New BJJ and Grappling Study – You can Participate – Posted Jan. 29, 2009
By Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. [Warning: Longer than usual post]
People who have been following MMA, submission grappling and martial arts since 1994 have been aware of the increasing emphasis placed on ground fighting. Yes, a lot of the push is because ground-fighting experts are trying to convince people to become involved in their martial art or trying to attract more students to their studios. However, there is an extreme seriousness to their claims as well. People can get injured, maimed or killed if they aren’t able to defend themselves.
As a serious MMA or submission grappling fan you’ve probably either heard or read the following claims:
Ninety to Ninety-five percent of fights go to the ground; or
Most fights go to the ground
These claims have become a part of the lexicon of grappling gurus and their participating disciples, including me. However, is it true?
As a person who has been involved in some aspect of martial arts since I was nine years old, I have been apart of the tradition of accepting claims, verbatim, from martial arts professionals. Most of the advice has been wise, while other times it has landed me in situations I don’t want to talk about. So when I heard this claim coming from so many Jiu-jitsu and submission grappling experts in the mid 1990s I accepted it at face value.
However, as an academic, this statement over the last few years has begun to bother me. I began to wonder on what basis this claim can be made. Are there any studies that have been conducted to verify these assertions? Finally, I reached a standstill in my thoughts on the subject. I needed to know what was fueling the mantra that 90 to 95 percent of fights go to the ground. Is it an urban myth or is it for real?
So over a period of three months I designed an implemented an exploratory study with the expressed interest of trying to see if there was any validity in the claim that 90 to 95 percent of fights go to the ground or that most fights go to the ground. Over 300 street fights were analyzed during this study. The results were clarifying as well as totally unexpected.
For the purposes of my study, I needed actual fights between average citizens. However, it is nearly impossible to find access to enough physical fights between two people to analyze in person, especially in a timely and safe manner. Therefore an alternative method had to be chosen in order to study this question. This problem was resolved by using the readily available data uploaded and archived on the popular video sharing site, YouTube. The video sharing website provided the researcher with an abundant amount of data to analyze the question regarding how often fights end up on the ground and by what methods do fighters end up on the ground. For the purposes of this study, a content analysis was conducted where 300 fights were dissected over a two month period in order to address the question of whether 90 or 95 percent of fights go to the ground.
For a more detailed description of the abstract, literature review, hypothesis, methodology, findings and conclusions, contact bakil@mgc.edu.
Below are the research questions and the findings from the study:
Research Question
RQ1: What percentage of fights end with both fighters having gone to the ground at some point during the physical confrontation?
RQ2: What percentage of fights end with only one fighter having gone to the ground at some point during the physical confrontation?
RQ3: By what methods do fighters end up fighting off the ground? (i.e., punch, kick, takedown, push)
Findings
Although the findings cannot be generalized to the entire population; in this study both fighters ended up on the ground in 42% of the fights analyzed. This percentage increased substantially (72%) when analyzed for at least one fighter going to the ground.
So what do these numbers indicate for research questions one (RQ1) and two (RQ2)? It means that the people who have been making these claims are not far off the mark. They just have to be more specific. In other words, there is more than a good chance that if two people fight, one of them is going to end up on the ground (72% in this study). The chance that both will end up there is much less (42% in this study), but it is still substantial enough that one should focus on ground defense.
The third research question that needed to be answered is how do those fighters end up on the ground? The answer to that query is that in our study, 57% of the fighters who ended up on the ground were taken down by a throw, a trip or being pulled to the ground. Being pushed only accounted for 7% of fighters who ended up on the ground. So learning how to grapple and more specifically; how to apply and stop takedowns is vital to fighting.
The other most common way that fighters ended up on the ground was by being punched. This accounted for 35% of the total incidents where a fighter was sent to the ground. One other important point is for martial artists or others who might rely on kicking techniques. Out of 300 analyzed fights and 600 fighters, only one person fell to the ground because of a kick. However, that kick did result in a knockout of the person on the receiving end.
What happens when fighters hit the ground?
