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

[wiesiek]

I`m late, but
My judo teacher told me that average is 50/50,
however
it was long time ago and only with judo sports fights in mind.

Mayby we should think about eF study/research about this topic?
from my personal experience:
>20 "street" fights
only one ended on the ground
this is just
0,5%

[Bao]

Boxing ends on the ground when someone has been knocked. Most of sportsfighting ends up standing up. Is BJJ or shootfighting more "real" than other MA? People practicing modern MMA (most martial arts are MMA by definition, so . . .) like to believe that what they practice is better than traditional MA, that they can fight better than traditional stylists etc. So, they behave just like other stylists from any other traditional MA. Anyone practicing any kind of MA wants to be a good fighter, so everybody wants to believe that they have the ultimate fighting recipe.

Much of TCMA comes from warfare. When you are on a battlefield and go down on the ground it means that you die - period (you will obviously be either run down or get attacked by a weapon). Therefore, there was no need to learn to fight lying down on the ground. Time was precious and you needed to learn what was most necessary first - as handle a weapon - not groundfighting. Groundfighting would mean waste of time, a waste of knowledge that could keep you alive. But today, when you fight one on one, it might be good to know some groundfighting. So I guess modern MMA and BJJ has made some contributions to the modern world of martial arts. At least, those sports has show the world of TMA that sportsfighting can be a different game compared to TMA sports.

Anyway, if you can finish a fight standing up, why would you want to go down? I dont think that most of MMA practitioners would be so eager to take the fight to a ground when they are standing on a cold pavement with broken glass, stones or whatever. It is very easy to say "90 % of the fights end on the ground" and be willing to take the fight to the ground when you know for sure that there is only one person you need to fight against and you know the surface (mats). I think, for many reasons, that it is always better to treat the street as a battlefield.

[klonk]

Yet another article on the subj.:

http://ejmas.com/jnc/2007jnc/jncart_Leblanc_0701.html

[...] 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.

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. [...]

[Darthwing Teorist]

I respectfully suggest to Elliot that he may find forums such as Bullshido better suited to his views.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Sorry for not reading the whole thread, so I hope that this has not been said, but my KF teacher, when facing this question, always pointed out that almost 100% of fights start standing up.

[jpaton]

Much of TCMA comes from warfare. When you are on a battlefield and go down on the ground it means that you die - period (you will obviously be either run down or get attacked by a weapon). Therefore, there was no need to learn to fight lying down on the ground. Time was precious and you needed to learn what was most necessary first - as handle a weapon - not groundfighting. Groundfighting would mean waste of time, a waste of knowledge that could keep you alive.

good point. i never thought of it that way.

[TaoJoannes]

Much of TCMA comes from warfare. When you are on a battlefield and go down on the ground it means that you die - period (you will obviously be either run down or get attacked by a weapon). Therefore, there was no need to learn to fight lying down on the ground. Time was precious and you needed to learn what was most necessary first - as handle a weapon - not groundfighting. Groundfighting would mean waste of time, a waste of knowledge that could keep you alive.

good point. i never thought of it that way.

Although, that's the origin of jujitsu, breaking limbs through armor when you're down on the battlefield, so you can get back up and keep fighting.

[jpaton]

Yet another article on the subj.:

http://ejmas.com/jnc/2007jnc/jncart_Leblanc_0701.html

[...] 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.

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. [...]

i know a jailer who said pretty much the same thing. but for him 100% of his confrontation went to the ground. of course it was a completely different situation because him and 5 other guards would rush an inmate and overwhelm them with force.

if thats where people are getting their statistics from for 90% of fights ending on the ground it would make sense but be completely inaccurate for most situation...

[ashe]

The original excellent blog post is here: http://jiujitsu365.wordpress.com/2008/0 ... conducted/

This indicates that in a street fight it is a major no-no to hit the ground first in any way. The findings were so one sided in this category it is highly likely that this is a major factor in determining who wins fights. Future studies should replicate these results.

hey that sounds a lot like lei tai rules...

[jasonf]

I'd say part of those numbers too are based on the assumption that one party is trying to take the fight to the ground? I'd say that the average street fight has a very high percentage of ending up on the ground if one person has the goal to take it there.

