As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, one of the very most moronic pieces of advice given to people by the “pseudo-experts” and a perfect example of unfounded opinions and baseless assertions being disseminated as fact, is the oft heard: “you should never be on the ground in a real fight”. This is such a stupid thing to say on so many levels that I am so surprised to hear it said so often by so many so called “self-defense “instructors and “experts”.
If we look at it objectively and not with some ego or marketing agenda then it becomes pretty clear that being on the ground in a “real fight” is often the very best place to be. Yes, occasionally it can also be a bad place to be, under some circumstances. However, we have to understand that these circumstances are particular to that specific self-defense situation, not to self-defense in general. To ignore the complete range of possible self-defense encounters, where ground defense would be invaluable, is simply being disingenuous and only serves to confuses and mislead the public. The “pseudo-experts” need to start presenting some evidence if they want to be taken seriously and spare us any more of their disinformation.
In order to try and support their claim the “pseudo-expert” will always use some fairly uncommon example from the far end of the self-defense continuum. Their favorite one that you will hear 99 times out of 100 is “multiple opponents” which everyone can generally agree on. Extended ground work in a true multiple attacker scenario is probably a bad idea. However, it is nonetheless Brazilian Jiu-jitsu skills (assuming you are taught the complete system and not just sport moves) that allow you to survive on the ground in these situation in order to stand or escape or use the best tactics that the situation calls far.
Moreover, multiple opponent attacks happen with far less statistical frequency then the “pseudo-expert” would have you believe. In other words, they want you to get beat up 80% of the time in order to avoid the dangers of 20% of the situations. I’m not sure that is a good trade off and that is why the public should be highly critical of such claims.
As I also mentioned in that previous post; the question naturally becomes “what is your alternative”? The answer is almost always the usual disinformation involving standing in the middle of the “danger zone”(the area in front of the attacker were you are most vulnerable to being struck and injured) doing the same old discredited approaches.
I am going to be brutally honest here simply because I don’t think the general public realizes the true motivation behind a lot of this anti-ground work or anti-Brazilian Jiu-jitsu disinformation coming out of the “pseudo -profession”. The sad fact is that many of these “pseudo-experts” are grossly obese slobs that don’t work out and don’t want to. They are living a kind of ego fantasy in which they can pretend they are deadly fighters or martial arts “masters”. Often they are able to maintain this fantasy by advocating methods or teaching techniques that are not testable, “this stuff is too deadly to spar with”. Hence, they never have to do anything but talk tough. I wrote and joked extensively about this approach to self-defense in my blog article “The art of Maximum deficiency”, so I don’t have to repeat it here.
However, the point is that Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is a real live observable, testable, repeatable skill set. In other words, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu skills are acquired through a lot of time and hard work. Something that ego driven slobs don’t want to do. Like any real physical skill set you have to practice it and test it through live training and “sparring”, this can be tough on your ego. This is a real world of “warriors” and “fighters” and no place for fat slobs that don’t want to actually work out or have to be able to perform and demonstrate real usable and testable skills. The result is that when these “pseudo –experts” are faced with these facts they can either adopt the methodology, which means they have to actually work out and get their egos crushed or they can convince themselves and others that this stuff doesn’t really “work” so let’s keep doing the same old ego fantasy dance and growing our guts.
The public has to catch on that the only thing that does not “work” is these people’s bodies. Now don’t get me wrong, not everyone who has a problem with ground defense is some kind of corpulent charlatan. Even Jigaro Kano was concerned about the dangers of being on the ground in real life combat. Hence, there is lots of room for discussion but I believe this discussion has to be “Evidence based” .
Furthermore, to return to our discussion of multiple opponents, while not exhaustive, my initial research shows that you are in a much greater danger of being stabbed from the rear in a multiple opponent situation if you are standing! The point being is that multiple opponent self-defense situations are dangerous any way you look at them and there are no easy answers. In fact, the solutions to multiple opponent self-defense situations primarily lay outside of what most people see as conventional self defense styles-whether stand up or ground systems. Thus, I will be exploring this topic in detail in an upcoming post.
In the end, let’s be clear and accurate for the interested public. For every one situation when you should not be on the ground there are ten or twenty real life situations when you have a great tactical advantage by being on the ground (assuming you are trained for it). Do not let the unfounded opinions of “pseudo-experts” steer you away from being able to make sound tactical decisions. This really is at the heart of good self-defense thinking and not some false dichotomy between standing up and being on the ground.