One very interesting finding from this study involved what happens to fighters once they do fall to the ground. At the following rates, the first person to hit the ground faced the following outcome. They either lost the fight (59%) or there was no discernible victor (33%), essentially a draw. Those who hit the ground second or remained standing faced different outcomes. They either won the fight (59%), nearly sixty percent, or no discernible victor could be declared (33%). This finding recurred repeatedly even if only one person went to the ground or if both people went to the ground. It even applied to situations where both fighters ended up on the ground and the person who initiated the takedown or pushed or punched someone in that direction landed on the ground first. In this study, fighters who hit the ground first were the clear victors in less than 5% of fights observed.
This indicates that in a street fight it is a major no-no to hit the ground first in any way. The findings were so one sided in this category it is highly likely that this is a major factor in determining who wins fights. Future studies should replicate these results.
Women should also be very careful to make sure that there hair is pinned up in an altercation as many takedowns involving women were due to their opponents (women) grabbing their hair (19%) and using it as a tool to control their head movement. In this study it was almost a guaranteed takedown if only one woman had control of the other woman’s hair. The other option was being pummeled. In one fight, a man’s ‘dred-locked’ hair was also used to throw him to the ground. I think further research would demonstrate that hair grabbing is not a habit related to gender, but availability.
Another finding that could support the argument that people should learn ground defense is that the first fighter to hit the ground usually lost the scramble for positional dominance. They were either quickly mounted, side mounted or had blows reigned down on them from many angles. Although the majority of the positional dominance observed would be considered crude from a trained martial artist’s perspective, it did demonstrate why ground training is necessary. Most of the combatants were at a loss of what to do when they were being controlled and subsequently pummeled.
Who’s Fighting Who?
In reference to the characteristics of the fighters in this study, demographic questions such as age, ethnicity or race could not be asked. However, records were kept using this researcher’s best judgment. Of the 600 combatants who fought, their opponents usually looked like them in a number of categories. Men fought men. Women fought women. Ethnicities or races appeared to be similar as in whites fighting whites, blacks vs. blacks, etc. Combatants also appeared to be the same age. Old men fought old men, teenagers fought what appeared to be teenagers and adults fought adults. This study suggests that a person involved in a street fight is most likely going to fight someone just like them.
Tips for: Avoiding Conflict or Inevitable Confrontations
Other interesting things to point out are that although some fights appeared to be spontaneous, most of them had an incubation period where many decisions led up to the ultimate physical confrontation. From studying these fights it is this researcher’s opinion that many of them could have been avoided. However, in cases where a fight is unavoidable, the following advice would be offered:
Never allow anyone to invade your zone of safety (a distance where they can quickly ’sucker punch,’ push, pull or grab you without you being able to react).
Do not walk up to anyone ‘talking trash’ or allow them to ‘talk trash’ to you. Either way someone will most likely be hit mid-sentence.
Either fight or exit the scene. Make the decision quickly. Do not argue and do not posture up face to face, chest to chest or shoulder to shoulder. (Watch out for head butts!)
Do not try to fight more than one person, especially if you are alone.
Do not allow yourself to get mounted. (Where your opponent is sitting on your chest with both of their legs straddling your ribcage.) This was the absolute worst position for the fighters in this study; and most important:
Do not be the first person to hit the ground!
So, there you have it; an exploratory study to try to find out if 90 to 95 percent of fights end up on the ground. The results offered in this study indicate that 90 to 95 percent is too high of a percentage rate. It is probably closer to 42% where both fighters hit the ground and 72% where at least one fighter ends up on the ground.
In the final analysis, an overwhelming majority of fights did end where at least one fighter ended up on the ground at some point. As this was an exploratory study, more are definitely needed to explore this topic and other grappling or MMA related issues. However, what was probably the most important finding in this study is that if you are untrained and are the first person to end up on the ground in a fight there is a good chance that you will lose and the best you can hope for is that no victor can be declared.
Bakari Akil II is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Middle Georgia College and received his Ph.D. in Mass Communications from Florida State University. He has studied no-gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for over three years and also holds a green belt in Judo. He trains with Team Praxis in Macon, GA. For more information on this study contact Bakari Akil at bakil@fccj.edu.
