In our karate class, we practiced ground work. I’ve practiced this quite a few times before, but never thought about how my posture on the ground can impact how I fought: having the entire back on the ground makes it harder to find opportunities to stand back up; leaning sideways and using an arm or elbow better helps move around, kick and stand up again.

Fighting from ground is really tiring, try to avoid it if possible. If you end up on the ground and your opponent is attacking you from a standup position, it’s easy to have a tendency to move back, roll away. It’s essentially running away — not a good idea because movement on the ground is almost always slower than that’s from a standing position and in a reactive mode. Instead, try to hold your ground and look for opportunities to fight back and leverage the other’s legs (may well make the opponent onto the ground), take their space and eventually stand back up again.