The #1 Secret To Surviving A Ground Fight!
Ground fighting (or “grappling”) has become increasingly popular with the introduction of mixed martial arts and “no holds barred” fighting these days.
Schools are popping up all over the place offering “ground fighting training” to prepare you for how to survive a real street fight.
And it makes sense, right?
After all, some lab full of geniuses “studied” real street fights and found that an estimated 85% of them end up with both guys going to the ground to battle it out in a combination of wrestling moves and punches.
So let me spare you a few hundred dollars in martial arts classes and give you my #1 secret to surviving a vicious ground fight.
Ok, ready? Here it is…
…get off the freakin’ ground!
Look, I’ve been in some pretty brutal street fights and I’ve been witness to countless more, from barroom brawls to all out gang attacks.
Every single fight I’ve seen that went to the ground did NOT end up with a happy ending.
If there are any friends around of the guy you’re defending against and you end up on the bottom, chances are you’re about to see the rubber soles of a half dozen size 11 boots coming toward your head like a freight train.
Even worse…when you’re on top and WINNING the fight, you can expect a bottle or chair to come crashing on your head…
…to be followed immediately by a half dozen rubber soles coming toward your head like a freight train.
Unless you’re simply trying to subdue drunk Uncle Charlie at the family picnic, your goal when you feel a fight going to the ground is to do one simple thing…
…get back on your feet as quickly as possible!
Now, here are 2 powerful ground fighting tips to help you do just that…
Roll Through The Fall
Oftentimes, you may find that you’re pushed to the ground or fall over an obstacle like a chair.
While your natural reaction may be to fall flat on the ground and try to get up, this is actually the LEAST effective response at getting back on your feet.
Instead of falling flat, try to use your body’s momentum to naturally “roll” through the fall by tucking your head down and doing a somersault or just rolling on your side.
Either way will allow you to use that momentum to quickly jump back up to your feet.
Drop & Flip Your Attacker
One of the biggest mistakes people make in the transition from fighting while standing to the plummeting to the ground is in WHERE and HOW they fall.
The natural reaction of your body is to “go stiff” and try to fight the inevitable drop to the ground and this typically leads to a hard, flat fall.
Instead, when you’re in the “clinch”, locked up with your attacker, and you feel like it’s heading toward a wrestling match on the ground, you want to drop STRAIGHT DOWN, as close to your attacker’s feet as possible, while grabbing his clothing around the chest area, with your hands close together.
This places their bodyweight completely off-center and their natural momentum will send them over your own body, making it easy to flip them in the same direction using your knees while twisting them as they fall.
Now you may find that as you both fall to the ground, your attacker has also grabbed on to your clothes to stabilize himself and unless you can free yourself, you’ll be locked up in a dangerous struggle.
Here’s a cool trick to help you escape…
Taking the hand that’s easiest to maneuver from your grab on his shirt, let go and drop it down close to your body and toward your groin.
Then come around and over the outside of their hands as close to your body as possible so your leverage allows you to break their grasp or continue the motion until you’ve pinned their hands under your arm.
(You can try this standing up versus a normal shirt grab to get the feel of it.)
Your options at this point are to get in an eye gouge or other close combat technique with your free hand or get to your feet as quickly as possible to escape or continue your attack.
For more street fighting techniques to help you win any fight fast, go to www.StreetFightingUncaged.com.
The strategies in this manual will allow you to develop the no-nonsense survival skills you need to face even the biggest, baddest street criminal and come out the victor.
pleased I need your help I have been following the lessons but pleased kindly
sent me some video C.D’s to help me,I find it very dificult to go on the net
our line in Africa is very very Bad
Nathan A. obuobi
Address ; National Security Council
office if the President
castle-Annex Osu
Accra Ghana
Hello Nathan!
You’ll find several DVD’s from our instructors in our network of the International Society of Close Quarter Combatants (ISCQC).
The best way to get started to get a variety of lessons, is to begin with the free DVD, “How To Defeat Larger Attackers” at your website http://www.CloseQuartersCombat.com.
This will give you a great survival DVD to start with and an assortment of additional videos from various close combat instructors in our network to train with.
Hey Jeff,
I went to the “streetfightinguncaged” website and tried to order the package. However, I could not get any response from any of the links. What gives? How do I order the package described there?
Best wishes,
Mike
Working ok on this end Mike. Maybe it was one bad link on the page that wasn’t coded right? Try another link at http://www.StreetFightingUncaged.com.
Let us know if you continue to have problems, ok?
Just ask at http://www.CloseCombatSupport.com
These tactics are effective. I would like to add that having a pair of strong legs and solid footing base are paramount to dealing with an opponent that takes you to the ground. We teach this in our school often. Learning the proper way to Sprawl and snap back into a fighting/ strong posture is also a great way to stay on your feet.
Thanks for the great advice as always, jeff. Really appreciate the training at the ISCQC website.
