Mouthguards

[Kyle Spalla]

goddamn it! i'm doing it again. I have a life long struggle with being a real dick. Im gonna try to not make a post for a few weeks. a guy with no belt shouldn't have this much to say.

Quit dicken up the place, dick.

[Peterm]

Aaron,

What happens in central Cali as far as wrestling is concerned is really an anomaly when looking at the rest of the world.

I assume that the fear of litigation in the US drives the need to be extra cautious but there are thousands of wrestling clubs throughout Russia, Iran and central Europe where mouthgards let alone cups are not the norm. Judo in Japan can be rough but cups and mouthpieces are not worn.

I am not sure what it is about your practice that involves such a high risk of injury and makes the wearing of protection. This is simply not my experience of Judo, wrestling or BJJ where as I said you might anticipate that the danger from high impact collisions is greater.

Zog is of course highly respected but his views are not in line with practices adopted at leading grappling schools -whether judo, wrestling or BJJ - to the best of my knowledge.

[Kurzy]

As far as the whole "Roll harder, Peterborough" comment goes, I'm not sure I understand how to take that.

Personally as a whitebelt, my game is changing as I get more comfortable with Jiu Jitsu. I know when I first started I was super spazztic, flinging limbs all over the place, whirling around like tornado, needlessly scrambling, etc. As I become more and more comfortable my general movements are slowing down, because I want them too. I have one year into Jiu Jitsu now and I am just starting to feel comfortable.

There are a few guys at our club who play a slow and steady game, where the pressure is one and you see things coming, but because of weight distribution, contact control, etc, there is not much you can do to stop whatever you see coming.

I have always been impressed by guys who roll like that, and I am trying to emulate that slow, steady, unstoppable pressure.
I can also be explosive and ultra fast if the game calls for that, but in general I make a concerted effort to roll under control and at pace that is slower than my old spazztic speed.

The dynamics of the matches change all the time. In my experience, two whitebelts tend to go harder and faster at each other than a whitebelt versus a senior belt. Typically the whitebelts don't want to tap to each other so the match intensity will escalate. I always try to slow things down when that happens.
Generally if a whitebelt rolls a higher belt/higher skilled player, the higher belt will set the match tempo anyways, and based on what I have experienced, it's a measured tempo.

So what I am saying is sometimes we roll easy, sometimes we roll "hard", but either way our rolling NEVER lacks in intensity in Peterborough.

[Chris Herzog]

I am obviously in a minority here but I find the use of if not insistence on mouth guards and cups entirely peculiar.

There is no culture of using mouth guards and cups in judo and wrestling and I am not aware following years of participation in both sports of injury to mouth or genitals being a particular problem even taking into account the aggressive encounters and frequent high impact collisions that occur.

As for making a mouth piece a mandatory requirement to roll, I find this totally bizarre. I am not aware of any such requirement in any BJJ school in Brazil or indeed any of the better BJJ schools I have visited in the US including Renzo's and Marcelo's.

Is there some strange aspect or feature of submission grappling which I am missing or is this simply an indication of a risk shy
modern society?

I may be old school but I think that most of you are going totally overboard in exaggerating the risks to your well being.

Very few people here are as old school as I am, there a number of risks with not wearing a mouth piece. Old doesn't mean better, and it sure as shit doesn't mean smarter. Our knowledge and awareness of brain injuries in combat sports is far superior now that it was in the "ole timey days". It's a serious issue and needs to be addressed, if your coach doesn't care enough about your safety, you should.

[Chris Herzog]

Aaron,

What happens in central Cali as far as wrestling is concerned is really an anomaly when looking at the rest of the world.

I assume that the fear of litigation in the US drives the need to be extra cautious but there are thousands of wrestling clubs throughout Russia, Iran and central Europe where mouthgards let alone cups are not the norm. Judo in Japan can be rough but cups and mouthpieces are not worn.

I am not sure what it is about your practice that involves such a high risk of injury and makes the wearing of protection. This is simply not my experience of Judo, wrestling or BJJ where as I said you might anticipate that the danger from high impact collisions is greater.

Zog is of course highly respected but his views are not in line with practices adopted at leading grappling schools -whether judo, wrestling or BJJ - to the best of my knowledge.

If being a international Judo and Sambo medalist wasn't enough to expose me to leading Grappling Schools, Gene Lebell himself is the one that convinced me that wearing mouth guards was a paramount to a grapplers safety.

Ps. The Russians all wear mouth guards. I have an funny story about Russians obsessing about mouth pieces, however I have to run to teach, but when I get time I post it later.

[Sam Sales]

Well this topic has convinced me to start wearing mine

[Chris Herzog]

To those saying "You roll to hard", you obviously never rolled at HQ or at my academy.

[Joseph Hachey]

Motto of this thread:

Wear your mouth guard on the mats and your flame suit on the forum!

[Kurzy]

[ScottRay]

Brian 'Barncat' Debes is the instructor of our now full on affiliate school. also, Im a 12 year blue belt. I was and am still very anti-gi, which living in Texas means your anti-rank. If any high level guys thought what i said was wrong, they woulda spoke up... but i didnt...i really did drop knowledge. roll softer. try to learn and train in class instead of trying to "win" ... trust me bro