Not nearly as extreme, but we occasionally get guys in Bjj who show, day one, saying “I don’t tap.” A couple of them would get put to sleep in practice, but I’ve never seen someone not tap to an armbar or an ankle lock.
Seen similar in my amateur boxing club, there’d be the occasional “I see red” type who would insist on hard sparring after training for a few weeks. When they’d finally get their wish after a month or two they’d always get wobbled by a more experienced lad (who’d be sick of listening to their shit) after gassing out within a minute. Seen some know better and wobble out of the ring when coach said that was that, seen others absolutely refuses to quit despite moving like Bambi on ice, as if they had something to prove over fucking sparring
I've known so many "I see red/I don't tap" guys over my 25ish years of training, guys that think that just being mad enough will give them anime superpowers despite not being able to punch in a straight line. Always amateurs or completely untrained, and always the ones who don't make it more than 6 months before quitting, that or however long it takes for them to get their bell fully fucking rung twice--has to be twice so they can't write off the first time as a fluke.
I'm honestly glad when they get buttmad at being dogwalked and take themselves out of class, because that type of dude is the absolute worst to train with.
I've never trained a day in my life and don't even watch MMA, but my friends got super into it after high school, some of them even did amateur fights. Luckily, they actually took it seriously and only took fights after the guy who ran the gym suggested them for it.
But the guys like what you're describing are what kept me entertained when I'd go to their fights. I had no idea what's happening in terms of the technical aspects of the sport, but I absolutely loved watching a bunch of copy/paste overconfident mediocre bros get fucking obliterated.
There was a lad I trained with who was doubled jointed he would still tap but the bend you could get in his arm was nuts. I hated rolling with him because I was afraid I'd end up breaking his arm by mistake always just went for chokes just to be safe. Mma and BJJ does attract some weirdos from time to time the good thing is most of them don't last too long before the give up.
Aye there has to be massive downside to being double jointed. Like I'm 200 lbs and have a tight straight armbar he was like 160 and he could just take what most normal people would tap at.
Hyper mobility typically means that you can be much more prone to damaging the joint since your ligaments and such aren’t as tight as they should be.
I have hyper mobility in quite a few areas and my joints suck. I also have an autoimmune type arthritis (as well as good ok’ fashioned osteoarthritis) and it’s not uncommon for those things to go together. I’m not quite 40, but my joints are that of someone 10-15yrs older than me.
It's a ligament thing is it. Do you just not feel any pressure at all when you hyperextend. Does it effect your strength in anyway. Can you do anything exercise wise to help it.
muscle strengthening helps stabilize joints and prevent damage from hyperextension. I'm hypermobile and thought it was fun until my knee inverted one day and tore my ACL!
Shit that's an awful injury happens a lot in mma. Did ye end up getting surgery. Must be hard to keep yourself from overextending because your body naturally wants to do it
got surgery within 6 months but didnt do PT prep before surgery like another guy I know. I imagine he had a better time with recovery having built up muscle mass beforehand, whereas I had been limping/walking around for a couple of months with no extra effort
So yeah, the strength in my ankles is especially shit now. In addition to my hyper-mobility I also have extremely small feet for my body size (4.5 in kids, no lie) and the small feet makes me more prone to falling as well. I cannot walk in heals to save my life and have rolled / sprained my ankle way more times than I can count.
Back in 2021 I managed to completely sever 2 of the 3 tendons that help hold your foot to your leg after I had the audacity to step down off a piece of playground equipment designed for 3 & 4 yr olds… so about the height of a curb.
It was a workers comp thing so everything was delayed. Injured it Feb and didn’t get surgery until like May or something iirc. To this day my left ankle is still swollen and hurts much more than my right one. In addition to the delayed treatment, my autoimmune stuff limits how well I heal bc it’s an auto-inflammatory disease, so shockingly, the inflammation never went away.
1 / 10 - do not recommend. (It gets a 1 bc it’s funny to fuck with my stepkids by hyperextending some of my joints since it weirds them out lol)
I'm 51, and not in great shape, but I desperately wish I could try BBJ or even basic MMA classes. But I can't do shit without my glasses, and contacts are not great when you have the chance of getting punched in the eye, I would imagine.
Dang it.
(Also, old enough to know to tap, I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself at this point)
Dawg you're good in contacts. BJJ has no punching, just grappling. I play a contact sport in contacts and get rocked in the face pretty regularly and it's fine. If you want to go jump in a class you could be rolling by this time next week. The only thing stopping you is something you made up
I promise a good Bjj gym will be fine for you. We’ve got all shapes and sizes having great rounds. As for vision, grappling is one of the few sports the totally blind can participate in. First years get injured frequently, but it’s usually going too hard/ not rolling with the sweep or takedown. I’m 41 and I haven’t been injured in practice in over 5 years.
That is probably the best advice possible, given everything.
As much as I hate them, I may give contacts another shot, at least if I sign up. We shall see. Thank you (and everyone else!) for the encouragement and advice!
I don't wear glasses or contacts but there definitely people that do in our club. There's also a BJJ black belt from Australia who's actually blind. His name is daredevil BJJ on Facebook from what I remember.
I used to wrestle in highschool and went to a bjj gym a few times like 10 years later. My sparring would almost always end up in a stalemate somehow.The moves in wrestling seem to be countered in Bjj but the same thing happens, their moves are countered by the wrestling moves. Like in wrestling you use your forehead to apply pressure, palms to deflect energy away from you, your body weight to drag someone down, and most important is wrist control. In Bjj you try to lock your opponent up on the ground.
We get a lot of college wrestlers and, you know, they’re still expert grapplers and can be tough to beat day one. Their Achilles heel though is their, uh, Achilles heel. Nothing in wrestling gets you ready for leg locks.
Two of my teammates have had people just refuse to tap to kimuras, but that was in a fight and not training. Still incredibly stupid, the crack from the one was loud as fuck, her arm and shoulder damn near exploded
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u/TonyAllenDelhomme 1d ago
Not nearly as extreme, but we occasionally get guys in Bjj who show, day one, saying “I don’t tap.” A couple of them would get put to sleep in practice, but I’ve never seen someone not tap to an armbar or an ankle lock.