KM and the ground

[Lenny]

How much does KM focus on ground work? I know we would rather stand for obvious reasons, but, theoretically, if I get in a ruckus with someone who knows BJJ and they get me to the ground am I screwed? Or will I learn enough to handle myself against them?

[Emil]

HEre's a rough outline of what you will learn in the self defense class. remember this will vary to some degree at different schools.
how to defend some takedown attempts
how to escape the mount
how to move and kick on the ground
how to get to the ground safely
how to escape some common techniques on the grnd-headlocks and a couple of chokes.
basic submissions-armbar,figure four,and a couple of leg locks
weapons defenses on the ground

Having said this-fight to keep the fight standing-do what you have to do, get help from friends,escape,weapons,walls,furniture. if you get to the ground keep fighting and don't give up. as for individual predictions- if you are strictly grappling with an experienced grappler-you wouldn't fare very well.

[Andre]

The most important thing to remember is the mindset that if you end up on the ground, is that you don't want to out grapple a BJJ guy. The focus should be on fighting to get back up as soon as possible.

[wim]

As with any fight, it depens *a lot* on:

1) skill level
2) aggression/determination
3) speed/strength

I mean, just because he studies BJJ doesn't mean he's good. Also, it's very possible, maybe even likely, that he goes to one of those schools where they don't really do any standup. What I'm getting at is that you may knock him out before he ever gets you to the ground. If he's good though, and he can take a few hits while he takes you down, in my opinion you'll quite probably lose, all things being equal.

[Lenny]

Thanks for the responses. I know if I try to just grapple with a good grappler Iím dead, but I was just wondering if KM teaches some techniques on how to get a good grappler off of you and stand back up where we want to be?

[Armor All]

Lenny, the answer is yes. You generally won't focus on groundwork until Level 2 and higher, where you begin to concentrate more on learning to defend against attackers who know how to fight. You aren't going to learn any of the technical stuff unless your school also teaches BJJ. Then again, in a real fight, you wouldn't necessarily live or die by whether you knew the advanced BJJ techniques.

There was a post in the old forum where someone mentioned grappling with some BJJ guys. The BJJ guys got really confused because this individual would get up on his feet as soon as possible instead of staying on the ground and grappling. Kinda funny post, but it demonstrated the validity of the Krav ground theory.

[Lenny]

Armor All,

Thanks, Iíve barely been to 2 classes much less be ready for level two. But I look forward to it.

Is the old forum archived somewhere?

[JT]

I shared this story on the older forum, but thought it might be worth repeating. Last year I had a chance to train KM down in Rio de Janeiro. Early on in the class, I asked my training partner if they spent much time on BJJ, considering the number of practicioners in Brazil (in fact, I had just had a nice conversation with World Champion Rodrigo \"Comprido\" Medeiros at the same gym). He kind of shrugged off the question. Later on we were doing a grappling drill where I was on top of the defender, kind of in a side head control position. The defender's job was to escape to his feet while I worked on maintaining or improving my position. The first thing the defender did was to stick his fingers in my eyes... when I chose to protect my eyes, he was able to manuever out. Then we went again, and I protected my eyes from the get go... thus, he struck me in the groin and was going to grab me there. Thankfully, I was wearing a cup... everyone thought this was funny, because they don't wear them at this particular school. The instructor was then kind enough to use me to demostrate how to damage an attacker who is wearing a cup :shock: . Finally, we went one more time. I protected my eyes, and shielded my groin and went for a submission. At which point the defender bit me really hard on the nipple (closest thing to his mouth at the time), and I immediately let go and jumped up to me feet and gave him a \"What the Hell!!!\" look. He simply looked at me and said \"That is why we don't fear BJJ.\"

It's not that a BJJ practicioner can't do this, in fact, they could probably even get better positioning on the ground to do it. But you've got to make it an instinctive part of your arsenal and practice it to employ it in real life. Lesson learned..... :D

[Anonymous]

I agree biting, eye gouging, striking the groin etc are good tools to use, but I wouldn't rely on them totally. They would probably work best when someone is side mounted on you, but if he's mounted for example it will be much harder to use these tools against him. And if he's a good grappler and you have no experience other than trying to bite or eye gouge he would be able to mount fairly easy. That's probably what he would do in a street fight - mount all the way, push your arms up past your head, then pound your face in. In that position it would be impossible to bite, eye gouge or even squeeze the groin. Just put yourself into those kinds of positions and try it out.

Sounds a bit like the exercise JT mentioned wasn't entirely fair. So the guy on the bottom could eye gouge, grab the groin etc but JT couldn't do the same thing back to him? Or knee, punch and elbow? The other guys groin would have been wide open for him, eyes and nipples too... He could have put his arm on the other guys neck push down and choke him real hard, forcing him to use his hands to defend rather than grab the groin or go for his eyes. Then he could have biten him at the same time or squeeze the groin with his other hand. Not to mention give strong elbows to the head or knees to the liver and head. But he was just instructed to \"keep his position\", while the other guy basically was instructed (beforehand, without JT's knowledge) that he should do all of these dirty fighting tricks? Hmmm.... Seems like they had probably done this demonstration before, because other people had asked, but it just doesn't seem quite fair and somehow designed to make them look good.

Remenber also that we assume that the guy on the bottom has little or no ground fighting experience and thus will not know much about how to move other than attempting to bite and eye gouge. So even if he creates some space, he might not know what to do with it. If he does and knows how to use the space created to escape, he's probably studied at least some BJJ.

As I said, I do believe dirty fighting tricks are great tools to have, but I'd definitly recommend to learn at least some basic ground fighting. You don't have to be an expert, but basic movement on the ground, especially escapes if your goal is to stand up, how to make space, so you could then maybe use bites etc, things like that can be really important. Also, in a real situation with the adrenaline flowing, the attacker might not react as strongly to those dirty fighting tricks as during practice at a gym.

So if the place where you train offers ground fighting classes I'll say go for it. It's also good to spar on the ground to get some basic feeling of what that feels like (if someone really knows how to put his weight on top of you it's really hard to breathe just lying there).

We do some basic techniques sometimes in the regular Krav Maga classes, but we don't usually spar or give a lot of resistance while doing those exercises, so maybe taking a BJJ class in addition to your Krav training might be a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Lenny

Krav Maga has excellent, still simple and easy to learnd ground techniques. Many similar or very much similar stuff, like BJJ. Except we are not willing to say on the floor with the attacker, but getting up and fight or flight. I have talk to many experinced bjj guys, and they are also not really inti taking a person down outside the gym.

We can not count always on the idea of staying on our feet. Sometimes you are on the flor, and your attacker(s) is trying to kick you, punch you, stab you - etc. - while he is standing, or almost standing. So, we have techniques for this reasons too. And also basic stuff for being on the floor with the attacker, and even takedown, throws and other useful things.

[Lenny]

We spent about an hour on the ground tonight. It was pretty cool. We learned how to escape a choke with a pluck and buck the guy off, roll him and get back up. We touched on arm bars, mostly how to avoid them. It was cool. My terminology may be off on these things so I hope it makes sense.
Weíre doing a two hour gun defense on Sat. Iím really looking forward to that.