A lot of real world self-defense occupies more of a gray area between the overly narrow idea that all self-defense is either standing or on the ground. For example, how much of your day do you spend sitting down in some kind of “chair”? Especially in public places, like on public transportation, at work or at a bar or restaurant. The very often heard statement that “all fights start standing up” is another completely unsupportable assertion from people who while meaning well may be a little out of touch with reality or are at the least filtering it through their sport fighting mind set. In the real world, all kinds of self defense situations begin in ordinary but awkward positions and places.
If you were sitting down on a bench, waiting for a bus, and were accosted and had to defend yourself; is this a ground defense scenario or a stand up one? I suppose the answer is neither, although it could develop into a clear example of one or the other but it certainly does not have to. What about the same scenario when you are actually on the bus, this too happens all the time in the real urban environment. What is going to develop- a ground fight or a stand up one? Probably neither in the limited narrow sense that the “pseudo-expert” wants you to think in.
Therefore, we need to stop thinking this way and start taking into account that real world “fighting” happens standing up, on the ground, against a wall, in a car, in a school locker or shower room, on a bench, in an air plane, a small bathroom, in a ditch on the side of a road, in a snow pile, on icy sidewalks, in heavy foliage, in an ATM cubicle or literally any other place in our natural environment. The “pseudo-expert” is always missing the point; these seemingly completely different fighting environments can still be handled in similar ways because of the simple governing concepts of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu that allows you to make tactical decisions.
It is basically about how much space you have and in the real world there is usually not a lot of space or you don’t want there to be a lot of space between you and your assailant. I want to make the major point of this post, that the vast majority of self-defense encounters can be solved by methods that are nearly identical to ground fighting techniques without you actually being on the ground. In one personal example, I was jammed up in the cab of a truck and had to apply a “lapel” choke, it was not much different from how I had done it in Jiu-jitsu Randori.
Along the same lines, I spent some years working with clients who had both mental challenges and violent behavior issues. (Come to think of it, that sounds like some of my Brazilian Jiu-jitsu students! But seriously, I am actually talking about what is usually referred to as “residential care and counseling,”). In this field, It was routine to have some clients become aggressive or violent while being transported by car or van. This can be really, really dangerous for both the client and the staff not only because of the physical assault but also because of the risk of a car crash. This is just one example of the seemingly unique places that I found myself having to deal with real physical assault. It was in these environments that I discovered firsthand how important and indispensable the defensive concepts of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu really are. Using methods and being in positions that are very much the same as “being on the ground” really are some of the best places to be in a “real fight”.
However, let’s look at one broader more general situation. If the “pseudo expert” says you should never be on the ground because of multiple opponents you can use a tit-for-tat argument by using this example and saying: “you should always be on the ground in a real fight”. Use as an illustration, a heavy impact weapon like a baseball bat or worse yet an ax! If someone rushes you suddenly with a weapon like that, only a fool wants to face that scenario in the standing position. In order to swing that weapon with the force needed to be really deadly the attacker has to be standing. By simply putting the attacker on the ground and smothering him with your body weight you have nullified the potential threat of that weapon by 70, 80 or 90%. It is simply nearly impossible to swing an ax with enough force to kill someone if the swinger is lying on the ground and truly impossible if lying face down. This is generally true of all impact weapon attacks- and guess what? Punches are a form of impact attack.
The last point I am going to make today is this: what do you think you are likely to do if you are facing the above axe scenario but have been taking the advice of some “pseudo-expert”? Are you going to start doubting your own tactical reasoning? Are you going to start looking for tactical alternatives that might get you killed? Are you going to add to your own combat stress by thinking you are doing something wrong by being on the ground? This really is nuts and dangerously nuts.
Such high risk situations take a lot of training and confidence, in yourself and your techniques. You have to be decisive and can’t have doubts at that moment of critical tactical decision making. You need to know what works from people who have actually trained and fought under these conditions and have trained you the same way.
Baseless assertions and unfounded opinions masquerading as expertise from people who have never fought, haven’t trained to actually fight and don’t want to- can cause doubt and doubt can get you hurt or worse. Remember, very, very few self-defense systems have anything close to a documented history of success despite the millions of practitioners and opinions. We need more evidence and less groundless opinions. The fact remains, that while certainly not magic, no other self-defense system that I have seen (and I’m constantly looking) has ever been able to reproduce the results of authentic Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. It is this professional jealousy or better yet “pseudo-professional” jealousy that I believe is the motive for most of the disinformation regarding Brazilian Jiu-jitsu self-defense tactics.
Ergo, telling someone they should never be on the ground in a real fight, is a lot like telling someone they should never be in a fight, the risks are the same. Great idea but what “if”, genius? The answer is you better be able to actually know how to fight and that means on the “ground”.