https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM9h4p91oow
Rener and Ryron Gracie are back at it again. A little context, the Gracie family are the people who helped put the UFC on the map. They’re the ones who spearheaded the move to bring Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to America (and are oft credited with its creation). Rener and Ryron are a few generations removed from the invention of the art, but have really made their place in the world as entrepreneurs - especially when it comes to BJJ. Sometimes they have things like a sackpack that’s also a hoodie or a pillow that doesn’t let your head droop for airplanes.
You conventionally find them teaching Gracie Survival Tactics, which is marketed especially for position “here’s how we can do what we do more humanely.” If you are quickly compelled with joint locks and head positioning into compliance, then I think it’s hard to argue that there would be less trauma and less bad will towards the police. Sometimes bad things happen because an inexperienced cop panics (Philando Castile’s fatal run in with the police comes to mind but you can easily and readily disagree with me on this specific instance). Rener Gracie, of course, is not going to address topics like covering for cops that hurt people, bloated police budgets, whether they help deter crime, racism, overpolicing everywhere because of a study where one time they put more cops in a hotspot and it cleared up, etc.
And here they are, back at it again, with the SafeWrap system. First, it’s dumb that they’re trying to copyright it in my opinion, but that’s illustrative of the attitude and not really my bag to talk about. My bag, as a brown belt in BJJ, is that I like that giftwrap that the person on the upper body takes. It’s a massively effective grip to the point that it centralizes my technique. Anytime I’m passed their hips, I’m either looking to submit them right there or provoke them to give me that grip. For example, I’ll put both hands on one of their wrists so they need to bring their other hand across to defend it, but turning to get that other hand through exposes their back and lets me grab their top arm and pull it across their face. It allows me to go from being on top of them to controlling their back which is bigly bad for their chances of winning. I could also conjecture with a decent degree of confidence that the person controlling the feet is doing a great job of preventing them from getting back on their knees. That’s the place where they can get some traction and start frustrating your efforts. There’s a specific movement I just adore where they try to build up onto their elbow and I grab their elbow out from under them and they land onto their pinned arm.
All that is to say that the SafeWrap technically works and it’s a specific application of submission wrestling that is admittedly clever. Its effectiveness as a restraint isn’t a criticism worth levying in my estimation. I even think, if someone needed to be restrained, which can happen even under communism, it is probably good for deescalation. But, of course, when it’s a tool for police to use, alarm bells go off in my head. I sure would be happy if every cop were the antagonist of an adventure novel. It’s like how voting normalizes an inherently oppressive system, it feels like that for a carceral state. It’s not like you should use something else when someone needs to be restrained, but it feels dirty if there’s no talk about who needs to be restrained. If somebody gets restrained like this because they allegedly used a counterfeit bill, it prevents George Floyd’s fate, it’s less ridiculous than suffocating them, but it’s not not-ridiculous.
What do you all think? Look effective for protests? Should I go ahead and get certified and give away free training to lefties? My friends and I have been in class thinking about how to make fists against the face and neck extra shitty (no gi ezekiels, wrist against the nose, mid thumb knuckle right below the jaw, etc.) so we could add that if you’re feeling saucy
Cops don’t care about safety. I don’t see psych nurses learning enough BJJ to employ this.
What’s the point of getting certified? Do you really need a class on how to do a new hold if you’re already brown belt?
RE “less lethal” weapons - “less lethal” weapons are kind of a cool insidious thing because they allow the state to effectively repress dissent and control the population in a way that doesn’t make headlines or end up on twitter. They can keep the population under control, but it doesn’t create as many martyrs. I don’t think there’s anything humane about it, just a general realization that tear gas gets people off the streets just as effectively as machine guns, but doesn’t radicalize people’s relatives.
I don’t see psych nurses learning enough BJJ to employ this.
If you’re in a place where you have to restrain people a couple times a year, I actually see it being useful. If you could remember a few key markers of what makes for effective restraint (recovery position, top arm across the face, bottom leg in the air), it might make a 6 people fiesta into a three person struggle session. But I could absolutely see it the same way I’m CPR certified, but I only remember a vague outline of what I’m supposed to do and why if I were actually faced with an emergency.