New BJJ and Grappling Study – You can Participate – Posted Jan. 29, 2009
Filed under: BJJ, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, Fighting, Fights, Grappling, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, MMA, Mixed Martial Arts
Bakari,
Very cool analysis! Makes a case for Tim Cartmell’s DVD “Ground Proofing”: http://www.shenwu.com/groundProofing.html.
Interesting that in his copy for that video he makes the claim that “over half” of fights will go to the ground.
~FD
Bakari, outstanding article! Will pass this link on to some interested parties.
Thanks guys…
I appreciate the comments. I will also check out Cartmell’s site…
Outstanding article! Very interesting.
Bakari, nice analysis and writeup. Stats like “57% of the fighters who ended up on the ground were taken down by a throw, a trip or being pulled to the ground.” conclusions like “So learning how to grapple and more specifically; how to apply and stop takedowns is vital to fighting.” and general admonitions like “Do not be the first person to hit the ground!” are some reasons that give me more of a preference for arts that specialize in throws and takedowns (and hence defences and control of the clinch range). Imho, I think your study’s data and conclusions support this preference and need more so than for your current favorite art (but I do like bjj a lot!).
I’m new to BJJ, but I thought BJJ was about takedowns. Based on the above comment from Neijia it is not. What is the focus of BJJ? Is it mainly a defensive martial art or can it be used for an offensive attack?
Thanks Neija,
I can understand your preference for arts that specialize in “throws and takedowns.” I wish more BJJ and submission grappling academies would make takedowns and takedown defense an integral part of training. Even with my limited Judo experience I am able to take down many of my fellow BJJ practictioners without any problems, some who have been training for years.
Kitwana,
BJJ is derived from Japanese Jujitsu which was used by the Samurai as a last ditch effort in battle. It was composed of throws, chokes and bone breaking submissions. Jigoro Kano altered the usage of JuJitsu in the early 20th century and popularized it for the masses in the form of Judo. Judo concentrates mainly on throws and pinning your opponent for 30 seconds. It also has most of the submission grappling techniques that you will find in BJJ. However, most of the submission techniques are offered at the later stages of training (e.g., brown or black belt). This is because competitions are won easily by throwing someone on their back or keeping them on their back for thirty seconds or making them tap out with a gi choke. It usually takes a while to get someone to submit in an armbar, etc.
Jujitsu, the form which was considered too brutal for modern civilization, lost favor in Japan. Count Maeda taught the Gracies Jujitsu when he migrated to Brazil in the early 20th century as a way of saying thank you to a Gracie patriarch who assisted Japanese with migration to Brazil. The Gracies transformed it into Gracie Jiu-jitsu and it has evolved to Brazilian Jiu-jitsu because so many others in Brazil are involved and have helped to further the art.
Takedowns and throws are a part of this tradition as well, but it is not concentrated on as much as in Judo or wrestling. At this stage in the development of martial arts and MMA most people know that they should master some system of takedowns and integrate it into their BJJ or grappling on a consistent basis. Those who concentrate on takedowns and throws should also make sure they can grapple and submit their opponents as well.
In reference to the question of is it a defensive or offensive art, it can be both and a lot of it depends upon the person and their style. Everyone brings a personality to grappling.
Thanks for the clarification and history. Very interesting stuff indeed!
Intriguing bit of research: out of interest, what criteria did you use for picking the videos? Just typing in ’streetfight’ to YouTube and looking over a selection, or were you searching for a more specific type of fight (e.g., must be two people, mustn’t look prearranged, must be from a certain time period etc)?
I’ve wondered about the ‘90%’ statistic, which has been around for a while. The earliest documented mention I’ve seen so far is from the well-known Playboy article by Pat Jordan , where he states “Rorion believes that since most real fights end up on the ground 90 percent of the time, Gracie jujitsu is the most devastating of all martial arts” (’BAD’, Playboy, Vol. 36, No. 9, September 1989).
That goes up by 5% in the UFC 1 broadcast, on 12th November 1993. About 35 minutes in, Rod Machado (no relation to the more famous bearers of that name – he was one of Royce Gracie’s students, a flight instructor rather than a professional commentator) claimed that “95% of the fights, according to PD (police department) studies, end up on the ground”.
