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I would rather have a little distance between me and a knife.
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While I agree entirely that distance is your friend, my real-life experience has shown me that it's rarely possible. If I have distance on my side, I've got news for you - I'm not punching or kicking either. I'm shooting. I'm caling in air or artillery. I'm doing anything but engaging in a fair fight. And as you mentioned somewhere else regarding knives, if I find myself in a knife fight, it was likely an ambush, and if I'm using a knife on someone else, you'd better believe I'm ambushing them. And in the case of the latter, I will likely be very, very close (and preferrably at the 6 o'clock position).
BJJ catches a lot of flack, and I think that's the result of some of the Gracies running their yaps about how invincible they were back in the day. To some degree, it's a desrved comeuppance. However, I also think BJJ has come a long way, and you're crazy if you think the practitioners of BJJ completely discount knives, guns, and mass attack. Sport focused schools will, of course, focus on sport. But there are people like Rickson out there who not only acknowledge reality, but devote themselves to it by practicing mass attack and carrying a pistol. MMA has shown most of today's youth that you can't just rely on one range anymore, so in a sense, they're preaching the same thing you are. Almost no one is advocating just being a good ground guy or just being a good striker anymore, and so to that extent, MMA has actually opened people's eyes to the need to be well-rounded.
An MMA guy stepping into the realm of real-world self-protection would probably be very open to and aware of the need to expand his game by studying across the full spectrum of what's likely to happen. He'd already have that mindset.
In that sense, it sounds like your issue is far more BJJ specific than MMA specific.