Ground fighting, unless you are on the bottom is pretty hard to justify with most self defense laws. Kinda ridiculous that a controlled d'arce choke could get you in trouble, but you could do a belly to back suplex turn the guy into a vegetable and claim self defense.
People always say that self defense martial arts like Krav are better because they actually work in the street, or that sport arts are better because you train them harder.
I don't really agree with either sentiment.
The WAY you win a sport fight - taking a dominant position and exploiting it to throw a winning attack, is almost always fails to qualify as self defense.
If I hit a 1-2 and they start backing up and covering, I can't follow with a round house to finish them because that's how you become the bad guy, even though that's how you win a kick boxing match.
The same thing is true with BJJ. You win in competition by shooting a double, mounting, then hitting a submission. People get good at that. You shoot a double in real life and take mount, the bottom guy, even if he started it, is now justified in killing you in a LOT of scenarios.
The advice to choke someone past the tap so they don't come back at you is no different than killing someone because they SAY they are coming back to kill you later. You can't do it legally most of the time.
When you think of traditional self defense martial arts, there might be some wisdom in the idea of the Ippon or one hit kill. If you can just hip throw someone on their head or spinning heel kick them in the face, you might be in better shape legally than if you hit a 6 segment attack with 4-6 from a dominant position.
It is no different than preferring a gun to a club for self defense. Imagine someone comes at you with a gun and you grab a stick and hit them in the hand, then whip them around with it and injure them - you could be sent to jail and to civil court. Now, on the other hand, if you just pulled out a pistol with some kind of lethal $12 bullets and blew a pie sized whole through his back with one shot, well everyone is more ok with that.
What people should think of a little more isn't how to get the advantage in a fist fight. We all get that from combat sports. We should think more about how the tactics packaged as self defense qualify legally as self defense.
Do they encourage escape or are they fighting pressure tactics?
Do they focus on protecting yourself and powerful, fight ending strikes and throws, or do they lead you down the path of turning your attacker into the righteous defender?
And on and on...
