Standing vs. ground

I thought I'd start a new thread instead of hijacking the "arms" thread too much.

There was a point we were indirectly working towards in that discussion about the difference between standing & ground work

I'm pretty confident about my abilities standing up, both in striking and standing grappling, takedowns, etc., but I'm not that great on the ground. I think I could beat Joe on the street or most traditional standing stylists on the ground, but that's about it. This has always been good enough for my purposes, since random fights aren't usually against good grapplers. If I wanted to compete, I'd need to do an intensive period in ground grappling.

I think this is because there's really two aspects in executing a technique. The first is the technique itself, which is really the easy part, whether a punch, kick, lock takedown, etc. The hard part is providing a base to execute the technique from, which is much harder. If you've seen someone throw a beautiful kick that ends up three feet from the guy's head or try a lock or takedown and not have the leverage to do it, that's what I mean by the base. Standing up, this involves being in the right spot and having the right solidity and leverage to do what you need to do. No base, no technique. In my very limited ground grappling experience, it's not so much that the standing techniques don't work on the ground, it's that the way I'm used to forming my base doesn't work. I don't have anything to anchor against.

Standing I mostly anchor against the ground, and to a lessor extent against my opponent. I anchor against my opponent more in a takedown than in a strike, but I'm still more anchored against the ground. On the ground, sometimes I can get techniques to work by anchoring against my opponent, but I don't have nearly the consistency I do standing. I think I have enough techniques to work with on the ground, but I can't always make them work.

I'm curious if anyone else has an opinion on this, especially if you've made a transition between standing & ground.

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I take TKD and TSD. Those are both expert standing, kicking and speed arts.
Screw that.
I take almost all of my fights to the ground as soon as possible.
I've grown up fighting standing up, but I'm at home on the ground. I've been told multiple times by multiple people that I would be great in BJJ or MMA.

There's my two cents.

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You need a "tripod".

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Two principles that immediately apply once on the ground....

1.) You are now fighting in a 2 dimensional space rather than a 3 dimensional one.

2.) The ground itself is a primary component of physical limitations of movement. For a skilled groundfighter it works as an accomplice... for a person not skilled on the ground it works as an adversary.

So for a stand-up striker they are fighting 3 opponents... the actual opponent, gravity and the ground itself. This is a clue as to why most strikers find themselves lost once on the ground.

I will let you think about those things for a while and I will post more later...

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

well in my experience (which isnt a great amnount yet)

the way legs work on the ground is one of the major differences for me

also that not giving an inch thing

my personal prefference would be not to go to the ground

but at the moment i cant help feeling that i would be more effective if i did

ahhhh the paradoxes of life..............

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"...any theory that satisfies the facts demands assumptions which are completely absurd."

Aleister Crowley

Simply put, to be a good martial artist, one must be versatile, adaptable and open to new ways and methods.

I always liked and preferred Striking/Standup compared to Groundwork, until I started training in it and found how much fun it was and how it improved my Standup game to new heights.
Also, the age old cliche of all fights go to the ground ended up being true a good 60% of the time in sparring and general squabbing and so once there I was able to continue the fight to new levels and on a more solid foundation having trained more extensively in Grappling/Groundfighting than what I had had before.

So, in other words, just do it.

One thing people don't talk about in most fights is what is around you. Many people talk in terms of open space either standing take downs or on the ground. Street fights don't happen that often in a wide open area in the street instead they happen more in a room or a confined space.
In a room like in a bar there are objects tables chairs people and so on. Those make a difference in standing or the ground. In many cases it adds or takes from the conditions of both.

A good example is holding someone over a table brings in new conditions. It is almost a combo of both standing and the ground. Few people ever train under those conditions and when they get into a fight they have no adjustment. A good way to think about this is a form of multiples the opponent and the restrictions of the conditions you are fighting in.

There are other areas you can see this such as fighting between parked cars, or fighting next to a structure. I prefer that myself as I use structures very well against an opponent and have had good results several times.

Try standup or grappling on a set of stairs, I think you will find it's a whole new game, though the fundamentals are the same it's not so easy to do.