[Elliot]

Ah yes, there it is. Proves my point. You already got a great answer to you questions, which is get off the fucking couch and go see for yourself, to touch and feel instead of sitting on a lazyboy playing king of the forum with a keyboard.

Jose, Jose, calm down my friend. Although your command of the language is impressive, I'd hate to see you get high blood pressure. And, for your information, I can "touch and feel" just fine sitting on the couch (oh wait, were you talking about martial arts?) Come up with something a little wittier, and you can be king of the forum.

Thanks Deus, impressive work with the dictionary. Thanks for highlighting the hard part.

Dragontigerpalm wrote

If Elliot were merely inquisitive or even just being contrary to spark discussion he would actively participate and remain on topic. His posts though are filled with negative innuendo and baiting. He is only antagonistic and certainly not worth responding to.

Then why did you respond to me?

Thanks for the suggestion Darthwing, but you must of also missed the part of the thread where I said I love it here.

[Josealb]

I also love emo concerts, and large concentrations of hippies...probably for the same exact reason you love it here.

You must be cooler than i thought.

[Wuyizidi]

...
Much of TCMA comes from warfare. When you are on a battlefield and go down on the ground it means that you die - period (you will obviously be either run down or get attacked by a weapon). Therefore, there was no need to learn to fight lying down on the ground. Time was precious and you needed to learn what was most necessary first - as handle a weapon - not groundfighting. Groundfighting would mean waste of time, a waste of knowledge that could keep you alive. But today, when you fight one on one, it might be good to know some groundfighting. So I guess modern MMA and BJJ has made some contributions to the modern world of martial arts. At least, those sports has show the world of TMA that sportsfighting can be a different game compared to TMA sports.
...

Right, if you read all the accounts of famous fights between great battlefield fighters, if generally ends with one guy being knocked off his horse. At which time, with all the armor, he cannot get up or move around quickly. At this time 10, 20 small, ordinary soldiers quickly set upon him, throws a net/lassel on him, and hog tie him. Onward the great warrior goes to the gallows.

Here's where some common sense helps in giving us the proper perspective:
1. Martial art, throughout history, is mostly weapons art. As general Qi Ji Guang states, empty hand art is to prepare the body for the more advanced weapons training. We say more advanced because weapons are primarily judged by how deadly it is. Weapons skills are simpler - the only thing a blade can do is cut, but it is way more deadly than fists. Everyone appreciates how dangerous it is to face someone with small knife right? Well, the battlefield is way more dangerous than that, with everyone armed with all manners of weapons that smash, cut, flies, etc. It doesn't matter how great you are, if you are emptyhanded, you are in the most serious trouble. Exhibit A: Cheng Ting Hua.

So, empty hand martial art is just a small subset of what we call martial art. And throughout history, in terms of actual use when deadly force is required, plays a very minor role.

2. In anything that's sufficient complex, whether it's martial art, health/fitness, software development, there is no "one best thing/way" for every application/situation. If you ask, what is the best gun? An expert will ask you "what are you using it for: fighting on battlefield, in a commercial plane against terrorists, home defense, hunting, what type of target..." There is no one best weapon for everything. But people want simple answers: tell me one best food to eat, one best exercise to do, one best martial art to learn... But real world situations are complex, there is no one best thing. No one thing can be perfect in all aspects.

So there is no such thing as the 'ultimate weapon'. Empty hand martial art skill is like any other type of weapon, its utility is judged by the context of its use. It's good in a small subset of situations, not so in most situations.

3. Think about the days before modern firearms are perfected. In China, Japan, the west, etc. Why is groundfighting not developed to high level until very recently? Necessity is mother of invention right? We've all been to museums where we were astounded by the sheer variety of weapons invented throughout history. The Japanese lived for the most part on the ground when indoors, how come they invented those hundreds of technique for drawing the sword while indoors, but not so much for groundfighting?

