The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu myth?

Picture by Esther Lin. A picture of the Gracie family.

The Gracie family often states that most fights (90%) goes to the ground, but is it true? Perhaps this is a statement they made in order to promote their martial art? By all means, I am not attempting to attack Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I'm training the art as well, and it has helped me tremendously. It has helped me see fighting in an entirely different perspective. However, perhaps it is not the 'ultimate' martial art style that lots of people often see them as. 

The art itself is great, but it also has its weakness, i.e. it is not effective against multiple number of opponents. Although, it is a good idea to avoid fighting more than one opponent at the same time, even with other martial art styles. After all, fighting in movies and fighting in real life is entirely different. Fight scenes in movies are choreographed. In real life, your opponents won't attack you one by one. They will swarm you like zombies and they will try to attack you from your blind spot. However, as an one-on-one fighting style, I personally have to say it may well be the best one out there. 

Picture by Baz.Forrister

The main question now is, do 90% of fights actually goes to the ground? According to Dunston (2003), that is not the case. Based on a survey consisting of 1,400 cases reported by law enforcement officers, 52% of these cases shows the suspects attempting to force the officers to the ground. Fights do indeed goes to the ground, but not as exaggerated as the Gracies suggest. Although there are variables that may alter this conclusion, such as location (country) and the fact that they're not civilians. This number is based from a statistic obtained from cases in the United States. 

By location (country), i mean the fighting style tendencies that varies in different countries, e.g. based on what my Korean friends told me, people there would often kick during fights. The people that gave me this information also have such tendencies. Perhaps it is because of the heavy Taekwondo influence there, where lots of Korean train in the art during their childhood. In this sense, one would probably encounter much less ground fighting (as in, one achieved from takedowns/throws rather than one achieved from forcing someone to the ground by punching and kicking him) in there. This is just an example and I didn't find an academic evidence for this theory. 

In conclusion, there is a significant chance that fights will go to the ground. However, fights don't go to the ground as often as the Gracie family suggest. 

Reference

Dunston, Mark S. 2003. "Instructor's corner: Ground fighting -- Assaults on police officers", Calibre press street survival newsline 630.