the concept of "tapping out"

As many of my blog posts are, this one is inspired by an exceptionally insipid internet forum thread. I know that I should let these things go, but sometimes they just rumble around my brain, gradually making me crazy. In order to keep my sanity, I have to write. Rather than get drawn into the thread in question, and get into a long debate that will fall on deaf ears anyway, I would prefer to do my mental relief therapy here.

The gist of this thread was, of course, another endless "don't go to the ground in a fight" pontifications. The author of it is a fat, out of shape, self-proclaimed fighting authority who has never publicly got on a mat and proven his asinine theories in front of unattached third party judges. He much prefers selling 75 cents of paracord for $15 as a "tactical" knife holder. Yeah, here is someone who is up on real world combat. Uh huh.

Anyway, there are a number of idiocies espoused on that thread, but there is one I really want to point out because it really shows how this particular person has NEVER, EVER actually trained BJJ with a reputable coach.

Here is the actual quote so no one can accuse me of lying - "but I think the concentration should be on doing damage and getting up as fast as you can, not using both hands to squeeze a choke or locking a joint instead of breaking it."

What a complete doofus. This is equivalent to saying that shooting at paper targets is dumb because you should shoot at people!

Look dumbass. Since it is blindingly obvious you have no idea of what BJJ entails, I will enlighten you. You lock a joint IN TRAINING so you don't injure your partner! It is not the end move! Do you really think an armbar or a kimura is to hold somebody? It is a break moron. You allow your partner to tap out so you can keep training. You don't actually injure the joint, because you will soon run out of people willing to get on the mat with you.

Also, the above comment also implies that a choke is some long and involved time consuming process. Sorry, again he shows his ignorance. A well executed choke will work in about 3-4 SECONDS. About the same amount of time it would take to get up and move far enough away to create some space. If you are "squeezing" it and it is taking longer, it means you have done it wrong. This is not my opinion, it is FACT. Don't believe it? Good, come to my coaches BJJ gym anytime you want. There are 20 -30 guys on the mat at any given time who would love to demo a choke on you.

One piece of advice. Seek out a qualified, reputable, experienced BJJ coach and actually LISTEN to what he has to say. You will look a lot less stupid.