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Wednesday, December 02, 2009

The Three Fallacies of "Don't Go To The Ground"

Many so-called combat authorities like to tell you not to go to the ground in a "street fight". They generally cite things like weapons involvement, multiple opponents, no soft mats to land on, while you are submitting him others will stomp you, etc. as their reasoning. I say B.S. What they are really saying is ""Don't go to the ground because I don't know how to do it myself, and therefore can't teach it. And since I like having my ego stroked with people referring to me as a real world expert, if I can't teach it but tell you it is important, then I lose some standing as a badass. Especially since I am too afraid of testing myself in a grappling environment where I could get my ass kicked". Why do I say that is what they actually mean? Because the reasons they espouse are so easily refuted, they must have a hidden agenda.

I will break this down into three parts to answer the "experts" lies. Here is the first one:

myth: Don't go to the ground because there will be more than one opponent
fact: Really? Where are the numbers to back this up? The RBSD gurus say this all the time. I am trying to figure out where they are getting this. Now I am not saying multiple opponents when you are alone does not happen, just that they are statistically rare. I have gone through a ton of research into this and I just can't find too many instances where an individual 1) is by himself, 2) does not violate the rule of 4 S's (don't go to stupid places at stupid times and do stupid things with stupid people), and 3) manages to get into an altercation with multiple opponents.

Do the research. The RBSD guys (especially in the UK) love to talk about being a doorman and using that as their experience, and they usually cite Geoff Thompson as their touchstone. Well, unlike many of them, I have some grasp of reading comprehension, and I read Thompson's work, including his book that started it all Watch My Back (a really good and valuable book BTW). If you look through, even when he is working in the most violent of bars, it is rare to go against more than one person when he is alone. As a matter of fact, those instances make up less than 20% of his stories. And that number generally holds up across the board when you look at other reports of documented fights/attacks.

And, apparently, most of the RBSD guys have no friends. I don't know about them, but when I go out on the town for the night, I do it with friends, so I have someone to help me. I guess I can only pity some of these "combat gurus" who envision themselves stumbling through this world totally alone. I can't do much about that. I can't teach them how to be social!

Do multiple opponents scenarios happen? Sure, but in statistically small numbers, and even smaller would be the times it is one against the many (outside of Conan movies). So, we should prepare for it and train to deal with it, but don't base everything you do on it.

And in the following two parts, I will show more of how insipid it is for someone to parrot "don't go to the ground in the street".

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Cecil

I often explain that against multiple attackers you are in fact more likely to go to the ground.

The better your ground skills, the better you can get up!