So why did groundfighting become so develop in recent years? Well, applying what we know above, what is the context? The context is modern combat sports. From the early history of UFC we know modern societies cannot tolerate real fighting - they are simply too brutal. So severe limits are always put on the type of strike you can do, and the target you can hit. And where does this fight take place? In a small, confined area with perfectly flat, smooth, safe surface. Lastly, as with other times in history, it's very hard to train many of the striking techniques realistically because of the potential damage they can cause. But for the most part, in grappling you have more control, you can practice like you fight. For these and many other reasons, grappling skills, and specifically ground grappling skills, become very important for the type of fights professional fighters today find themselves in.

Here, the necessity comes from the specific context of sports/entertainment, not desert battlefield of Iraq, Afghanistan. Why did Shuai Jaio become so developed? Because it was instrumental in one Manchu emperor's rise to power, and became one of the primary source of entertainment for generations of emperors. Why does other empty hand skills develop in China during that time? Because of males of the entire ruling ethnic group spent 3 centuries living on comfortable government pension, and had to find some outlet to satisfy their warrior instinct. What happened to jujutsu in Brazil is not without historical precedents.

So ground fighting is a small subset, a very specialized skill within empty hand fighting skill, which in turn is a small subset, very specialized skill in all of martial art.

4. Today, if we just want to achieve the goals these ancient skills are design for: to save your life in war, crime fighting, etc, we need to spend most of our time practicing weapon skills using today's weapons. For long distance weapon, you would not use spear, you would use rifle with bayonet. For close distance, you would not use broadsword, you would use pistol, etc. Today it's obvious spears and broadswords are obsolete, so most of us when we say we practice martial art, we don't include them. So we have two anomalies here: today when we say martial art, martial art = traditional/pre-firearm martial art. Furthermore, martial art = unarmed traditional/pre-firearm martial art.

We need to know our definition of martial art, in terms of real world goals it's supposed to achieve, is not what the real world at large considers martial art, either in the past, or present. We are practicing outdated methods for reasons other than the purpose these weapons were originally designed for.

5. The world may have changed, but our basic biological impulses have not. Traditionally maleness is characterized by strength. What is strength for? For 99.9999% of human history, we lived under very primitive conditions. It's only in the last two hundred years we had any power-assist technology. For hundreds of thousands of years, being the strongest meant being the best hunter, the best farmer, etc. The goal is gathering resource for survival. Judging by that goal, who is the alpha male today, Bill Gates, or Michael Jordan? The effete hedge-fund managers from Connecticut, or the many great baseball, football players coming out of Pennsylvania coal country? Of course it's people like Bill Gates. But our biological instincts run deep, we never think Bill Gates is macho. Similarly, in this machine, information age, every man still wants to be thought of by other men, women as someone who can fight well with nothing but his own body. In this age, what's the significance of being the strongest human weight lifter, or the best empty hand fighter?

So we need to be aware of empty hand fighting skill's greatly exaggerated importance in the human psyche.

So knowing all of this, what type of skills should we practice, how much time should we allocate to each? It all depends on our training goal, which leads to the key point:

If someone wants to spend most of his time practicing ground fighting skills, who are we to say they are wasting their time (how is our training more 'useful' in that regard). But that person, like us, should have a clear-eyed view of the actual importance, the strengths and weaknesses of that type of skill, in the overall scheme of things. They shouldn't think ground fighting skill is "one best skill", appropriate in all situations, that it represent the totality of martial art, or that the best practitioners of that skill can be considered "elite fighters" in the same sense as F-22 fighter pilots, when judged by the context of world we actually live in today.

Wuyizidi

[wiesiek]

Yet another article on the subj.:

http://ejmas.com/jnc/2007jnc/jncart_Leblanc_0701.html

[...] 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.

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. [...]

Klonk,
Police study doesn`t count in this case,/as a MA- study/
`cause police work /MA/is specyfic -
-they have to cuff suspect/s/
and
its mostly done by newaza tech./kinda of/, /if they don`t shot him down in 1st move /

Wuyizdi-
good post, thx.

[Elliot]

Well Jose, I don't mind the occasional hippie.

I am cool, and your realization of the fact makes you a little cooler too.

I see ground fighting referenced here in the context of BJJ. Didn't any Chinese styles have ground fighting as well? Many brawls go to the ground. It's hard to believe in the whole history of Chinese martial arts and all the styles invented that no one ever thought of creating techniques for fighting on the ground.