Marc Animal MacYoung on Grappling

The man makes sense here.

When to use grappling

The purpose of submission fighting is to subdue an opponent and establish dominance. It is my heartfelt opinion that there are only two reasonable applications for grappling skills. And within these parameters, it is wonderful.

Those are:
1) When you don't want to hurt the guy
2) If it's your job to restrain and control someone

1) Not hurting your opponent - You friend is drunk and out of control. Because he is your friend, you don't want to snap him like a matchstick. Or it is some stupid, college-aged kid who is trying to impress people by picking a fight with you. In a nice restaurant, some asshole swung on you because you didn't back down or give into his unreasonable demands. These low-level threats are not situations where you want to gouge out somebody's eye or snap his neck. It is neither warranted, nor legally justified to use an extreme level of force.

This is where grappling utterly shines. You can control and dominate such an opponent, and, if the police show up, you can easily justify your use of force.

2) It's your job to use control tactics in protection of property or others - When everyone is doing the smart thing and running away, it is your job to do the stupid thing of charging into the conflict. Then yes. You do need to know how to handle yourself on the ground. You do need to know control and restraint tactics. Usually, however, your job will also have very specific standards for use of force and restraint tactics. You will need to be well versed in departmentally approved defensive tactics, control holds and use of force continuums.

This jibes completely with some of our previous posts. See this video example of what can happen when going to the ground versus multiple attackers. Unless you have backup or a controlled environment, there's a lot of danger in going to the ground. Know it, but don't do it! See anything from the Self-Defense, or Multiple Attackers categories for more examples.