Muay Thai is more likely to win in a street fight or no-holds-barred fight than light continuos. Grappling is more likely to defeat Muay Thai than point kickboxing or Lau Gar as 75% of fights go to the ground. MMA defeats all of them as it covers ground AND standing The fact that Lau Gar people train in BJJ/JJJ means that Lau Gar is inadequate for MMA or self defence because a complete system wouldn't require you to cross train
Ah, so now we get to your real point So now we can discuss what winning means in a street fight, what part grappling plays, where you got your % from, etc.
As someone whose primary background is in grappling and MMA and who trains a k1/Thai kickboxing blend and massively dislikes point fighting; I think you might need to reevaluate a few of your ideas.
That's an utterly spurious statistic. The reality is no one knows how often fights go to the ground and there are many variables. The Gracie's aren't reliable because they want the fight to go to the ground. Of course fights they have will tend to go there. The original statistics for ground fighting were taken from police reports, where again, the police want the "fight" to go to the ground so they can control and hand-cuff. That said the percentage is not important...fights can go to the ground so if your goal is to be a good fighter or able to defend yourself reliably you need a ground game of some sort.
I completely agree with you. I think that this statement was made or is made by BJJ instructors as a marketing gimmick. With kickboxers it usually also ends up on the ground for one at least
Not only is it a complete misuse of a context-specific statistic, ronki23 didn't even get the dodgy stat right. It comes from a study by the LAPD, seen here: Going to the Ground: Lessons from Law Enforcement Most people give a number between 90% and 95% for fights going to the ground, but the actual statistic is that 95% of altercations when arresting suspects conform to 5 "scenario patterns". Of those 5 scenario patterns; “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.”. So that's 59% of altercations during arrests by LAPD in 1988. Now, if you're a police officer and someone if resisting arrest, where would you like to have them in order to handcuff them? I suspect that context might give different results to two civilians fighting. I think that folk wisdom has helped to keep this myth going. Most people's exposure to violence comes from seeing drunk people fight, and drunk people tend to fall over.
Whatever the statistic it's significant enough that if your goal is combat efficacy or self defence ability (rather than a specific combat sport goal) it needs addressing in training. At the very least for SD you need to know how to stand up when under attack, escaping bad positions, reversals and striking from dominant positions. All with an eye to making your escape rather than "winning" or beating someone up. You don't actually need to know any submissions.
The statistic is irrelevant. It is exactly as you say; we have no way of giving a percentage score to civilian fights going to the ground. We know that they can though, so your approach above seems the sensible one to me.
I'd argue that a significantly higher number of fights end up in a clinch than on the ground so that should be a main focus of your training if you are worried about the street
It all depends how you define "going to the ground". I dare say situations where at least one person ends up off their feet (for whatever reason), "on the ground" the percentage is quite high.
Absolutely. After the initial exchange of blows/sucker punch I'd say the clinch IS where real situations are decided one way or the other.
You can argue all you like, but that is still just an opinion based on anecdotal evidence. This sounds snarky, but I promise it isn't! I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it irritates me when people (not you) throw around spurious statistics without context. Who is getting into a clinch? Who is exchanging blows? Who are you teaching, what is their profession, what is their lifestyle, what is their character, where do they live? The type of attacks people are most likely to face is contextual, as are the optimum ways to deal with them.
@ronki23 I sense that you really really dislike Lau Gar I do agree to an extent, I trained in Lau Gar for a short period of time, and I also dislike the point stop fighting rules, and no clinch/throw. There are other many arts that you need to cross train before using in an MMA ruleset. Wrestling, which you clearly enjoy (and rightly so) is a great martial art, and transfers well, but if you don't cross train it in striking you will very likely end up in a world of pain against someone who does a mix of striking and grappling martial arts. Lau Gar has some transference, but like a lot of other MA, you cannot expect it to work in a specific ruleset without appropriate coverage in that ruleset. You could compare equally to Muay Thai, a great striking art, is not good for self defence because it does not include weapons, like in Escrima - but that is not really relevant. You train individual styles so that your time is focused on that area of combat (usually one that you enjoy most). Train across more styles you will have a better coverage of skills, but the more you spread yourself, the less sharp your technique is in individual areas. Lau Gar kickboxing, I could name many negatives, but I think you have covered plenty. Positives of the training - covering the longest range of fighting to land the first blows, and withdrawing back to that range - so this is the skill of controlling the kick/punch range of fighting.
Bakari Akil II (Ph.D), who is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Middle Georgia College and a no-gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu martial artist, conducted a study to find out what percentage of fights go to the ground. He viewed hours of CCTV footage examining a variety of street fights looking for patterns in the violence. In summary the study discovered the following: 42% of fights ended up with both people on the ground while 72% ended with at least one person on the ground. Where at least one person was grounded 57% went down due to a throw or a take down, 7% were pushed, 35% from being punched and 1% were downed from a kick. The person who hit the ground first lost the fight 57% of the time, while 33% were a draw (no discernable 72 % ended with at least one person on the ground more than half of those due to a take-down or throw, save to say the clinch happens fairly regularly in a fight unless the take-down are no touch ones
Some general points Lau gar was known for producing fighters in the early days, guy who would rock up at any comp semi or full and do well, the more popular the art became the more diluted and softer the sparring became Most of the really successful semi contact guys in lau would walk through a lot of guys in a fight Lau gar kick boxing is only part of the system
Only speaking from my experience of Lau Gar: the emphasis on the sparring was to hit as light as possible, and always stop when a point was scored. I can see how it would be more beneficial if the sparring was hard - I have done other point stop sparring, and that has always be made with a good amount of force, kicks with intent to knock you back and punches to rock you if they land. So based on that I can see how it can benefit. This is probably why people like the OP see it as useless with the softening of certain clubs over the years
