Why learn to fight on the ground.

[respectmankind]

it appears no one shares my opinion. well, i was thinking about it and i find that what i was talking about isn't doing 'random crap' as you said, but more of being 'flexable' in a fight. i to agree ground fighting is important knowledge. but i ask you this? will your grappling skills get you anywhere against the predator that even might arnold could not beat????

[Yajirobe]

turdles can fight on the ground....you don't have a shell don't bother negatives.

[Ryu]

BWAhahahaha!

Good night everybody!

[Merryprankster]

JasBourne--nobody is advocating becoming an expert in groundfighting. What they ARE talking about is the "sprawl n' brawl." You learn to defend takedowns, and how to defend submission attempts and get back up. That's it. This is a small subset of grappling that is much easier than learning the whole shebang. You can get quite good at defense quickly for the simple reason that you don't have to look to create openings for attack.

No-Know--here's the problem: Moving on the ground is fundamentally different than standing. This is not to say that the sensitivity from say, Wing Chun won't transfer over and help you learn, but right off the bat, you are not going to know HOW to move on the ground. It's just so different...when I first started wrestling, there were all these times where I thought I was doing what I should be doing, and as it turns out I wasn't applying pressure at all, and had almost no effect. There is NOTHING about throwing a kick, a punch, or executing footwork that transfers over to the ground...heck, there's nothing about takedowns or throws that transfer over to the ground, really, except some of the off-balancing. This is so, because power generation and pressure generation are not the same thing. So to say that Kung Fu is about possibilities--well, that might be true. However, if you cannot move in a way to realize those possibilities, then they simple remain possibilities, and cannot help you.

As a slightly colorful example, we call new wrestlers fish because they flail around, expending so much energy and doing so much nothing. They just don't know how to move yet.

Kinesthetic Awareness, just for the record, is just understanding how to move your body to make it do what you want it to, and having a sense of where you are in three dimensions. Gymnasts, dancers, etc have a very high degree of kinesthetic awareness, for instance.

Respect--If you are doing "random crap," in accordance with good principles, then it's not random crap. It's being flexible. If you're flopping around like a fish then you're doing random crap cause you don't know any better. And yes, Rickson Gracie could beat the Predator. Rickson is Love. I am going to go burn incense to him now.

Yours in Rickson's name

James

[Ryu]

"Rickson is Love"

And he spoke unto them and said
"Go ye bretheren, Royce, Royler, Rorion... and spread the word of Rickson Gracie, for all those who fight in his name shall taste not defeat, but shall have victory everlasting."

......"unless they happen to face a small Japanese man with a nerdy smile...in that case all is lost."

[tsunami surfer]

I truely feel that if your going to be doing moves in the street you had better be a well rounded fighter. I feel fortunate that I have found a school that does that. The week is divided up into different training techniques. Some days are sparring, others BJJ, sometimes competition work and others for real self defense. Then atleast twice a week we spar/grapple. That means if you want to stand up or go to the ground anything goes. Only rule is no nard shots. no eye pokeing or biting. I prefer to stay on my feet to fight but I am prepared to take someone to the ground and fight there. Anyone can claw scratch bite flail out of desparation and even win the fight that way. But remember that we train to be better than that. We want to be true warriors with the skills we work hard to develop.I often spar a guy in our school who is on the Army boxing team. We both would rather stand. He has an EVIL left jab. You never see it coming. So i try to working my kicking skills on him. Get the point? same with others that have a skill greater than mine, I do something else to counter act and defeat him. I train hand stick knife and gun to be a total warrior. If you want to practice ONE style great go for it and learn it well. If you only train for competitions great I wish you much sucsess in your tournies. But if you are training to be a warrior you better know what you are doing in the 3dimentional world of chaos called combat.

[SifuAbel]

Originally posted by Merryprankster


Kinesthetic Awareness, just for the record, is just understanding how to move your body to make it do what you want it to, and having a sense of where you are in three dimensions. Gymnasts, dancers, etc have a very high degree of kinesthetic awareness, for instance.

Great choice of words!!
The above is, IMHO, what separates some Classical kung fu from "stand up" styles. The feel, sense of range, fluidity and levels of engagement are much different from the standing boxing style arts. In a sense some of these styles were "mixed" long before the term became envogue. The main reason styles such as wing chun have difficulty with groundfighters is that they are strangers to fighting below the boxing hand fighting window. Not to take away from wing chun stylists or boxers, they will excel at their game, as some groundfighters have learned the hard way. But it's easy to see how a boxer, lets say, who gets separated from a clinch every time and never so much as bends his knees 20 ° will not know what to do if toppled. In end though, strategy will prevail. Whoever can make their game stick will win.

[No_Know]

A nice reply, thanks~. Fish, that's cute. Not being used to something, understandable.

There's more to throwing than off balancing?

If I understood how I moved I thought that that might be applicable to how the other person moved and I could manipulate that.~

A person who is just learning form or had only styles Kung-Fu might not have the database or understanding to move for that ground situation. But I would think that people with twenty-two years of training/practice or more in Kung-Fu would have reviewed that type of situation.