I could always use more reps from every position. While yes, I would have a general idea of how to employ it from just looking at it, I’d run the risk of being rough with someone I need to restrain. Things like a two person take down, communicating with another person, controlling only the legs, putting the arms around the back, and deescalation are not specialties for me. If this is a system designed to shush somebody for being loud, I’ve spent my time learning how to yell at someone to shut the fuck up in 4 different languages. A transition to a shoulder lock will sure stop them from reaching for a knife, but if I’m dealing with a 12 year old in a hospital, it shouldn’t exactly be plan A.
I can imagine a future where two cops have someone restrained effectively and then a third cop comes over to pepper spray and soccer kick somebody. They were, of course, terrified and overworked! How could they have known better??? As far as a theoretically more humane restraint goes, it’s not going to stop them from wanting blood.
Teach comrades whatever you know that they think it will be helpful.
Minor criticism of your mentions of using grappling techniques in healthcare or policing. It requires a person who is willing and capable of learning the techniques, willing and capable of maintaining themselves in a physical condition to execute the techniques, and always be mentally prepared to use it.
I’d imagine that most people going into the health care industry don’t have the time or inclination to work 20 hour days 6 days a week and train in unarmed combat as well.
Any cop trying to subdue somebody up close has to keep in mind two things. First, they’ve got their entire equipment belt full of weapons that are now within reach of whoever they are grappling with. Second, their cop partner is likely going to have a response of pulling out one of their own weapons and aiming in the direction of the tussle, so now the cop on the ground will at some point start wondering if their partner is going to catch them in some (un)friendly fire and if that harm is going to come from pepper spray or a handful of bullets. Maybe if cops didn’t run around with more kit than combat infantry to do traffic stops it would be easier for me to see them using this but then we’d have to have a policy that every cop (police officer, sheriff, deputy, state highway patrol, etc) would have to operate in teams of two. Because out in more rural areas, most cops are out and about all by their lonesome so trying to grapple somebody into submission isn’t an option.
My work at the adrenachrome factory, especially during COVID, had some heavy overlap with people coming and going from nursing and nursing school. We would say “yeah, you make more money, but in exchange you have to be a nurse, so it’s not really worth it.” I am intimately aware that nurses are crazy overworked. I think I had an insight that was worthwhile in reply to Frank:
If you could remember a few key markers of what makes for effective restraint (recovery position, top arm across the face, bottom leg in the air), it might make a 6 people fiesta into a three person struggle session. But I could absolutely see it the same way I’m CPR certified, but I only remember a vague outline of what I’m supposed to do and why if I were actually faced with an emergency.
The same way health care workers sometimes are pulled aside for 4 hours for CPR, HIPPA, bloodborne pathogens, etc. it would be 4 hours a year of considering why grabbing two hands on a flailing shin is a bad idea when it comes to emergency situations.
You’re totally right about collateral damage and (un)friendly fire being concerns for police officers. You’re also on the money about the suspect being liable to grab at your toolkit. However, one piece of relevant context comes right around 0:45 in that video where cops have a go to method for restraint and it sucks. The worst day of my life included someone trying to make me pass out by squeezing the air out of my abdomen. Especially compared to a baton, pepper spray, or a tazer being grappled and talked to while being able to breathe until you run out of the will to fight would be dramatically more tame. It’s definitely a limitation that it’s designed for 2 on 1 restraint, so someone by their lonesome would get near 0 residual benefit.
I guess, in essence, the nutshell of my perspective is that they’re advertising an effective product, but they’re advertising to cops and I hate cops, so it makes me feel funny.
The same way health care workers sometimes are pulled aside for 4 hours for CPR, HIPPA, bloodborne pathogens, etc. it would be 4 hours a year of considering why grabbing two hands on a flailing shin is a bad idea when it comes to emergency situations.
Agree.
I guess, in essence, the nutshell of my perspective is that they’re advertising an effective product, but they’re advertising to cops and I hate cops, so it makes me feel funny.
Also, agree.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
