Letting Them Up

[paitingman]

I feel like we've all heard or felt this notion of it being dirty to take the fight to the ground.

In my neighborhood growing up, pretty much everyone and their father mostly expected fights to happen and for you to let the other guy up. And when they didn't get up, they didn't want anymore and you helped them up.

Sometimes real fights kept going, but you pretty much knew it was going to go that route when it did.
Now, I feel it's best to always expect some ground and pound to be headed your way.

But where to heck did this unspoken standing rule come from?

Is it the difference between fighting to "settle something" and fighting to seriously injure the other person?

What's your take on this?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Fighting is dangerous and to be avoided if at all possible. If it can't be avoided, fight until you can disengage and leave. There is only one rule - to live. Recreational violence is to be kept in the dojo or tournament where there are rules for such things.

 

[drop bear]

You are trying to achieve a result. Sometimes that's hurting a guy. Sometimes it isn't.

I mean if you are going to get jumped by ten guys. You probably want to try for a fair fight.

 

[Gweilo]

Nowdays things are different, bills statement about one rules is apt, the mentality has changed, I don't think people now days understand the consequences of the're actions, even if you had a reputation when I was a teenager, you would defend that reputation, but when your opponent had enough, it was game over, but now days, seriously hurting someone is like badge of honour.Look at London 139 homicides through stabbing in 2019, it is a daily thing, some say more regular than the buses.

 

[Bruce7]

These are the rules I put on myself :
Don't go to places where a fight may happen.
Walk a way unless you need to help someone in trouble.
If you are going to fight hit first.
Don't stop till they are on the ground, then leave unless you think they are seriously injured.
If you think they are seriously injured call 911.

If he is on the ground it is unlikely he will follow.
Hitting someone on the ground is not a good idea for many reasons.
The propose is to keep them from hurting you, not putting them in the hospital.
If they become seriously injured, kicking someone on the ground does not look good in court.

 

[Headhunter]

In the streets there's no such thing as dirty fighting

 

[JR 137]

I agree with everything said and would’ve posted the same exact things. Rather than repeat, I’ll just add...

Back when I frequented bars, there was a very interesting phenomenon. People would typically let the fight play out. Until it went to the ground. If a guy knocked someone down and then went to the ground to keep it going, others got involved. The guy who grounded and pounded typically got punched, kicked etc. while there. Often enough to say so got a bottle to the back of the head. I guess it was the mentality of he’s had enough if he’s knocked down. Two other caveats - this was when two guys squared up and were both willing instead of a sucker punch situation, and it was what could be considered a relatively fair fight (really small guy vs huge guy, guy vs woman didn’t count). This was the mid 90s-mid 2000s, so take that as you will. Also, obviously bouncers broke stuff up, but there was a bit of a gap often enough between the start and them doing their thing.

I feel like we've all heard or felt this notion of it being dirty to take the fight to the ground.

In my neighborhood growing up, pretty much everyone and their father mostly expected fights to happen and for you to let the other guy up. And when they didn't get up, they didn't want anymore and you helped them up.

Sometimes real fights kept going, but you pretty much knew it was going to go that route when it did.
Now, I feel it's best to always expect some ground and pound to be headed your way.

But where to heck did this unspoken standing rule come from?

Is it the difference between fighting to "settle something" and fighting to seriously injure the other person?

What's your take on this?

That was when we were kids. The reasons for fighting were quite different than now. Most adults (and I’m not including even college aged guys) aren’t fighting over petty BS to make a point. Adults are fighting for over far more serious things, and the consequences are far higher. Usually and hopefully. If I’m fighting today, it’s because I’m being robbed, someone’s trying to hurt my wife or daughters, stuff like that. I’m not fighting over a parking spot, someone looked at my girlfriend the wrong way or said something to her, someone spilled a drink on me, etc. If I’m fighting today, it’s serious enough where I’m going to make sure it’s fully over and not give him the chance to get up and do it again.

Last “fight” I was in, a guy pulled a gun on me without any provocation. Long story short, I punched him, then kicked him while he was down. Looking back, I’m pretty sure he was out cold before I started kicking him. I kicked him a few times because I guess I instinctually wanted to make sure he couldn’t shoot me while I was running. No way I was letting him up without him being fully incapacitated. Had the situation dictated it, I would’ve grounded and pounded, choked him, etc.; whatever it would’ve taken to survive.

If it’s a mutually agreed fight between myself and someone I know won’t keep going, I’ll let him up. Not going to foreseeably happen, but you never know I guess. If it’s someone I don’t know, I’m not taking the chance of them getting up and trying to finish what they started. Not a chance.

 

[Christopher Adamchek]

People would typically let the fight play out. Until it went to the ground. If a guy knocked someone down and then went to the ground to keep it going, others got involved. The guy who grounded and pounded typically got punched, kicked etc. while there.

i agree, Ive seen plenty of this in videos on youtube

I often have me and my students practice a sort of "not being nice" - for example - when they tap out dont just release but loosen and hold it a moment, if they ask to stop continue throwing strikes but barely touch them with it, so as to not be delayed by someone using such tactics in a fight.

