In the martial arts fraternity many myths and/or opinions get accepted with little or no scrutiny e.g. high kicks don’t work on the street – obviously nobody ever told legendary Liverpool bouncer Terry O’Neil that; a doorman who knocked out the majority of the people who challenged him with head kicks (bouncing is a REALLY hard game in the UK, that goes well and beyond checking ID). Perhaps the most common and most oft-repeated myth/opinion that is touted around in today’s self-defense world is that “95% of street fights end up on the ground.” Coming from a background in Psychology I am very interested as to how the particular study that drew this conclusion was conducted and very interested in the statistical analysis that resulted in such a high figure being produced: one that is statistically so high it might as well be 100%.
From personal experience I have seen many fights where one person ends up on the ground, whilst another remains standing (if I include multiple attacker scenarios the number rises considerably) but few where both parties end up rolling around in the dirt. Do not get me wrong, being able to survive on the ground against another party who has taken you there is extremely important and I don’t regret the large part of my training that saw me training in Ne-Waza (as it’s referred to in Judo) or the years I spent in London learning BJJ from Roger Gracie and his father Mauricio Gomez. This training developed and continues to develop for me the skills needed to survive and fight on the ground however I recognize that on the street – especially when a person is armed or there are multiple attackers present – my chances of pulling off a “Rolling Armbar” or a clinical Ju-Ji-Gatame are extremely unlikely however high my percentage in the dojo or studio may be. I still train them of course because the more skilled I am in pulling off these techniques the greater my movement skills on the ground, and as a consequence my ability to get back up to standing where I want to fight improves.
This week we will be looking at the section of the syllabus (for the various belt levels) at how to survive on the ground when our assailant(s) is still standing (in reality the most likely ground scenario we will face). This will cover soccer style kicks, stomp kicks, punches from standing aggressors as well as all of these scenarios from the perspective of multiple and armed assailants. We will of course continue to train knife defenses, punching and kicking etc but our “theme” this week is ground survival (just as it was headlock/clinch work last week).
The Ernest Shackelton (Arctic Explorer) quote, “A man must shape himself to a new mark directly the old one goes to ground”, rather than being taken literally should serve to point out that when a fight changes you must be prepared to set yourself a new goal or “mark” rather than continue trying to pursue the old one. When a fight goes to ground, in a reality based situation, everything changes and your goals have to as well. We will drive this home over the course of the week.
For those of you who would like to do more work on their groundwork “skills” development and learn submissions, chokes, combinations and “flow” type training remember that Tuesday nights at 8pm have always been dedicated to this style/type of training. We also dedicate time to the throwing and takedown components of the system in this class (it is of course covered as part of our regular syllabus in our morning, lunchtime and evening classes).
Remember the next grading is in April…