90% of all fights end on the ground, truth or BS?

[Elliot]

Good point Klonk, and may I say I really enjoyed your movie.

Wuyizidi,
I agree that normal clothing (no offense Klonk) would not afford much protection to a ground fighter rolling around on the asphalt. Actually, normal clothing would provide about the same amount of protection for a ground fighter rolling around in the street as it would protect a CMA trained homo sapien fighter against the puches, kicks, knees, elbows and headbutts he will encounter standing up.

[Andy_S]

I recall that when the Gracies first came to town you had people like Paul Vunak stating that "a person trained in this martial art for months can beat one trained in standup for years" and that is still somewhat true - if he can get you down to where he is at his best and his opponent has no skills to speak of. Given that a well-trained grappler wil have a number of takedowns at his disposal, and given that people often fall or are knocked down in fights - after all, as two-legged animals, we are inherently unstable - the possibility of going down IS significant, even if not a certainty. And when a specialist takes on a generalist and is able to be use his specialization, he wins.

OTOH, I broadly agree with Wuyizidi's points on stand up being the more important skill, on the whole. But not to the total negation of gorund fighting. Moreover, while the Chinese may not have included groundfighting skills in their battlefield martial repetoires, the Japanese certainly did with Jujitsu, and the Europeans did with a number of their wrestling systems (Whether these were used on the battlefield, is, of course, unknown, but there are plenty of contemporary prints from medieval Europe, of men-at-arms being knifed between the joints of their armor while on the floor, which indicates the importance of having some kind of defense against this unpleasent tactic; a large number of French knights were stabbed to death through joints in their armour while lyingin the mud at Agincourt)

So while this discussion has metamorphisized into the usual "ground versus standup" a more appropriate question might be: How many standup people on this board have NEVER trained ground fighting? And if not why not?

[Bodywork]

All execellent points Andy. And to add to your question I'd ask:
"Why not train both?"

I mean , what's the big deal about training on the ground? It's fun. It seems moronic not to plan for something that can happen to you. Also since more and more of your average younger male (the most common section populace to get in a fight) is oggling over the UFC and most likely practicing / playing with his mates, means even they will want to go there iwth you.
I can't see anyone calling themselves a fighter and not doing both Stand-up and groundwork. I just can't. Of interest to also consider, is even with guys who specialize in remaining upright to bring you into their game-punches and kicks-and I'm one of those, they spend allot of time on the ground learning to remain upright or get back up.

I think its fine to master your game, but then at least go play with other things with some good coaching, to include ; knives, sticks, swords, tactile awareness and de-escalation through talking-best thing in the world even if it leads only to distracting someone so you can cold cock him unaware. Why not broaden your game?

[Bodywork]

I didn't have time to read the whole thread, but I believe that 90% police statistic proved not to be true. I have read it somewhere being refutted.
Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks and with the wrong people taught me it was bullshit at least in our experience. The exception was with furniture of all things. Either in a bar or at a party, you tripped over things or were hit with them. Also training with wrestlers and judo guys at an early age taught us how to avoid our own takedowns and others. My point, is if young brash men can learn to avoid takedowns in an age without such easily accessible information (the 70's), imagine what he could learn now in the information age. The days of the ground or stand-up specialist being ignorant of the others game, I imagine, are long past. Or at least should be.

[Darthwing Teorist]

I recall that when the Gracies first came to town you had people like Paul Vunak stating that "a person trained in this martial art for months can beat one trained in standup for years" and that is still somewhat true - if he can get you down to where he is at his best and his opponent has no skills to speak of.

This is interesting. I agree that standing up is the best strategy from a SD point of view. Movement is ALWAYS the best strategy in this case. But there are two other reasons why grappling has an edge. Now, just a parenthesis, I don't mean that grappling is better than striking, just that it may be a quicker skill to achieve.

The reasons are: grappling is natural to most people, while striking isn't. When you panic, you cling to your opponent. Boxers always do it, kids do it when they fight. This probably comes from our past, where we had to grasp tree branches. Also, kids instinctively cling to their parents. Another example and both explanation of this, is that when you play as a kid and tickle someone, the other will not try to hurt you (usually), but they will grapple - reinforcing their instinct.

The other reason, is that as you go into grappling, you start limiting your opponent's range of movement. Putting someone against the floor, will limit the most their range of movement: taking away half their sphere of potential movement.