"There is NOTHING about throwing a kick, a punch, or executing footwork that transfers over to the ground"

Kick-knee approaching your head; pressing the other foot to the ground could help destroy their base with your lifted hips. The knee might or might not be a significant offensive thingie. I kick by bringing the knee-up first. Punching-elbows in for power, out for sneak or distance based striking. Wing Chun purports a good punch within six inches. JKD-a three inch punch. Footwork-shifting my legs (attached to my feet)displaces my body when there is no ground under them or under one placed well.

"...heck, there's nothing about takedowns or throws that transfer over to the ground, really, except some of the off-balancing. This is so, because power generation and pressure generation are not the same thing."

[JWTAYLOR]

Muchos gracias Knife Fighter,
JWT

[ji way lung]

my question is, what is the preoccupation with fighting on the ground? it isn't natural for humans to be on the floor, so why would anyone want to fight *exclusively* on the ground?

it seems to be bjj is concerned with groundfighting (obviously), so they train takedowns to get the person on the floor. but why?? doesn't it make logical sense to fight standing up, then *if* you hit the floor, do whatever needs to be done, as opposed with trying to get the person on the floor in the first place, then doing the deadly stuff? sure real fights end on the ground sometimes, but as i said it seems to me bjj wants it on the ground all the time.

judo for example, doesn't train exclusively on the ground. they have hold downs and chokes and what not in the case you're on the ground, but throws are done from a standing position, it's not so preoccupied with getting the person on the floor in the first place so they can kill the person or whatever.

um yeah... hope i made some sense.

[Merryprankster]

No_Know,

I can envision what you are describing... however:

A short punch from your back on the ground does not have the trunk muscles to draw on, and proper alignment to make the punch "stiff" is nigh impossible. Power transfer up from the ground doesn't exist. Your back is more or less flat; torque/alignment is difficult to generate. In any event, reaching up towards your opponent from the bottom (if you are mounted) is something that will likely get you injured against somebody who knows the armbar.

I understand what you are saying about the knee bit, but here's the deal--power generation can create an opening, but it takes pressure generation to maintain the opening so you can move (or power generation to shut down the opening, and pressure generation to keep it closed, if that's the right thing at that time). If you just throw power around you can disrupt my balance for a moment, but if you don't know where to go next, then it's wasted energy, not to mention leaving you open for attacks, and you have to do it again, and again, and again. A fish throws their power around but doesn't capitalize due to inexperience in moving on the ground.

Experience in Kung Fu will help you learn on the ground, in as much as you are more in tune with your movements than Joe Six-Pack. Any specific techniques you want to transfer over will be hard to apply until ground movement is understood.

And as far as there being more to throwing than off-balancing, yes. I can off-balance somebody and they won't go down because they'll move to regain balance. The trick is to off-balance them and remove their support ("post") at the same time, while taking them to where the support would go if it wasn't blocked off.

ji--BJJ is occupied with groundfighting because that is how it evolved. The takedowns are, however, atrocious, and if you can't go from standing to the ground, well.... your BJJ isn't going to help you. The ground has a couple of advantages--surprise for one--nobody expects you to actually be able to ATTACK that way, from the guard, a bottom position, secondly, nullification of speed, strength and size are much easier on the ground than standing because you are limiting the amount of space the opponent can use. It also has disadvantages--namely, your ability to leave or attend to other threats is compromised. Any decent BJJer will tell you that BJJ is not the end all be all. However, they will also tell you that their training lets them get up and leave far faster than somebody who doesn't spend a lot of time on the ground. I train for the ground so I don't have to stay there if I don't want to. Heck, my instructor teaches to sweep, knee mount, soccer kick to the head and run. The rest is just fun

[apoweyn]

ji way lung,

a couple of things. it isn't natural for people to be on the floor. true, i suppose. but what does nature have to do with it? we're humans. we go against nature all the time. intellect pushes us to make decisions that often run contrary to instinct. sometimes those decisions work. sometimes, not so much.

besides, in a way, it makes perfect sense. we're all people. and if it truly is unnatural for us to fight on the ground, then it makes sense that someone that learns to do it anyway would be able to put the rest of us in a very unnatural position. if he has taught himself to feel natural there, and we haven't done likewise, then he's got us at an advantage in that particular situation.

one other thing: if wrestling truely is the oldest martial art (and there seems to be evidence to that effect), or even if it's just one of the most universal (forms of wrestling exist in a huge number of cultures), then it seems to follow that grabbing, unbalancing, and physically manipulating an opponent IS a fairly natural mode of combat. and given the inherent chaos in fighting, if one person is unbalanced, there's a good chance that both are going down. so even if you take intent out of it, odds aren't bad that you're going to end up on the ground anyway.

not a foregone conclusion, by any stretch. but a strong possibility.

there's nothing 'natural' about emulating animals, raising your foot above your head, or putting your fist through boards either, to my mind.


stuart b.