On the BJJ history post above, not sure you could say it came from jujitsu. If you’ve ever had a look over the JudoForum, they often get irritated by that: their argument would be that it wasn’t jujitsu, it was judo (there are plenty of threads where judokas complain BJJ history doesn’t give enough credit to judo, though I think that’s less the case these days).
Of course, that gets complicated by the fact that ‘judo’ wasn’t a hard and fast term when the judoka Mitsuyo Maeda came over to Brazil, ‘Kano ju jitsu’ also being in use (hence why it was called ‘jiu jitsu’ in Brazil in the early 20th century, an unusual variant of the spelling which has since stuck). So, it would have been normal to refer to what became judo as jujitsu at the time, which confuses the issue, on top of judo’s own origins in Kano’s understanding of various jujitsu styles.
Slidey,
Thanks..
I don’t have my notes in front of me but here’s the simple overview of my process:
Since I was using content analysis as the methodology, I had to create a coding scheme first to make sure I could categorize and analyze each variable according to a set standard. I had to define what every term stood for even if I already knew what it meant. So terms like trip, throw, push, pull, punch, kick, what actually constitutes hitting the ground, etc. all had to be thoroughly defined.
Without having the benefit of the criteria (algorithms) that Youtube uses to present videos I had to come up with a method that would allow the opportunity for many different types of fights between private citizens to have a good chance of being chosen. I researched as many synonyms, colloquialisms, etc., for the term ‘fight’ and then selected a number of terms that would allow for successful searches on Youtube.
‘Fist fight(s), ’scraps,’ ‘one on one,’ ‘cat fight(s),’ ‘knockout(s),’ along with a number of other terms were chosen as terms. From those terms a maximum of 50 fights from each category were chosen to analyze from the list presented. Since fifty fights were not always possible from all of the terms, I would also copy down the list of fights provided on the side in conjunction with the videos selected from the initial search. This allowed me to reach 300 fights.
Each fight was recorded and indexed according to the coding scheme and the excel spreadsheet I created to catalogue the fights.
No professional fights were allowed, no “Felony Fight” type material where people were paid to fight, the fights had to have an ending and fights where more than two people were involved were not counted. It had to be a ‘real’ fight.
As far as the time period, I only analyzed a few fights that were from the 80s and early 90s. I think the age of the personal cameras and cell phone video cams dominates this study. I didn’t put a ban on when it happened if it met the criteria set forth at the beginning.
Even though 300 fights were analyzed and met the criteria set before coding I probably observed just as many that didn’t meet the qualifications due to compilations, abrupt endings of video footage, people jumping in to help fighters, etc. I also have to admit that after a while it became taxing to watch as the language, violence and behavior was often deplorable.
Slidey,
On the BJJ from Judo or Jujitsu debate, I guess it would boil down to Maeda if I read your argument correctly. I would have to revisit my books on the subject.
My history of the split comes from readings from Judo texts I have collected over the years. The BJJ history comes from the multiple Gracie and other books that have been printed in the last 3 or 4 years on the subject. Each one has a ‘canned’ historical account but sometimes they diverge.
The use of English to define the terms also inhibits the debate. Having knowledge of Japanese would probably help…But I will not go that far…
Great post.
I had a similar experience a little while back. At the campus near my house, a BJJ club started. Their posters said:
” ‘95% of street fights go to the ground’ – LAPD study
Real self defense means being on the ground. Will you know what to do when you get there? ”
That second part may not be an exact quote, but its close. It was the ‘95%’, however, that got my attention and, I suspect, the attention of other people.
(For the record, I have no problem with the club’s existence and I do believe that ground fighting is an important *part* of self-defense training. However, I hate it when any group makes it sound like they have a monopoly on self-defense.)
I wanted to get to the bottom of that ‘95%’. So I went looking for the LAPD study. I couldn’t find the study itself, but I found enough information about it, including this article from Time (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986940,00.html).
The study was made by a Sgt. Greg Dossey of the LAPD in 1997. The correct statistic is around 67%. And it isn’t ’streetfights’. The study was made on officer arrests and the statistic refers to “altercations” where “the officer and the suspect ended up wrestling on the ground.” (in TIME’s words.) (Presumably this excludes arrests where the suspect did not resist.)
