is BJJ safe?

[Mel165]

I recently came across this story on the site about a guy who apparently suffered a stroke from BJJ. Strength Training & Stroke Recovery | Todd Peters
I looked around the internet and found a number of other people who claim to have experienced something similar. Are there any experienced BJJ guys who could maybe reassure me that this is a one in ten million kind of thing? This story has gotten me kind of freaked out. I did ask my doctor about it - he didn't know what BJJ was and wasn't able to tell me much.

[Tom Campitelli]

Of course BJJ is not safe. It is a martial art. The word "martial" means "warlike." It involves holds and throws and joint locks and potentially choking people out. Does any of that sound remotely safe? You can get hurt from it. You can die from it. Of course, you can die from a stroke while watching TV. In fact, that is one of the most common things that people are doing when they suffer a stroke. You don't practice BJJ because it is safe. You practice BJJ because you come to the conclusion that the risk is reasonable compared to the reward. Given how many people practice BJJ and how few of them die, you are probably going to be just fine. Then again, you might not.

[Nick Delgadillo]

I've been doing fighting stuff for a long time. One guy crapped his pants once, but I've never seen or heard of anyone dying. If you get chocked out, hopefully your rolling partner is nice enough to not hold the choke for a few minutes.

[Ryanusaurus]

I'm a 4 stripe blue belt under Relson Gracie lineage. I've been training for 5-6 years. I've also trained with people from Pedro Sauer's affiliation, Royce Gracie's affiliation, and the Yamasakis. I've trained with dozens and met hundreds of grapplers . I have only ever heard one story about someone suffering a stroke as a direct result of grappling training. In general, I'd say it's a bigger risk for a guy who refuses to "tap out" early to any kind of air or blood choke being applied to him. Most good instructors stress the "tap early, tap often" philosophy. Ego is a terrible thing to bring on to the mats when the mats are filled with sharks and killers. I'd say you are fairly safe as long as you utilize your freedom to tap out liberally during sparring. No one will think any less of you. That being said, I have no idea if loss of blood and oxygen to the brain contributes to stroke or if there is another underlying reason that the individuals would experience a stroke as a possible result of training. My gut tells me there's a correlation. Just tap out anyways lol.

[Mark E. Hurling]

One guy crapped his pants once,

Is this the Gene LeBell Steven Seagal story?

Like Nick, I've been at the MA stuff for 50 years now on and off. I competed in Judo during college and Jujitsu (not BJJ though) the last 14 years and a few striking arts. I've been choked out in practice a lot and in tournament a time or two. Gotten my neck cranked a lot too over the years.

As Tom said, there is some risk inherent in any MA you practice, whether striking, throwing, strangling, or joint locking. I've had several broken bones, a dislocated shoulder, a torn meniscus, head traumas, stitches, and contusions from practice. But nothing like Mr. Peters experienced, nor have I seen anyone in the dojos or tournaments suffer such an injury.

FWIW, the Kodokan (Vatican City for Judokas) has studied and kept stats on strokes and chokes since at least the 1960's and not found much correlation if any between the two.

[MAD9692]

you'll get injuries but you wont die.
same thing when you lift heavy.

[SJB]

I've been doing fighting stuff for a long time. One guy crapped his pants once, but I've never seen or heard of anyone dying. If you get chocked out, hopefully your rolling partner is nice enough to not hold the choke for a few minutes.

Better to be choked out than crap your pants.

[madmaxaus]

I've been doing fighting stuff for a long time. One guy crapped his pants once, but I've never seen or heard of anyone dying. If you get chocked out, hopefully your rolling partner is nice enough to not hold the choke for a few minutes.

I've been training 5+ years, only semi-serious injuries I've seen have been freak accidents (and often self imposed).

The only legitimately scary thing I've seen was a guy have a heart attack while rolling, which was due to a previously undiagnosed heart condition, which in turn was rectified with surgery. He still trains to this day.

As Tom pointed out though, this isn't arts and crafts, it's martial arts, so there is of course some form of risk. There is also risk in lifting, in driving and in trying to chat up prospective mates, I bet you've done all 3 regardless

[JHG]

Having trained in BJJ on and off for almost 20 years I can attest that training under the supervision of a legitimate instructor is in fact safe. You may acquire bumps, bruises, sprains and strains along the way as the beauty of BJJ is that you can train hard and still not suffer major injuries compared to hard sparring in boxing or MMA. If you are a competitor then you'll just have to accept living with injuries. But if you train recreationally you are free to inform your training partners that you don't intend to roll like its the final match in the world championships, and most, if not all practitioners will nod their head and understand.

With respect to strokes, it is important to understand that the pathology occurs from the inside of the blood vessels as opposed to the outside. Thus a weak vessel may dissect at any point in time, like watching TV as Tom alluded to.

I'm not sure where you live OP, but if you train with some of the larger teams (i.e. Machados, Gracie Barra, Alliance, Nova Uniao, Atos, Renzo Gracie, ATT etc..) and more established gyms you should be happy with your training and not feel like "food" to the mat sharks that do exist in some lesser known gyms.