[ji way lung]

Originally posted by apoweyn
ji way lung,
one other thing: if wrestling truely is the oldest martial art (and there seems to be evidence to that effect), or even if it's just one of the most universal (forms of wrestling exist in a huge number of cultures), then it seems to follow that grabbing, unbalancing, and physically manipulating an opponent IS a fairly natural mode of combat. and given the inherent chaos in fighting, if one person is unbalanced, there's a good chance that both are going down. so even if you take intent out of it, odds aren't bad that you're going to end up on the ground anyway.

there's nothing 'natural' about emulating animals, raising your foot above your head, or putting your fist through boards either, to my mind.

My style does none of the above.

well i agree with almost all you have said, but my question is what is the preoccupation with fighting *exclusively* on the ground? why *only* train takedowns and submissions or whatever it's called? there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of training to also fight standing up... it just looks like it's concerned with getting ppl on the ground before you actually hurt them. why not train to fight 'normally', ie. standing up, and also learn to fight on the ground in the instance you end up on the floor? it just seems to disregard striking, and more concerned with takedowns to use the good stuff.

i don't know anything about wrestling, but 'grabbing, unbalancing, and physically manipulating' can be done standing up, and may possibly hurt the person before they hit the ground. and isn't wrestling a sport? i never got the impression it was to seriously hurt someone, just subdue them...

[apoweyn]

well, most MMA do learn to do damage while on their feet, in addition to being comfortable on the ground. not all, but most.

as for the groundfighting being so emphasized these days, bear in mind that most of what we hear about a style, without actually being in it, is marketing and hype. and marketing centers around what's unique about your product. the emphasis on groundfighting is fairly unique.

i'm fully convinced that the whole '99 percent of fights... ' stuff is overhyped. but the danger in reacting to that is always to instead 'underhype' a thing. i do believe that the advent of BJJ taught the rest of us some valuable lessons. the trick is to keep everything in perspective. give issues the weight they deserve. not less and not more.

it's a good trick.


stuart b.

p.s. i still don't think there's anything 'natural' about any of this. tigers and gorillas don't practice tiger style or gorilla fist. they just do their thing. as humans, we don't have a 'thing' in this context. so we come up with styles. humans are unique in our ability to reprogram our own instincts, shape our own nature. so i'm not convinced that standing and striking is any more natural than groundfighting.

[Braden]

No_Know & Merryprankster - There's more to throwing than offbalancing and removing the post. Think about destroying the opponent's structure. For instance, take a person who is facing you in some variation of a basic front-on stance, and then rotate his torso so his shoulders and hips are facing 90o from one another. Even if he is still completely balanced, it will now be very easy to offbalance him and remove his post.

No_Know, from this point it may be easier to conceptualize what MerryPrankster is talking about, as I'm sure you are familiar with the feeling of your and your opponent's structure being 'on' or 'off' from your neijia. When your structure is 'off' you have a hard time controlling your body for generating or absorbing force. This seems to be the lesson of the neijia: keeping your's on, and getting your opponent's off. When you are taken to the ground, the same thing is happening. Your structure becomes broken. They're not just taking you to the ground for the sake of fighting horizontal, they're breaking your structure. They might not use this terminology, but it's exactly how it feels. People say they would just mount a powerfull offense if taken to the ground, but it is the same as telling a taiji man you will mount a massive offense once he has closed off your structure. The taiji man learns to keep his own structure with relaxing, opening the gua, sinking into the hips, etc etc etc. But structure is a little different on the ground. When MerryPrankster talks about pressure generation, what he is talking about really is generating structure. That's what these guys practice.

This is how it has felt to me on the ground: like I haven't been able to do anything because my structure has been broken. To form structure, I've had to grab on to anything tight with my hands, then use mostly my elbows and hips to push and prod, or sometimes act like spears set into the ground against his pushing, or like fulcrums of a lever for other forces. It takes me a while, and I struggle, but most of the time I've managed to somehow arrive in a place where I feel my structure again and can do something constructive. You know how if you took two strangers off the street and told them to touch hands, and push gently until they felt their opponent's structure fail, and then to push hard to knock them over - they'd probably be at it for quite a while before someone hit the ground? But if one of them was a great taiji man, you might expect it to take a second? Well, I get the feeling it's the same thing on the ground. While I spent a long time struggling for structure, I imagine these expert groundfighters would be like the taiji man on his feet - pop and it's there. The utility of this, and implication for if someone like me ever faced one are obvious.

Will taiji skills transfer to the ground? Certainly yes. The paradigm is very much the same, and the concept of structure and raw ability for introspection and sensitivity in the taiji man will be an extraordinary foundation for ground skills. However, maintainance and disruption of structure on the ground isn't exactly the same as standing, even if it shares enough principles to talk about it. To be able to get this idea into his body, the taiji man will have to go 'hands-on', he'll have to train on the ground. And that's all anyone here (at least the reasonable ones; the others aren't worth paying attention to ) is advocating. They're not really saying take martial art X, they're saying 'you're principles won't translate over until you've made them translate over with training.'

Or, uh... so it all seems to me.