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 s. It’s grappling for things like taking someone out of a car or how to get handcuffs on someone if they’re resisting. They will talk about it’s appeal for healthcare workers, especially for those with dementia or acute psychosis. But the main thrust of what they mean to contribute to the conversation is the 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