A question in which I'm particularly interested concerns training injuries. In fact, my survey queries respondents about their experiences. I'm fantastically curious about training injuries - for example, how people feel about inflicting them and how the injured negotiate the impairment.
I was conducting an interview recently with a relatively new BJJ player. When I asked her about whether she considered injuries to be intrinsic to BJJ she looked at me as if I had horns and said, "Uh, that's kinda the point, isn't it?" Others have echoed her sentiment by intimating that BJJ technique, by definition, is designed to maim. What is an arm-lock if not a hold designed to break arms?
When I think about my own experiences it occurs to me that a fine line separates tapping and the technique going a little too far and causing pain or injury. Or, between a BJJ player thinking that all they need is a little more room or a little more time to escape and the infliction of injury.
Practicing BJJ, it seems, is akin to walking an injury tight-rope. On the one hand, a BJJ player does not want to tap too early lest they could counter the move. For certain, we are all trained in ways to annul an arm-lock attempt. On the other hand, we want to return to fight another day. Taking these two sides into account (I'm certain there's more) at what point do we or should we tap? What responsibility does the attacker have to ensure our safety? ... while at the same time executing the technique?
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