All information below is reflective of my thoughts and beliefs after doing extensive research and studying the various arts and training methods that I have so far in my martial arts career, and is in no way intended to discredit other fighting styles or the way that other people chose to train.

I find the term 'Self Defence' to be very over used and often misrepresented within the martial arts. Due to an increasing amount of phone calls that I am recieving relating to the club and people wanting to learn martial arts to defend themselves I have decided to post and dedicate this page to my thoughts on this as well as include some samples of articles that I've read and some video clips that may be used as an example of how being proficient at jujitsu may help you to defend yourself.

Firstly I would direct you to a very informative article regarding women and grappling. Stephan Kesting from Grapplearts.com is much more experienced than I am in this subject and has already written a number of articles on this topic. I have replicated the link to his article 'HERE'

- Situational Awareness - your primary concern -

The myth of street fighting: They seldom ever occur on a street. Try instead, bars, clubs and places serving alcohol and selling a whole lot of mood and attitude. These ego-based displays of physical prowess usually occur around locations where single people go in numbers to socialize. Obviously mix sex and drugs together with a large number of single people and those not getting any of the first and too much of the second will be very frustrated. When you visit an establishment where the ultimate goal of most intoxicated patrons by midnight is to fight or fornicate, your chances of feeling the fight or flight response, a boot or bottle to the head, and even getting arrested is a good one. I practically lived and worked in clubs from age 17 through 28. Avoid them and you avoid 99% of the so called street fights.~ Luis Gutierrez (onedragon.com)

'Train with Aliveness' (Using Timing, Energy and Motion.)
If you want what you learn to work then I'd highly recommend that you train this way! 'Click HERE' so that you can see for yourself what I mean.

I have been to classes where their students are told to bite an opponent if they find themselves on the ground underneath an attacker. Sounds like a good way to get you out of a tricky position... a good 'common' example would be a headlock. But what if your attacker happens to be a biker and is wearing a leather jacket and jeans? Have you ever tried to bite through a leather jacket? Now compare that to a student that trains at a 'sport' such as Greco roman wrestling, BJJ or Judo. They are taught to position themselves so that your opponents weight is above your sternum, secure a solid body contact via the floating ribs then drive your hips into the air and roll to reverse the position. It may not be a 'deadly street defence' technique, but it's something that you can get very good at by training over and over again against a partner offering full resistance. I know which I would rather rely on.

Another example would be someone that is taught good 'self defence' is to stand in front of someone and eye-jab them. Again a good idea but think about it. You're being confronted and therefore threatened, your probably experiencing an adrenaline build up, you're nervous and if your target may well be moving? The eyes are a very small target and not nearly as easy to hit as you might imagine. Now take a seasoned boxer and teach him to open his hands when he's striking and you've got a whole diffent animal. The boxer is used to performing under pressure, moving around and hitting a moving target as he's been trained in an 'Alive' environment.

I don't aim classes specifically at the aspect of 'self defence', but I like to think of my students as training partners and Athletes that have good self confidence in their techniques and technical ability. In my opinion this is a far greater asset in self defence than any amount of classes on 'biting or gouging', and I would advise you to look very scepticly at anyone that teaches 'dirty tactics' alone to fight their way out of a position.

Bottom line…if you build a foundation on movement (timing and awareness in motion) and the attributes necessary to deliver and apply efficient strikes, controls and finishes, you just need to add the foul or dirty tactics. It doesn't work the other way around.~ Luis Gutierrez

"Be like water…then just add dirt."