Luck is the intersection between opportunity and preparation." Sometimes inferior opponents catch lucky hits and lucky subs. That's the sport. The good guy doesn't always win. There is always the uncontrollable variable of luck, but the good fighters train so every other variable, be it strength, endurance, speed, power, whatever, is under their control.

In all honesty, I'm just repeating the things I said in my above post, but it's not clicking for you, I think because you don't have the experience or knowledge to dig what I'm saying. If one day you look deeper into MMA or even better take a crack at training it, you will be in a better position to judge. But until you do, and until you are, understand that I believe you are demeaning the sport by making ignorant assertions about what styles of fighting are "cheesy" or cheap, and what truly requires strength of heart.

P.S. As for groin strikes, if they were allowed, the sport would in all likelihood not be reduced to groin snipers. As Matt Thornton would say, adding a single strike does not affect the delivery systems that form the base for good fighters. Submissions, on the other hand, are not single attacks, they are a range of attacks, and thus are part of that base. It's the same as training for a self-defense type of situation: learn the gameplan, develop a base, then just add dirt.

I love watching this sport, but I would never take part in it. Much like hockey, cause I cant skate.

The one thing that i do not like about the gracie dynasty is the lengths that they go to, to show how good their martial art is agianst other arts. Kenpo, and some other thing on GoogleVideo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naWEbPDz80w

Fistly bringing one art form and dueling another to prove that one is better than the other is foolish. "There are many styles of Wushu. One style is not better than the other, there is only difference in skill." -Jet Li's Character in Fearless.

There is a terrible stereotype that follows KickBoxing, MMA, and even my style of Martial Art is that we do the art in order to show our egos. In somecases we do just that, but in most cases its because we have no choice. Training to fight is one thing but training as a warrior in all your aspects of life is the way, only doing it halfway is foolish. The only certain thing in martial arts is that there is uncertainty.

This was a great vid! I think that submissions work from any angle, but I perfer to do my fighting from a distance behind Tachi!

I also dislike many of the things the Gracies do and say, and I like to think that the art has moved beyond their control and has become something that is owned by no single person or group.

And for the record, I think dojo-storming is stupid, but I do not believe all styles to be equal in terms of imparting fighting ability, which is where the ring or cage comes in. I think MMA is a perfect pressure-testing ground for martial arts as well as martial artists.

Nice vid rembar, and good to see plenty of Genki Sudo in there. Interesting rant... uh, discussion, too. If anyone cares I'd like to chip in my 2 cents:

Enzoblue: I also think you're pretty misguided too. It *is* a shame when fights end prematurely because of a silly mistake or lucky shot/sub, but that's the nature of the sport of full contact fighting, whatever form or style it takes. The fact that it doesn't happen more serves to highlight the amount of skill the professionals have at covering themselves.

Now, when it comes to style vs. style fighting I think there's a hugely important point that hasn't really been covered so far, which is the nature of the training. To put it succintly, if you want to be a good fighter you need to spar. Freely. A lot.

Also, and to digress a bit, while ring-bound MMA is about the best anologue we have for "real fighting", it by no means provides the definitive answer about which martial art is the best. There are still rules and restrictions taken for safety's sake. Also, I imagine that while everyone wants to win, there aren't many who wish to inflict grevious permanent harm or even mortal wounds on their opponents.

No style is the best, or all of them are, depending on how you look at it and what you want to get from it. You can look at martial arts as fighting, or you can look at them as art forms. I'm reminded of a Bruce Lee quote from Enter the Dragon: "It is like a finger pointing to the moon. If you just look at the finger, you will miss all that heavenly glory." Even if you narrow your view to just fighting, the answer still isn't clear cut. Is fighting just one-on-one? Where is it happening? Are there things in the environment that are going to play a role in the outcome? Are you prepared or taken by surprise? All these things and more play a massive role.

Baqueta, I'd have to disagree with you in some ways about the style vs. style thing, especially because you're right about the nature of the training is the most important, but again, that's directly related to the style. Look at judo vs. aikido. In judo sparring happens every class, and for much of the class. In aikido, sparring doesn't happen at some dojos, and the ones that do, don't do free sparring.

There IS a reason why some martial arts are represented more heavily in MMA than others, and that reason is that they are better at preparing students to fight. That doesn't mean there's no room for non-mainstream styles, but the point is, alive training is the key. MMA is a testing ground for arts - sure, it's not "the streets", as the cliche is used, but it's the darn closest thing to it that can be trained and fought in safely.