The DVD is NOT free. It costs $7.00. You say it is for shipping. Since when does it cost $7.00 to ship a DVD. What a scam.
Mike says: a larger, stronger, younger oppponent has a big advantage, open up your knife quickly and even up the fight.
I wish I got thrown in a fight that presents this scenario so I can try it out!
Because I sell DVDs and books on line, I can answer Brad. It not only costs for the postage to ship a DVD, it also costs for the mailer, the person you send to stand in line at the post office and the paper and ink to print out the purchase order after you’ve sold an item online. $7 is cheap,
Hi, Russell stutely teaches a powerful hip wave form to give u space to hit and get up real quick….agree with the get up stuff….asap….t
I love Russell’s stuff. His B.A.R. techniques are killer and the wave form you talk about was well talked about in our community at http://www.ISCQC.org. We also have posted one of Russell’s interviews on pressure points.
Great guy and great training!
He recommends u too, sir!
Trained with Russ in November and hope to go again for a few weeks in July, he is the real deal…BAR and pressure point stuff super effective, and the Dragon Society etc…
So true about getting up again when on the floor….anz attackers mates would put the boot in unless u did the waveform and got up to BAR THEM!
Am really curious about ur stuff on defending against the taller and larger opponents, still scares me…. Russ advise spleen 6 acu point and that BAR works on the whole body sir.
Nice to know we have a mutual friend in Russ.
t
Hi, what is ur number one tip against the tall and bigger opponents?
http://www.defeatlargerattackers.com/
I got the DVD last year!! $7 for shipping. Or $7 for the DVD…….either way…..$7 to keep from getting your a$$ handed too you is pretty cheap ANY way you look at it!! It has a LOT of good info on it!!
Another classic example of where “martial arts” training can get your ass kicked (or you killed) in a no-rules scenario. I’ve actually seen this happen. A very muscular MMA-type guy got into it with a somewhat less fit looking guy, they went to the ground…where the MMA guy appeared to be trying to get the other guy to “tap out”. While he was doing this two of the the other guy’s buddies showed up and proceeded to stomp the living hell out of the MMA guy. Literally, that’s all they did, was stomp repeatedly on his head and face. It was ugly.
I have tons of respect for the athletic prowess of MMA fighters and have no doubt that the training gets you into great shape. Might even help you win a “fair fight”. But when it’s real and ugly — all that goes out the window. And you do what you train, as the MMA fighter I saw get nearly killed demonstrated. Jeff’s right: stay on your feet, and if you do for some reason go to the ground, get vertical again as fast as possible (if you can, laying some hurt on your attacker at the same time).
May I suggest to people with questions or complaints about DVDs, etc., that they direct them to a Support address and leave them off these threads?
I have the first dvd and its well worth the measly shipping and handling charges… what do you want for $7?
Jeff to personally deliver it and pop it in your dvd player too? Some people..I tell ya
i get it a little but the last one i can’t picture it
Hi Jeff, i am still a member in the ISCQC and this is a great Network.
I knew a local Trainer of mine, who is still in your Network here in Germany.
I wanna buy your DVD. But did the DVD still play in Europe. We have PAL not NTSC.
Greetings from Germany
Bernd
The DVD isn’t PAL programmed, but we’ve found a lot of Europeans have DVD players for both formats and it hasn’t been a problem.
The fail safe is that DVD’s play fine on computers so those without a NTSC DVD player just use their computer to view the DVD without any problems.
We have tons of members in Europe and my guess is that this is the main way that everyone watches them.
Glad to have you as a member of the ISCQC!
Jeff, I loved your get off the freaking ground advice, Im a small guy of 148 pounds and the last thing I want is to end up on the ground with 200 + pound angry dude, I have 24 years in martial arts and I have never seen that end well for the little guy, except maybe Hoyst Gracie, but we all cant be a Gracie so you are right on with that bit of advice, lets all stay off the freaking ground. great article Jeff, thanks, Chuck , S.L.C, UT.
From my rather extensive real time experience at in your face smack downs due to many years at a job where this was almost a weekly occurance, it is definately one of the few immutable facts of martial arts that all fight dynamics change dramatically when you throw down on the ground.
Like someone said, unless you’re Hoyst Gracie, you just disadvantaged yourself to the max.
I learned that if the ‘fight’ part of the fight wasn’t over in a second or two, at least to the point of accelerating dominance by one of the combatants, it usually does wind up on the ground. From my analysis over all those years of street combat, It usually happens after the clinch as mentioned here, and/or after one fighter gets a couple face hits in on the other, and this somehow triggers the other to try to dive in low around the waste to take it to the ground. As i’ve always asked participants about their level of skill or training afterwards, a predispostion to high school wrestling or other training was never really evident. This seems to just be an instinctive reaction to the situation. Especially if one fighter seems to be gaining in actual face hits, then there is a high probability of the recipient of the hits making a move to take it to the ground.