[Bodywork]

While true, I'd also point out that grabbing is a reflex...not an art. As such it is as far removed from skilled grappling, as a kid throwing a punch is from boxing. Grappling under pressure, at speed, is a highly learned skill, one best not under rated. Add to it the ground and pound-it's harder still, add to that- training internal power so it is in your body and grappling that way-more so and adds many significant advantages not the leasst of which is pure power, and a hell of a short power game from your back or from the mount when his face or ribs are exposed.
Lest it escape anyones attention, I think grappling is just simply a supperior base to start to build anything from.

[Bao]

The reasons are: grappling is natural to most people, while striking isn't. When you panic, you cling to your opponent. Boxers always do it, kids do it when they fight. This probably comes from our past, where we had to grasp tree branches.

No there are no trees involved. It is natural because people tend to tense up in stressful situations. If you tense, you restrict your own movements. Also, clinging is a protectionary body position, just like boxers put their arms together to protect oneself or go into a clinch. Our biological instinct teach us to stiff up - to cowardly defend ourself first - not to become bold and relaxed.

btw, when you fight, you always want to find away to destroy your enemys "rules". When BJJ was new, people was not used to having people throwing themselves at them. Here, BJJ has done something great to the modern world of martial arts, this contribution has made TMA-stylists better to defend themselves, become smarter when defending themselves. The awareness of wrestlers and groundfighters is much higher now. But also, what it did was also taking away much of it´s own advantage when people don't get as easily fooled as before.

[Darthwing Teorist]

What I meant by that tree comment, is that we have a huge genetic luggage. Since our ancestors lived in trees, we have the reflex of grasping when in trouble. A bit like why people curl their toes when they orgasm. It is not a matter of tension or relaxation, just what your instinct is. Of course, some people are natural strikers, but a lot of us are grapplers by nature.

I agree with you on the element of surprise, that introducing a new martial art in a certain culture will work until that said culture assimilates it and the fighters adapt to it.

[edededed]

Hmm... So our evolutionary ancestors, while "doin' it" in trees, curled their toes while orgasming to prevent from falling off, but then made loud noises simultaneously, calling the attention of giant eagles, who then plucked them out (two for the price of one!) for a nice snack...

(I didn't know that people curl their toes during orgasm...)

[Andy_S]

All valid points.

I would add that stand up grappling is (and I theorize here...) probably a much more widely used skill, given that in many (most?) confrontations, people start with push and shove before going into all-out mode - punch face, kick sack, bite, throw, etc.

If your skills are only about punching someone senseless or (in the case of deadly/battlefield arts) poking their eyeballs, tearing out their trachea and crushing their testicles, then you are going to be at a bit of a loss when someone grabs you or pushes you, as to immediately escalate massively will land you in the dock or the cell at best, in a much more intense confrontation at worst.

[CaliG]

Speaking of ground fighting this video might be of interest.

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1449

Sambo guys like to finish on the ground too but from a successful throw, which is a little different from the BJJ perspective.

[JoseFreitas]

To sum up:

Nobody knows, and no one can present relevant numbers/studies to argue anything. We must all fall on anecdote, or common sense, and so all posts should be prefaced with something like "Well, I am not really sure, but I do believe..." just for humility and politeness' sake.

1. The original study that supposedly found that "90% of all fights went to the ground" did no such thing and was largely misquoted. ("The LAPD study does not show that “90% of fights go to the ground.” Instead, the LAPD study shows that 95% of altercations took on one of five familiar patterns (with which any street cop will be intimately familiar). It also shows that of that 95%, 62% ended up with both the officer and the suspect grappling on the ground.)

2. Even if it had found such thing, the caveats in the study largely make it irrelevant to the general population because they only apply to a small subset of altercations ("Obviously, being professionally charged with restraining someone versus being primarily focused on escaping an attack will change the dynamic of a confrontation after the initial engagement. This is why I believe police in an arrest situation are more likely than a citizen in a self-defense situation to stay on the ground during a physical encounter.").

3. Some smart guys who were out to promote their art art and their format of competition "misquoted" the study to be able to promote themselves with a somewhat greater scientific strength. A lot of people went along without checking the facts, thus playing the other guy's game, both literally and figuratively...

