Before we get into the wonderful world of injuries and dickishness, I want to take a moment to make a couple of points clear. I am new at this Jiu Jitsu thing. I have less than a year of experience under my belt. I approach this writing from my own twisted perspective. I don’t have many, if any, real answers. These have been my experiences, and your experiences may or may not be quite different. And that’s ok. As long as you are entertained, then mission accomplished. I just don’t want anyone to think I know any more than I actually do. Given this fact, lets get back to our regularly scheduled program, injuries and dicks.
People have told me that they won’t try Jiu Jitsu or stopped doing JJ because of the potential to get injured. (Thank you for allowing me to abbreviate JJ.) Being the nerd that I am, I wanted empirical proof. Which I have. And I will share. But first we should make the distinction between a real injury and DBAP. You can Google that one. I am trying to keep this blog PG-13. By the very nature of the intensity and movements involved with training JJ, muscles are going to ache. Tendons are going to stretch. This is all totally normal. In the beginning, I remember barely being able to hold the steering wheel of my truck coming home from practice because my arms hurt so badly. And I came into this from doing Crossfit for a couple years. I was in shape. But I was not in JJ shape. Not to say one is better than the other, but they are markedly different. If you take a week off, or even a few days, you can expect something to be uncomfortable the next day. You can also expect the discomfort to go away without much to do. Again, DBAP.
Injury on the other hand is often felt immediately. Usually preceded by a “pop” of some sort. If you’ve been there, you know the “pop” ain’t good. I had a rib “pop” which was a freak occurrence. I am better now, thank you. The Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine published an article that documented all of the injuries sustained during a large JJ competition in Hawaii. Of the 5022 matches, there were 42 injuries which break down as follows (rounded):
- 78% Orthopedic Injury
- 39% Elbow (*10 of 14 elbow injuries due to arm bar)
- 20% Knee
- 14% Foot & Ankle
- 11% Hand
- 11% Shoulder
- 15% Rib Fractures (Been there…not fun)
- 7% Lacerations
So what? In nerd terms, JJ has an injury occurrence rate of 9.2/1000 exposures. Football has somewhere around 12 and Soccer somewhere around 4. We sit pretty nicely in the middle at 9. I like that. But here is the thing, I think many of these JJ injuries are totally avoidable with three simple rules.
- In a practice environment…if you know or it is obvious that you have more experience than the person you are rolling with, don’t be a dick. Just that simple. Don’t be cranking crazy arm bars or heel hooks to masturbate your ego on someone with less experience. Roll hard but not to hurt. Ease into potentially dangerous holds. Give the person the opportunity to tap early. Which brings me to Rule 2.
- Tap early. I mean come on. Really. You know when you are beat. Are you really going to try to escape that deep arm bar or heel hook at the expense of a crippling injury? You’re a bigger dick than the ego masturbating freak from Rule 1. In practice or competition, live to roll another day. Learn how to not get into that position in the first place. The second I know someone has me in a decent arm bar or even set up for one, I tap. Zero ego. I then ask myself, “How did I get here?” If I don’t know, I find out. If I do know, why did I not recognize the pattern? A broken elbow is not the answer. Which brings us to the final rule…
- Don’t practice or compete if you are already injured. You will not only aggravate the existing injury but you are likely to cause another. It all comes back to ego. Can you see a pattern developing here? The “Don’t Be A Dick” idea seems to be the common thread among these three rules. So don’t be one. Give yourself the time to heal properly. This one may seem super obvious, but even I succumbed to the temptation to roll when I dislocated my rib. I figured a week was long enough. Nope. One roll and I was back to square 1. I was a dick, and I paid the price.
Long post, but I think worth it. Let us review. First, I don’t really know sh*t, I’m just here to entertain. Second, DBAP does not mean Dogs Bark At People. Third, you are most likely to get injured by arm bar, so maybe focus on that one. Finally, all can be solved by following one simple premise…#dontbeadick
Enjoy. 🙂
Link to the study:
http://m.ojs.sagepub.com/content/2/2/2325967114522184.full
Link to our friends at AK with the boss gear:
Keep the posts coming I enjoy reading them. I have recently taken up Systema, if you’ve never heard of it I highly recommend looking it up. Keep up the good work cuz!