Protecting the chin in BJJ

Protecting the chin in BJJ

Protecting the chin in BJJ is vital to defensive soundness. Defensive soundness: I’m sure you’ve all been to a boxing match and heard fools in the audience randomly screaming “KEEP YOUR HANDS UP!†every twenty seconds regardless of what is actually happening in the ring. Well, underneath it all there is some wisdom. Boxer keep the hands up in order to cover the chin and make it less accessible to a blow. Observation will quickly reveal good boxers don’t always keep their hands up, but they do whenever they NEED to to. Grapplers too need to protect and cover their chin when they need to – but for different reasons. We don’t need to worry about a blow to the chin, but rather a hand/wrist sliding under the chin to set a stranglehold. As such there is a need for us also to keep our hands up as a block when appropriate to catch not punches to the jaw, but strangles UNDER the jaw. Learn to keep your hand up and ready to block – just like a good boxer you don’t want your hands always in defensive mode – otherwise it can stifle your offense a little – but when it’s needed it BADLY needed – so get those defensive hands up and ready to save you