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“	Originally Posted By: aqira One thing people don't talk about in most fights is what is around you. Many people talk in terms of open space either standing take downs or on the ground. Street fights don't happen that often in a wide open area in the street instead they happen more in a room or a confined space. In a room like in a bar there are objects tables chairs people and so on. Those make a difference in standing or the ground. In many cases it adds or takes from the conditions of both. A good example is holding someone over a table brings in new conditions. It is almost a combo of both standing and the ground. Few people ever train under those conditions and when they get into a fight they have no adjustment. A good way to think about this is a form of multiples the opponent and the restrictions of the conditions you are fighting in. There are other areas you can see this such as fighting between parked cars, or fighting next to a structure. I prefer that myself as I use structures very well against an opponent and have had good results several times. Try standup or grappling on a set of stairs, I think you will find it's a whole new game, though the fundamentals are the same it's not so easy to do.	”

These are some excellent points.
I was lucky, or unlucky, enough to get exposed to that type of fighting environment in my younger days when I Bounced at some tougher clubs, there was a lot of fighting in that scenario at times and I was able to become good enough in situations like that to be able to handle myself and others well enough.

It's come in handy once or twice since then, don't often fight or use that type of fighting in environments like that, but it does come in very very very handy knowing how to when in it.

Aqira is correct, although he's getting ahead of himself.

What Aqira is doing is adding variables that will directly influence any and all action.

What we need to do is back up and strip everything away so the principles can be learned in a more structured and linear method.

It's the same as introducing weapons or multiple attackers... it's always valid but it's skipping over important basic principles that need attention first.

For example, if you are a marksman... you may find yourself in many, many scenarios... alone in the wilderness in a survival situation where you have to shoot game to eat... in a robbery in a liquor store... paid as a contract assassin to kill someone... hired as a bodyguard.... in a riot at a soccer game where your life is threatened by baseball bat wielding hooligans... in a small room with 6 other armed assailants....

Now each of these scenarios will afford an opportunity to utilize your skills and your gun yet they will all require different tactics. BUT.... let's go back to the beginning and trace the linear learning pattern to when there were no variables. There were basics that you had to learn like loading the gun, carrying the gun, drawing the gun, aiming and shooting with consistency and accuracy, cleaning the gun and maintaining it so that it is always in working condition, etc... These are the basics that will be relied upon in all the situations and scenarios, so they are the most important. Every other tactical maneuver will be based on those first. It would not make sense to focus on drawing the weapon and dispatching a room full of armed assailants (think gun kata from that movie Equilibrium) without having ever learned how to basically load and fire the gun first.

This is a pitfall that most all martial arts and martial artists fall into today. They automatically start learning weapons or studying scenarios for multiple attackers or fighting in lava pits and broken glass while they neglect their basic fundamental skills.

Before anyone can even think about defeating multiple attackers of fighting in a lava pit first the basics have to be developed... the common thread that will be used in all scenarios. These include good basic punching and kicking skills and defense, good takedowns and takedown defense, good wrestling control and good submission grappling skills coupled with good sense of distance, timing, balance and sensitivity. If you don't posess these things then everything else is worthless. Environmental awareness is secondary. Even if the answer is to run away and you are looking for the nearst exit, environmental awareness is still going to be secondary to the skill of running.

This is why the early NHB contests were so important. They stripped everything down, removing the variables so thet these basic fundamentals could be tested in a pure, untainted environment. This is where many arts and artists and their motives were exposed. The one dimensional strikers would walk away denigrating grappling stating how their art taught them to defeat multiple attackers and that they would not want to go to the ground. All this directly after the fact that they were just defeated by a single grappler. They spent too much time focusing on defeating multiple attackers that would fight in their presupposed method that they had trained against when they should have been spending that time to defend against a single unarmed attacker trying to take them to the ground.

So, getting back to Aqira's point....
There are many, many variables that can be introduced in many scenarios but they are unimportant when trying to dissect basic principles in understanding different ranges. A table may or may not be there... a bar may or may not be there.... but the ground (floor) is always going to be there, wherever you go (now I will get smartass comments about fighting in a space capsule orbiting the earth...).

