story exemplifies many different and important points about a violent encounter. First of all, odds are good you will be dealing with the police.
Second, there was a potentially deadly weapon present. It wasn’t used on anyone. It was used to cut cloth to let someone escape and then it was put away. Could I have slashed his arm? Yes. And I would have gone to prison for assault with a deadly weapon because it wasn’t necessary.
Third, this situation wasn’t self-defense. Nor was it a “fight” to win, dominate, or prove whose pee-pee was bigger, teach someone a lesson, or punish him. None of the normal definitions people commonly banter around in the martial arts applied to this situation.
Fourth, it was a use-of-force situation with a clearly defined goal, tactics, and integrated with verbal communication. “We don’t want to hurt you. If you calm down, we’ll let you up.”
Fifth, not only would punching the guy have been inappropriate, but it would have gotten us arrested. That question about whether or not we had hit him was a trap to get us to admit excessive force. But that’s not as important as knowing that use of force is a “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” issue. This one is too little. This one is too much. This one is just right.
Sixth, our calm, professional, and cooperative demeanor—as we articulated the facts of the situation—is what kept us from getting arrested. This, even though the situation had started with us looking down the barrel of a pistol. Had we jumped up and down, howled, screamed, made accusations, and insulted the other guy, we would have ended up, like him, down on the ground with someone kneeling on our heads.
Dirty Ground won’t teach you how to deal with the police. What it will do is help you understand use of force choices and pick a response that is both better for the task at hand and more defensible. That’s a pretty important thing to know. It’s also a gaping hole in most martial arts AND so-called “self-defense” training.
Simply stated, despite fantasies about muggers and drugged up bikers jumping you, most violence happens between people who know each other. Yes, it could be a fight or it could just as likely be something else. What? Having to drag a drunken friend who’s out of line from a party, or your mother comes to you at a family reunion and says, “Your uncle Albert is drunk again; you’re a martial artist; go deal with him.” These are the everyday realities of how violence actually happens. Realities ignored by most training.
You can’t punch Drunken Uncle Albert without getting Aunt Betty mad at you. If you do, odds are good he’ll punch you back and you’ll be in a fight. This doesn’t look good either with your family members or the police when you try to convince them you weren’t fighting. Punching him also doesn’t win you points with your drunken friend when he sobers up.
Controlling someone without hurting him is exactly what grappling is best for. It is, by definition, a dominance and submission game without injury. You can defend your actions to the police a lot better by grappling with someone who is acting up a lot better than you can by punching him out.
This is why Dirty Ground is such an important book. It looks at the actual application of grappling in that context instead of the fantasy of “self-defense” or the restrictions of the ring.
Growing up on gang-infested streets not only gave Marc MacYoung his street name “Animal,” but also extensive firsthand experience about what does and does not work for self-defense. Over the years, he has held a number of dangerous occupations including director of a correctional institute, bodyguard, and bouncer. He was first shot at when he was 15 years old and has since survived multiple attempts on his life, including professional contracts. He has studied a variety of martial arts since childhood, teaching experience-based self-defense to police, military, civilians, and martial artists around the world. He has written dozens of books and produced numerous DVDs covering all aspects of this field. Oh yeah, he’s also been seen hanging out with Rory Miller recently.
This book was written to address an important gap that exists in martial arts. The tricky issue is the space in between sport and combat, as well as the chasm that separates these two extremes. In order of severity, we call these three environments, sport, drunkle, and combat. Drunkle is a combination of the words “drunk” and “uncle,” referring to situations in which you need to control a person without severely injuring him (or her). Understanding these environments is vital because what is considered appropriate use of force is codified in law, yet interpreted in the public arena. Actions that do not accommodate these rules can have severe repercussions. Techniques must be adapted to best fit the situation you find yourself in.
While the differences between sport and combat are somewhat intuitive, it is important to clarify exactly what we mean by these terms. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines sport as: “Physical activity engaged in for pleasure,” whereas combat is described as coming from Anglo-French roots, combate, to attack, or fight, and from Latin, battuere, “to beat.” Okay, so we can regurgitate definitions out of a dictionary, big fat freaking deal. Let’s cut to the chase—sports are competitions, stuff you want to win that are specifically designed so that competitors don’t get seriously hurt. Combat, on the other hand, is designed to kill people, break things, and blow stuff up. They’re worlds apart.
Martial sports, judo, boxing, wrestling, jujitsu, sumo, mixed martial arts (MMA), and the like are a fantastic means of training one’s body and mind, even of forging one’s spirit. And as a sport, each one of these has rules, built-in faults that allow for intense physical contact while minimizing the threat of life and limb. An example of this is “the rabbit punch.” The rabbit punch, usually a swinging hook punch to the back of an opponent’s head while in a clinch, is illegal in boxing, MMA, and many other sports. An important reason for banning this technique is that it attacks the connection between the base of the skull and the spinal column. In acupuncture, this location is called Gall Bladder 20, and in Western medicine it is C1 (Cervical 1). To the medieval executioner, it was the general area where the ax would fall to sever a condemned person’s head from his body. A severe blow to this area from a practitioner’s fist can have the same consequence as that headsman’s ax, minus the messy decapitation—it can kill.
Another example is that in tournament judo, MMA, and the like, you pin your opponent face up so that he can have a fighting chance to continue the match. Law enforcement officers oftentimes use the same techniques, yet they pin the suspect face down so that he cannot put up much of a fight while being handcuffed. In this example, the same application is applied in a different environment. Safety rules can change the technique, the application, or the context.
Without these rules, a sport becomes combat; with these rules combat becomes sport.
If you are a citizen, your role in society (legally, if not morally and ethically as well) is to get away from violence, to escape. Law enforcement officers have a duty to act, they must become involved, but unless you’ve got a badge, you don’t have to. Unless the violence is directed at you and you cannot avoid it. Depending on the circumstances, you might then have to cripple or kill another person in order to escape from harm. Nevertheless, your purpose is not to arrest the other guy, beat him down, teach him a lesson, or otherwise “win” the encounter.
As a competitor in sports, on the other hand, your role is to win. The rules are designed to allow you to intensify your actions with minimal risk of injury. You are able to use one hundred percent of your physical ability because you are assured, due to safety gear, rules, referees, and whatnot, that there is only a very slight opportunity for you or your opponent to experience life-altering events because of your actions. This intensification of action, with safety precautions, gives you a powerful and competitive
