It recently occured to me that we are debating the merits of groundfighting without considering it in the proper contexts, and our training as a whole is suffering.
Most opposition to groundfighting hinges upon the presence of daggers or other enemies on the battlefield, while pro-grappling arguments are usually based on the premise that there are no daggers or multiple opponents.
But groundfighting in the midst of a 20,000-man battle wearing full armor cannot be logically compared to grappling against an unarmoured opponent in a judicial duel under predetermined conditions. This debate has not ceased because we are arguing about two very, very different things while considering it all the same. It is not!
A distinction desperately needs to be made between the battle-oriented knightly manuals such as Fiori and Gladiatoria, and those that depict ringen between civilians who are unarmed or have been disarmed and do not have daggers, presumably within the context of judicial duels or one-on-one streetfights, such as the Codex Wallerstein and Paulus Hector Mair.
The former manuals advocate throwing the enemy and dispatching him with your weapon while you remain standing, but the latter ones clearly depict groundfighting techniques. Thus one may conclude that groundfighting was not ideal for mass combat, but totally viable in other circumstances. Mair describes numerous takedowns, both standing and from the ground, as well as submissions; some of these flow from weapon disarms, while you willingly discard your weapon for others. The Codex Wallerstein explicitly shows submissions on the ground (see Plates 146-147) and takedowns that can easily end with both figures on the ground (see Plate 115, and then see how it works for me in my second staff bout against Mike C. in this video: http://www.paulushectormair.com/ARMA/2005%20ARMA%20Florida%20Highlights.wmv ). Others have pointed out that many of the techniques in this manual are just as effective on the ground as they are standing.
As an organization dedicated to resurrecting all of the late medieval/Renaissance arts, I believe that we should train for standing throws and groundfighting, as they are both martially sound in their respective contexts.
With that in mind, it also occured to me that those in ARMA who focus on the "armoured battlefield" aspects of the art may not be training that way; most sparring is one-on-one, so both fighters follow artificial rules to simulate fighting multiple opponents (i.e. "you were thrown so you automatically lose"). Instead, we should be training for the battlefield aspect of RMA by sparring in groups, so that a fighter who is thrown quickly learns the value of recovering, and a grappling-oriented individual such as myself learns to stay on his feet whenever possible. Moreover, this would surely reveal other bad habits from the dueling mindset that do not translate well to mass combat (the common practice of endlessly circling in the zufechten would surely go ex fenestra, you'd learn to watch for wild "friendly strikes", you'd learn to keep your balance when accidentally bumped or tripped, you'd learn that managing to retain your longsword in a takedown is useless without the leverage to penetrate his armor, etc.).
Reciprocally, we should continue to train for non-battlefield combat as we have been (one-on-one), only incorporating greater realism into the ringen by deciding beforehand whether or not daggers are involved, carrying padded daggers if they are, and fighting to the finish instead of naively assuming that the dominant person always wins.
Otherwise we fall into the same trap as many of the EMA styles who had dismissed groundfighting until their fighters were humbled by grapplers in MMA tourneys. We should be training for every possibility; surely our ancestors did not bet their lives on assumptions.
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