On February 4, 2019, people began posting all over social media that a man had used Brazilian jiu jitsu, specifically a rear naked choke, to kill a mountain lion that had attacked him during a run. No one was able to provide any evidence of this, there were no interviews with the victim, no one knew who the victim was or whether he even trained Brazilian jiu jitsu.
“Runner strangled mountain lion after animal attacked him, officials say” (Based on the actual choking method, would John Danaher even classify it as a strangle?)
This stunk of fake news to me so although I wish he had used BJJ, I didn’t share the story. Turns out being cautious paid off because the victim, Travis Kauffman, has not said that he trains BJJ and did not say he used BJJ to kill the Mountain Lion. In fact, Mr. Kauffman said that becoming a recent cat owner was a big help in this fight for his life.
Fight description in the video is from 3:45 to 6:15.
“When I first turned around the cat was probably ten feet away from me, it just kept approaching. And as it got close, it just kind of lunged at me so I threw my arms up and it latched onto my wrist so I was just kind of protecting my face.
So yeah, it latched onto my wrist and then it just started clawing along my face and then my legs and I was just kind of screaming the whole time, doing my barbarian yell as best I could.
And I tried to throw it off of me and as I tried to throw it off of me we both like left the trail because it just regripped onto my wrist and kind of tumbled off the slope to the south side of the trail and from there was like just a wrestling match uh, it was thrashing and it still had my wrist locked in its jaws.
And I was able to kind of get my left knee to pin down its back legs. As a pretty new cat owner I realized that once you get a cat on its back, its back legs go crazy and that little rabbit thrash. So I was pretty wary of the back claws actually hitting my guts or my groin or anything like that so.. I was able to pin down its back legs with my left knee.
From YouTube video titled:
And then the front paws.. I don’t actually remember what happened with those I mean I was kind of deflecting them with my left hand but then I was grabbing at some sticks that were close by and I was trying to stab it in the throat with some sticks. Unfortunately the sticks were kind of rotten so they kept on breaking.
And then I was able to pick up a big rock with my left hand and I was trying to hit it on the head with the big rock but it was kind of a tough angle because my wrist is still in its mouth and I’m not able to get a full swing but I was kind of able to hit it in the back of the head a few times. And I just knew that it wasn’t going to be super effective so then I used just a little body weight transition and I got my right leg close to my wrist and I was able to finally get it onto the cat’s neck. And then I stepped on it’s neck and I was eventually able to suffocate it.”
“Colorado Man, Travis Kauffman, Survives Mountain Lion Attack “
Published by Colorado Parks and Wildlife
14 Feb 2019
Brazilian jiu jitsu is awesome. We don’t have to lie to look good. Mr. Kauffman recommends that people not wear earbuds and they run with a friend to increase the likelihood of survival. He doesn’t mention jiu jitsu, probably has no idea what jiu jitsu is.
Please do your research before you spread fake news like this article, you’re just making the community look like snake oil salesmen. What’s sad is the lack of research people are doing these days is making Donald Trump’s “fake news” shtick actually seem real.
End rant./
I wish there was a love button for this post. Thank you for calling out fake news. I too love BJJ, but sensationalization for the sake of promoting an art is shameful.