The point is that learning to fight on the ground is mandatory at the beginnng level of learning any and all martial principles because everything else you learn will be based upon it. Learning how to use the ground and the principles involved will come in handy later when encountering the variables that Aqira mentions. A skilled person can use a wall, or a bar, or a car, or even another person just like the ground if he knows the principles.

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

I think the variables prove the principals and even illustrates just how much even those fighters with a wide range of styles really depend on them when it gets real. In fact a great way to see it is in confined space. Where do you go if not back to the basics at that point?
Take the table as an example are you standing...well sort of, or are you grappling...well sort of which basic do you need, which one is more important the basics of standing or ground. If you say both, then how do you use both and apply them? Oh and is that both basics on offense or defense. PS no time to think....

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You are not where you have been and you are not where you are going you are only here.

You are correct... But if you don't already understand and are able to apply those basics it won't matter.

It's better to learn and test with no variables.

You have to learn the alphabet before you can learn to read and write....

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

But some only learn the letters that spell words pertaining to one arena...and don't know how to make the correct words that variables produce.

It goes back to narrow focus vs wider focus. Principles of leverage, balance, force, speed, etc. mean nothing if you can't put it all together in a split second, in any environment.

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“	But some only learn the letters that spell words pertaining to one arena...and don't know how to make the correct words that variables produce.	”

What? I take it you don't understand the analogy...

Do you mean to tell me that some people can learn to read and write but only learn some of the letters in the alphabet and never become familiar with the others?

“	It goes back to narrow focus vs wider focus. Principles of leverage, balance, force, speed, etc. mean nothing if you can't put it all together in a split second, in any environment.	”

While I agree with that statement it's suggestive of backwards engineering. You are saying that if one cannot read and write then knowing the alphabet is pointless.

Ok.... I can agree with that.... But at least someone that knows the alphabet is on the way to learning to read and write. Someone who doesn't is never going to learn to read and write.

Let's assume that that basic fundamentals are "X" and variables are "Z".

I can guarantee that in any situation "X" has a better chance of successful improvisation than "Z" does if he has no solid grasp of the principles of "X".

For example, it's why many of the "variables" guys do poorly in a limited rules environment (NHB/MMA) against the guys who are really good at "X". It just doesn't make sense... they can't even effectively apply their basics in that limited, variable free environment so how can they even hope to be able to apply the basics (that they don't have) in an environment replete with variables? The answer is "they can't".

You can't put the roof on your house until the foundation is solid. If you attempt to do that the house will fall in.

Basically, using our analogy, someone who is familiar with the alphabet is going to fare much better than someone who isn't when thrust into a situation where they have to communicate with the written word.

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."

Learning basics...always a must

Being able to apply basics...is the next step in progressive development and why you trained

Being able to apply basics in changed environment...few can

Many artists with good basic foundations and even many with good skill levels can't adapt for a few reasons that include not thinking about it, not having a system or facility that offers it or can offer it, and being set in their thinking of stats.

A simple visual is good kickers and good ground fighters suck in water, Wushu sucks between parked cars, boxers suck laying face down on the ground etc...

So to go back to some of the point of the original question, there should be more than a transition between standing and ground the next level of transition needs to be adaptation to conditions.

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You are not where you have been and you are not where you are going you are only here.

The problem arises when a mental separation is developed between "standing and ground". They should not be looked at as separate entities but as a whole. They compose the basic principles that need to be learned... the alphabet, so to speak.

If one only learns stand-up striking principles that is like learning the letters A-M and never learning N-Z. Before one can learn to read and write and apply that skill the entire alphabet needs to be learned. Once that is done one can learn to speak, spell and write all the words in a language and even words in other languages that utilize the same alphabet.

If one starts out with situational variables they will be trying to spell words that contain letters they have never seen, or they will be substituting with letters that they know and the product will be jarbled up nonsense. Of course, a bunch of people all speaking nonsense to each other is understood by each other(within their own bubble) and they will never know they aren't learning the language correctly until they encounter someone that knows the language.

I disagree that good groundfighters suck in water. I would think that good groundfighting skills would be the most important to have in that situation.

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Rock On!
Cam
"Raise up your mind....."