When the Fight Goes to the Ground. Lori O'Connell
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Название: When the Fight Goes to the Ground

Автор: Lori O'Connell

Издательство: Ingram

Жанр: Спорт, фитнес

Серия:

isbn: 9781462909926

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ a street-oriented assault situation, this book will teach you concepts and techniques you can combine with your training for application in this context. There are also many traditional martial arts schools that focus on a single stand-up striking style with little to no defensive techniques for the ground. If you’re a student at such a school and would like to learn a simple, effective system of ground combat you can combine with your stand-up defensive skills, this book has you covered. The last type of martial artist is the one most likely to actually use these skills, but oftentimes spends the least amount of time training. Because of the temporary nature of the physical defense training programs and their demanding schedules, many police officers have very little experience training ground defense skills. This simple ground defense system provides skills they can learn quickly and easily apply on the job.

      The ground defense system in this book is NOT a complete system of self-protection. It covers only one aspect to be partnered with other strategies and defensive techniques, including soft skills like personal awareness, conflict avoidance, and de-escalation tactics, as well as hard/physical skills, such as stand-up striking, throws, and takedowns, etc. Nevertheless, ground defense is an important skill to learn if one’s goal is to have a well-rounded system of self-protection.

      How to Use this Book

      This book teaches self-protection from the ground in a variety of ways. It provides information and concepts that help you understand the realities of fighting from the ground, as well as information on the defensive advantages and disadvantages that are inherent in different combat situations. It teaches you the basic tools of physical defense on the ground, body shifting /positional strategy and attacks to vital targets, which combine to give you a foundation that can be adapted for different situations, body types, situational factors, etc. It also provides detailed descriptions with photos showing you a number of examples of how the basic tools can be used to mount an effective defense. These examples help you consider different ways of applying your skills, but don’t let them bind you. Real physical combat is an entity in itself. Everything can change in an instant. Attackers don’t necessarily react the way you expect. You have to be adaptive and ready for anything. Your attacker could be so high or drunk that they don’t react to pain. Or your first strike could knock them out or simply dissuade them from pursuing further aggressive action. You may even find yourself reacting in a way that you never trained but made sense at the time. Keep an open mind, whether you’re training your defensive skills or your reacting to a real live attacker. As leaders in my style have said countless times in the past: Never say always. Never say never. There are no rules, only results.

      CHAPTER 1

       Understanding the Ground

      It is important to recognize the nature of ground defense in a street context to be able to fully understand the logic behind the techniques featured in this book. More than that, knowing the nature of ground defense helps anyone interested in self-protection to realize its place in an overall defensive strategy.

      Statistics on Ground Fighting

      If you have any interest in the martial arts or self-defense, you have probably heard the often quoted “statistic” that 80-90 percent of physical altercations end up on the ground. I, myself, heard this statistic quoted often enough throughout the entirety of my 20+ year career in the martial arts. Not once did I ever hear the source of said statistic. It was simply “common knowledge” that everyone accepted as fact.

      There are two legitimate sources that I am aware of that have presented statistics on this topic. One of them is the ASLET (American Society of Law Enforcement Training) pamphlet used from their July 1997 Use of Force Training Seminar. The seminar was presented in Los Angeles by Sergeant Greg Dossey, Sergeant John Sommers, and Officer Steve Uhrig of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). This document included a description of the study and methodology used in examining Use of Force incidents by the LAPD. In 1991, Sergeant Dossey completed a comparative study of use of force incidents reported by the LAPD for the year of 1988. He looked at all 5,617 use of force incident narratives written by officers for that year, and devised a method for codifying the information contained and analyzing it for what they identified as dominant altercation patterns. The study was replicated in 1992 by the LAPD’s Training Review committee.

      One of the main conclusions of the report was that “Nearly two thirds of the 1988 altercations (62%) ended with the officer and subject on the ground with the officer applying a joint lock and handcuffing the subject.” After this report was published, the LAPD instituted a program that included training in ground control skills, which were based on modern judo and jiu-jitsu grappling skills specially adapted for law enforcement.

      Respondents were asked whether an attacker had ever attempted to take them to the ground by force. Fifty percent reported this had occurred to them. Of that number, 60% reported that their attackers had been successful in doing so. Most of the attackers were reported as having been under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

      There were other statistics of note in this same study with regard to assault patterns. In 33% of these cases, the attacker pulled the officer to the ground. In 28% of the cases the attacker pushed them to the ground. In 24% of them, the attacker tackled them. And in 15% of cases, the officer was kicked and punched to the ground.

      Once the officer was down, 64% of the time the attacker continued to assault the officer that was taken down. In 31% of cases, the subject fled. And in 5% of cases the subject waited for the officer to get back to their feet to continue the fight. When it came to the ground fights, 77% of subjects that continued to fight used grappling and pinning techniques, 66% used strikes, and 21% of them attempted to disarm the officer, with 5% being successful.

      As with any statistical information, this must all be kept in context. We must remember that in both of the reports from which the above statistics came, the primary subjects being examined were police officers. In the case of the LAPD report, we must remember that police officers are more likely to willingly go to the ground in order to gain control over their suspect so they could make an arrest. In many of these cases, the officer is likely to have had a partner on scene for back-up, making it safer to do so. The results from the Calibre Press/PPCT Management Systems research project are a little more telling in that they reveal assault patterns for scenarios in which police officers were under attack. These statistics are likely more indicative of the assault patterns a civilian would experience, but of course there is no way to know for sure.

      What we can take away from these statistics is that a significant proportion of fights do indeed end up on the ground, even if it is not likely as high as 80-90%. This, however, does not mean that you would want to willingly go to the ground when you have the choice not to, even if you do have a strong base of ground fighting skills. In most street defense situations, the ground is a dangerous place and the last place you want to be if your goal is self-protection and preservation. Unfortunately, you don’t necessarily have the option of picking and choosing the type of physical conflict that you get to deal with. You may be forcefully taken down or knocked down with a strike. You might be attacked when you are already on the ground. Or you may trip and fall in the middle of a standing altercation.

      Whatever way you end up there, the ground is a very different type of defensive situation than a stand-up conflict. The skills you have СКАЧАТЬ