4. Be that as it may, it is possible to read between the lines of the study and extrapolate some thing, namely that ground fighting happens a lot and it's better to be prepared. ("To conclude, one can quibble with the exact percentages, but being on the ground happens frequently during serious altercations. Could a person’s being taken down and not having an effective means to deal with the situation increase odds of death or serious injury, either to him/herself or to the assailant? My personal view is that this is the case.").

Right?

[Darthwing Teorist]

Sounds good.

Some ideas that apply to ground fighting and more:

One self-defense concept that sounds simple but in fact is not quite so simple for many of us is "to refuse to play the other's game". The difficulty comes from the fact that often we learn to comply. This is one of the few major problems with learning ground fighting: people get comfortable and sometimes do not avoid it as much as they should (I noticed it in my case). But this is a problem with any kind of sparring: you willingly engage the opponent and play according to a set of rules. Obviously, sparring and rolling are great but they should be supplemented with drills, especially goal-based drills. Cheating should also be encouraged to help people "think outside the box" all the time instead of getting used to comply.

[AlexMtl]

great comments DD,
I agree completely, I would add though that "cheating" (as with many others words / terms / sentences that I could read here) is somewhat more complicated than it sounds.The complexity comes from the always underlying and forgotten concept of 'goal': cheating towards what? In this case, cheating as 'breaking rules / any rules' is incomplete without the idea of 'which rule to break', no?

As described sometimes by Rory, a goal is associated with a state of mind and 'cheating to run out' is not the same as 'cheating to save me from being pinned'. I am not sure you can cheat if you have no idea of the goal, otherwise it is cheating for cheating like 'put a finger in the ass when grappling', it won't get you out decisively for sure and although it is cheating in the mind of grappling, it might not the 'cheating to get out' that you are looking for.

as for the rest, it is not even clear what kind of fights we talk about, what situation we talk about. Some people are good enough to make the fight happen where they want it to be. One key element maybe is " what kind of fights? A predator that attacks a lady in the street at night, might not want to struggle with her on the ground for 10 mns. Two kids or people facing each other in an ego match might because it is more like a ritual than everything else (animal like). Someone wanting to kill you might do it in a way that the ground is far from being a possibility. etc.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Alex, great post. I have some stuff to add, but here I sit hesitating what to say because I think that your post covered the basics of the cheating.

Kevin keeps telling us to cheat whenever we can. I think that this is the first level, where you become aware that there are certain rules and conventions, which may be explicit or implicit and break them. Even if cheating is not much or, as he does, you take advantage of your relationship with your partner, it is still training the mind to see things outside the box.

Now, I think that you hit an important point, that you have to know which rules to break. You can cheat and piss your partner off or you can have a goal and cheat to achieve it. The hard part is to be aware of the rules of the game and set your own goals: your partner may not even be aware of what your goal is. Once you have that, you can cheat to achieve them. You define what winning is - obviously this can lead to fooling oneself, saying that "one won" according to some twisted rule when in fact it is not true.

The "Governor drill" made me think too: Rory is right that none of us reacted in a way true to self-defense because we did not even think about it - in our minds we tried to simulate the situation and stick to the rules and limitations. I think that all of us understand initially that in martial arts, just like in physics, we set some limits to our model of violence, either for the sake of safety or to learn a certain skill in isolation (like proprioception in Chi Sao). The problem is that we bury this understanding deeper into our subconscious and we comply without thinking to the suggestions of our teachers (who have their reasons to teach the way they do). But here we lose a bit the control of our own training. I think that this is the case of most people who are not used to real violence. There are a few who either are experienced or did not forget their initial goal and they are able to see their own training for what really is: with its strengths and limits and then adapt it to their own needs. But I believe that most of us take longer to arrive at this understanding. Luckily there are a few people who can help open our eyes.

I diverge. To get back to cheating, I find Rory's thoughts about the implicit rules in an altercation to be really mind opening. This helps a lot to cheat properly: if you are aware of the self-imposed rules, you can truly refuse to play the other's game.


PS:
I have a feeling that NLP really helps to understand these "unspoken rules" and exploit them, in general. I am sure that we'll see more specific martial applications of this mental training because quite a few teachers are into it. This is probably nothing new, it may be what certain people are referring to secrets of their arts. This is certainly something that you can get a glimpse of in the Book of 5 Rings. BTW, Mauricio told me last time that I saw him to use martial arts for getting rid of the ego. While it wasn't the subject of our discussion at the time, it certainly is a way to understand the human personality. As we all know, knowledge is power.