So, not only was the number inflated, but the context was skewed. An officer trying to arrest a resisting suspect is a different situation than two civilians in a street fight. For an officer to control a resisting suspect, it is likely that the officer will try to pin the suspect against something solid: a wall, a car, or the ever-available ground.
Anyway, I appreciate the effort to combat some of the BS in martial arts. Thanks!
Hmm – if thats the case, then what study was Rod Machado referring to back in 1993? As he also mentions a police department study (doesn’t specify LAPD), at least four years previous to the one you mentioned (could well be older, as given he was a Gracie student, he may have just be repeating what his instructors had told him).
If they in fact are both LAPD, I can’t imagine there would be such a big difference (95% versus 67%) over a mere four years, so that would lend credence to the idea the stats were beefed up by certain BJJ/GJJ schools advertising. Perhaps this is a regular study run by the police, so there might be more up to date statistics?
The Time magazine article made it sound like that was a one-time study for the LAPD, not a regular thing. In my searching, I was looking specifically studies by the LAPD and didn’t notice multiple studies by them.
However, LAPD can’t be the only department who has looked into this sort of thing.
Thanks Pienso!
Hey… I just found this in my notes. Its an article about the LAPD’s study and it mentions that
- Sgt. Dossey began his work in 1991, and
- it cites the “going to the ground” number as 62%
http://ejmas.com/jnc/2007jnc/jncart_Leblanc_0701.html
Interesting find: the guy commenting on the research states that “The LAPD study does not show that ‘90% of fights go to the ground.’ Instead, the LAPD study shows that 95% of altercations took on one of five familiar patterns (with which any street cop will be intimately familiar). It also shows that of that 95%, 62% ended up with both the officer and the suspect grappling on the ground.” If he’s accurate, then that’s pretty damning to the popular stats.
I can’t imagine that – again if the above is accurate – applying the 95% figure to just the ground instead of all patterns was an honest mistake by GJJ marketing, but I suppose its possible.
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This is a good start to a more rigid and logical approach to this problem. Surely as you know, were there enough funding, then a much bigger series with longitudinal and traverse approach would be even better. But other than the army and police who would invest such an amount? May be the big martial art unions of MMA or those of China or Japan , who has multiple approaches in a single country.
Your approach strongly remind me of the book Freakonomics. It is nice but if we are going to take it really seriously then lots of weakness in the methodology and analysis can be done.
Before this being done, your article is probably the only one of this kind to be referred to and be revered for all the martial world.
Your statistics aside, I have some personal observations to add. In the recent Discovery Fight Quest Program, around ten plus countries with their famous martial art were videoed, and of these, two were really mainly involved with street fights against a more real life situation. In such cases, the result of landing on the ground, in a non-ground fighting art, like BJJ, is usually big trouble. This is seen in the series in Israel, Hawaii, when street fight is more real and involved more than one person.
In many martial arts, there is not ground technique. eg in china martial art with its so many dozens of styles, including the wu style taichi with its founder a royal wrestler and with lots of throw techniques, ground skill were minimal. There are also the monkey style and the fukien ground dog style, the northshaolin ground style. But if we add also the manchu, mongol and han chinese wrestling. Then that is about all. Not more than ten amongst the hundred of styles. There got to be some reason behind this.
This by itself is also another kind of practical statistics. They do not both to research on ground techniques. One of the reason being impractical. The usual quote concept is , once down you are finished.
Their concept is that in real street fights, and in battle field, where multiple assailants are involved.
Anyway for one to one fight and for completeness of training for self interest and academic reasons, then surely ground skills from wrestling , BJJ or traditional art from China, Japan or whatever else should be welcomed.
IMHO
Great research and a great article. Those that know, know. Stay off the ground in the street and if you have to go there land on the other guy, do violence as fast as you can and get back up.
I would be interested to know how many weapons were introduced during the altercations and when.
http://mail.myptsmail.com/mercop/blog/?p=90
Thanks George,
Fights with weapons were not included in the study. As you know it changes the entire dynamic of an altercation and would have tainted much of the data collected.
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Wow, that’s an impressive study, way to use the resources at hand.
Thanks Byron,
Your comments are appreciated.
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