Again, this apears to be instinctive in terms of reverting back to the reptilian cortex phenomenon where primal survival always depended upon sheer overwhelming physical muscular power. Not technical skill or specialized training as we have evolved to now.
What this means is that if you are smack dancing around thowing ineffectual jabs and swipes with your foe for more than a few seconds but not taking him out, he will likely instinctively dive in for the take down. There are some ‘defenses’ for this, if you’re quick enough. But a ‘dive in’ take down is faster than you think and it presents a default ‘fake’ which can make you hesitate.
but quickly sidestepping and bringing up a knee, grabbing the neck in a reverse choke/headlock, or such, sometimes works. But the problem is not getting to that in point in the first place. Effective hand to hand should have won by now.
This goes for the clinch situation as well. I’ve never seen a clinch NOT go down on the floor unless there was a rapid violent head butt (the best useage of head butts, by the way). that broke it up fast. I was in a standing clinch where he had one hand ripping my ear off and he was jaw locked on the other side of my neck like a freaking vampire (still have the scar). too locked in tight for a head butt while his other arm pinned down my strong arm to my side, I thought it was over. fortunately this monster had long hair and I quickly freed my left hand and
tore him off me and down where i stomped the living(dead?) freaking vampire out of him, handcuffed him, and then started whittleing my wood baton into a stake…
So, again, clinches are not a good idea either. Stay out of that zone if possible.
The bottom line is that once a fight goes beyond a couple seconds or you go to ground, the physics change. The outcome doesn’t depend on so much general training as it does on sheer physcial and mental superiority.Generally the winner is the one who is stronger and more mentally vicious. Period.
So unless you are ‘Bruce Lee’ or Benny the Jet, or lightweight but ex combat conditioned spec ops commando, if you are 5’6″ and a 150 pounds and you are confronted by a six foot 210 pounder who looks like he can do reps on the bench with 200 pound weights,… Avoid going to clinch or ground under all circumstances. In fact, I would walk away as a first defensive maneuver, then if he followed me, I’d quickly turn and mace him and then pull my gun or knife in fear of my life. The hell with even getting my hands dirty in the first place if i don’t have to. Legally you’d be justified since you attempted a confrontational disengagement.
Bottom line #2, no matter how many black belts you have, if If one is less than optimally advantaged physically compared to the danger and circumstance this must be always be taken into consideration, and acted upon accordingly. Addtionally, if one is not optimally of physical advantage and happens to be a cop or in a high risk of confrontation occupation, then it would be highly recommened to EMPHASIZE a training regiment of ground fighting as part of your job qualifications. Especially someof the more ‘practical’ stuff. Remember, there’s always a place on your ‘lovers’ body, even in a hot sex clinch , that you can give a little ‘nibble’ to…
As far as Brad’s cheap ass remark about 7 bucks for a DVD, I suggest you forget about martial arts. Protecting one’s self with quality instruction is never cheap. I used to charge executive bodyguards five hundred bucks a day for a highly specialized crash course. Brad maybe should just stay out of trouble by remaining at home and watching spaghetti kung fu movies for his ‘training’. seven bucks is a bargain for Jeff’s quality of training. In fact, when you consider the gas and time to mail, the cost of buring the dvd, and the cost of making the video, from my personal experience, seven bucks is losing money!. Jeff’s doing everybody a favor!
Thanks Jeff, you’re a good dude. Good value integration on this forum as well.
Hey Jeff thanks for the tip,
do not mind me asking u BUT have u ever been in a multiple fight, I have.I was a body guard(name is a secret,)to a very powerful rich guy,. have been into many scraps ,AND still want to learn,
Haha I know what you mean I have been a Police officer for thirty years and have had over a thousand street fights and confrontations mostly one to one but sometimes heavily outnumbered and I still get nervous when I know a fight is coming and am always interested in how other people defend themselves. As you will know a lot of people talk a lot of nonsense about what they WOULD do in a situation but really you are lucky not to ‘freeze’ and honestly the more simple you defence the better.
Great Tips Jeff!
Hi Jeff,
Would you be interested in doing an interview for Australia’s #1 martial arts magazine. I write articles and have conducted a number of interviews with guys like yourself and it’d be a great way to promote the ISCQC down under.
Keep up the good work mate.
Kind Regards
Paul
Could you detail your combat experience? Unit, location MOS/NEC etc.
Don’t forget that if you are unlucky and end up on the ground with fighter(s) coming at you kicking the thing to do is NOT turn away to protect you head but turn towards and climb up the legs bashing groin as you go back to a standing position. A man can’t kick if you have his legs.
The best way is never to go to ground at all difficult but can be done.
Please send me the free DVD ( How To Defeat Larger Attackers ) Thanks
380 Knottingham Dr.
Athens, Ga. 30606
That was the first thing they taught us in Ninjitsu class was how to do different rolls. like if you were pushed to the ground,but I think it is better to try to stay off the ground,athough we are taught ground fighting. thank you gary for the advice by the way sir.
Fantastic thread – thanks Jeff and you all!