Why this can’t be fixed by just adding more ground

After the last blog post on ground work, the response was honestly incredible.

Some people disagreed.

Some pushed back.

A lot of people read it and said, “Damn, I’ve never thought about it that way.”

But almost everyone agreed on one thing.

We need more of these conversations.

Not more noise.

Not more techniques.

More honest thinking about how this stuff is actually trained.

That post hit a nerve because it put words to something many people already felt but could not articulate.

A sense that ground work in self-defense isn’t wrong, it’s just often trained in the wrong context.

And once you see that, you cannot unsee it.

So this is a continuation of that conversation.

Not to argue.

Not to convince.

But to slow things down and look at the problem more clearly.

Because if we’re serious about self-defense, especially on the ground, we owe it to ourselves to question how and why we train the way we do.

What keeps coming up is this feeling that something is missing, even if they can’t quite put their finger on it yet.

And the issue isn’t technique. It’s not that people want more moves. It’s not that the ground is being ignored.

It’s about where and how ground work is trained.

Regular classes are built for a reason.

They have to move the group forward.

They have to stay accessible.

They have to balance fundamentals, safety, and progression for everyone in the room.

That structure works.

It’s necessary.

But it is not designed for exploring worst-case ground scenarios.

Things like

Decision making when pressure spikes.

Weapons on the ground.

Multiple threats.

Getting up when staying down feels safer in the moment.

Stopping, resetting, and correcting choices in real time.

Trying to “just add more ground” into a standard class usually leads to one of two outcomes.

Either it turns into sport style rolling.

Or it gets watered down to keep the pace moving.

In both cases, the original problem stays unsolved.

Ground work for self defense requires a different pace.

More interruption. More coaching.

More trial and error.

More stopping to ask, “Why did that fail?”

That kind of work breaks the flow of a normal class.

And it should.

This is the kind of training that needs a separate environment.

A space where there’s no rush.

No performance.

No expectation to look good.

Just honest problem solving.

A place to test assumptions.

To pressure ideas.

To fail safely and learn from it.

Not a class.

Not sparring.

Not conditioning.

A lab.

This isn’t for everyone.

It’s for people who know the ground is still a blind spot.

People who care more about clarity than collecting reps.

People who want context, not just activity.

I’ve been rethinking how this should be trained.

Not by changing the system.

But by creating the right environment for the right problem.

More on that next.

Coach Rob

What you don’t change, you choose. PS. If you have not read the first post in this series, start here. Why the ground is taught the way it is in Krav Maga.