Like @Headhunter said - there is no dirty fighting, use any advantage you can to come out alive

 

[JR 137]

i agree, Ive seen plenty of this in videos on youtube

I often have me and my students practice a sort of "not being nice" - for example - when they tap out dont just release but loosen and hold it a moment, if they ask to stop continue throwing strikes but barely touch them with it, so as to not be delayed by someone using such tactics in a fight.

Like @Headhunter said - there is no dirty fighting, use any advantage you can to come out alive

It all depends on the severity of the fight. Better yet the circumstances of the fight. Say I’m at a friend’s house for a BBQ and someone there I don’t know starts some crap and starts swinging. It’s not exactly a fight to save my life. It’s control the situation and use minimal force to end it with minimal physical harm. Or my sister-in-law’s idiot husband who got in my face one day at a gathering. If he started swinging, I wasn’t going to beat him down and finish it like I would’ve done to someone in a different setting. I would’ve restrained him and hurt his pride pretty good, but that’s about it.

There’s too many factors to consider to make a blanket statement. Do you continue fighting until there’s zero chance of the person continuing, or do you say he’s had enough and be the nice guy? Depends on the situation. Either way, it’s a sh!tty situation to be in. Going too far or not far enough is only going to make the bad situation worse. Use common sense is the only blanket statement worth anything here.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Two guys squared up in the parking lot of a local bar. The usual chest-bumping drunken macho BS. Finally they get down to it and throw hands. One guy backs up, slips on gravel. Falls on a parking barrier. Breaks his skull. Dies.

Oh well, right? Just bad luck. An accident. No one to blame.

The courts didn't see it that way. The other guy was convicted of manslaughter. It was a foreseeable outcome of mutual combat.

You want the chance of ending up dead or in prison over an ego? Be my guest.

 

[drop bear]

In the streets there's no such thing as dirty fighting

Yes there is. We call it GBH.

 

[jobo]

I feel like we've all heard or felt this notion of it being dirty to take the fight to the ground.

In my neighborhood growing up, pretty much everyone and their father mostly expected fights to happen and for you to let the other guy up. And when they didn't get up, they didn't want anymore and you helped them up.

Sometimes real fights kept going, but you pretty much knew it was going to go that route when it did.
Now, I feel it's best to always expect some ground and pound to be headed your way.

But where to heck did this unspoken standing rule come from?

Is it the difference between fighting to "settle something" and fighting to seriously injure the other person?

What's your take on this?

well fights , like most things are governed by cultural norms, humans are pack animals, pack animals fight to achieve dominance not to mortally injure another pack member, as soon as they give up it's over. so in any given community that likely to be the outcome. fighting to cause long term injury is generally reserved for people who have seriously annoyed you or members of another pack. that why gang fights/ wars tend to end up with people being seriously hurt, but run of the mill bar fights dont, and why carrying knives is such a bad idea

 

[geezer]

well fights , like most things are governed by cultural norms

^^^^ Yeah, regarding this part, (within the pack, as you say Jobo) in my Dad's youth (born 1925) The cultural norm was that you fought like a boxer. Kicking, low blows and hitting a guy when he was down was "dirty fighting". I bet it was the same in the UK.

When I grew up, my big brother and a lot of the kids in the neighborhood went out for wrestling in school. And being short in my family, when we took a tall kid down, we kept them down and tried to cause them pain until they gave in.

As I got a little older, the influence of the martial arts craze of the 70s legitimized kicking and "karate fighting" ...but within the group it was still about dominance, not about crippling and maiming.

Now today, with MMA being the social model, the "rules" are much more open, but there are still the same kinds of limits on ritual, hierarchical combat among young males. You beat somebody up, you may gain status. You go psycho and cripple or kill somebody, that's not cool at all. Unless it's criminal gang violence or a case of desperate street self-defense.

Sure, we may see cases of gangs of hoodlums savagely attacking passers by, but IMO that's still not the norm. That's why it makes the news.

 

[pgsmith]

I feel like we've all heard or felt this notion of it being dirty to take the fight to the ground.

In my neighborhood growing up, pretty much everyone and their father mostly expected fights to happen and for you to let the other guy up. And when they didn't get up, they didn't want anymore and you helped them up.

Sometimes real fights kept going, but you pretty much knew it was going to go that route when it did.
Now, I feel it's best to always expect some ground and pound to be headed your way.

But where to heck did this unspoken standing rule come from?

Is it the difference between fighting to "settle something" and fighting to seriously injure the other person?

What's your take on this?

Wow, you grew up in a much different neighborhood than mine! In my neighborhood (back in the 60's, 70's), you never wanted to go to the ground because then the kicking would start. For some reason (perhaps because they were afraid of getting hit?) your opponent's friends would stand back and let the fight go on unless you ended up on the ground. The general rule was, the more berzerk you went when attacked, the less fighting you were required to do.