A LOOK IN SIMONS MIND
Speed and Intensity in training & Speed and intensity in the ‘street’.
‘How you train is how you fight’ is a maxim said by many self defence and martial arts teachers.
While this is true, there are more issues that we need to consider.
Intensity
The pure intensity, ferociousness and fury of a street fight
The pure intensity, ferociousness and fury in a real street confrontation is often overlooked at many martial arts schools.
This isn’t just an issue of ‘traditional’ martial arts schools, it is an issue for martial arts/combat sports schools in general.
The intensity of a street brawl can be a huge shock to an unprepared martial artist. There are solid reasons why…
- the anger and rage
- vocalisation
- multiple opponents
- willingness to use weapons
- the pure intensity and speed of attack
- not ‘direct’ attack – king hit from side
…all take us away from the regimented gentleman’s agreement of our dojo or gym…and the faster you can recover from the shock of actual street violence, the better off you should be.
The – “they ARE hitting me moment” might be too late if its someone who knows what street violence is all about.
Problem is – often first big shot often wins the fight.
Anger and Rage on street and calmness in Dojo
When you spar in a dojo/gym you don’t ‘life or death’ spar….how can you???
You focus on one person.
You learn to relax.
You learn distance.
A rage fighter will take all this away in a flash.
They tell you they will kill you. They may have friends for ‘back up’. Adrenalin spikes. And they may charge in to cut distance, because ‘they’ know you have to be close to punch someone in the head.
Anger and rage complicated by alcohol and ego are often what street fights are built on.
There is no gentlemen’s agreement on the street.
In a gym/dojo these are your friends, and these people need to work the next day/week, so knocking teeth out, breaking bones or blackening eyes and breaking noses is mostly out. (even though after 45 years of martial arts all these things have happened to me – we cant train as we did in the ’70s ’80s & ’90s it is a different world).
Training partners are not your enemy, they should be helping you to prepare for people that are your ‘enemy’.
Repeated strikes, extreme prejudice, heavy/hard shots and sudden attacks are some keys in actual self-defence training……because a screaming rage fighter may just take you off your game.
Vocalisation
Threats and abuse are part of a street fighters arsenal.
They ( and we ) can use it like a weapon.
Abuse and threats are a bullies way of scaring you. The art of the stand-over merchant is mostly about the threat of violence, mostly they are willing to back that up with actual violence, but the threat of violence is the first step. Some folk are ‘all talk’ but you cant count on that…( you must assume the opponent is competent and tooled up )
Asking someone a question can ‘pattern interrupt’ – getting you/them thinking of something else before an attack.
Yelling and abuse from a stranger can screw with your head.
This kind of shock is used by street bullies all the time.
Multiple Opponents
This is as simple as it sounds.
This can be a problem with ground grapple arts – other people are willing to jump in and participate in the violence.
Working on nightclub doors this was a common thing to happen – the most frightening and weird was that people who knew neither of the combatants would dodge out of the crowd and boot someone random in the head.
Friends and associates must be taken into account.
Willingness to use a weapon
You have to assume that in every street confrontation someone has a weapon.
Different countries have a different predisposition for different weapons. In the UK you may get glassed, bottled or stabbed, in the USA they may carry a gun, here in NZ machete have been use in street brawls and knives are universal.
People don’t attack you because they are nice or full of empathy and kindness…ego, alcohol and anger seem to be some of the big pushes into violence.
Fear of prosecution or care for you and your loved ones doesn’t seem to impinge on the people who are willing to use weapons.
Fear itself can drive people to carry weapons…and realistically we do live in societies where this fear is well founded. Drive by shootings or random stabbings are something we have to consider. For us here in NZ the ram raid and dairy/convenience store robberies are a part of daily life.
…and I can tell you from experience that the people that are willing to break into your house to rob you are willing to take ‘that next step’ when it comes to violence.
So you/we are forced to accept that we MUST always consider a weapon in a violent encounter.
Pure Intensity and Speed of Attack
Outright speed and intensity in a street fight is very important if you want to win. The bad folk street fighters know this.
The surprise of someone running in screaming and throwing punches can back up/pause the best and most experienced fighters.
We call this response Body Alarm Reaction (BAR)
The fight, flight or freeze response is a built in ‘human’ evolutionary response. There are specific brain areas for these responses. The shock of a snake slithering out from under your comfy chair or a spider leaping onto your arm and running for your face would give most humans a very guttural response….fear and fear of violence is similar.
People freeze. In videos (and real life experience) you can watch peoples eyes follow a punch – hand is drawn back and then a punch is thrown and people watch it all the way until they are hit ….”are they going to hit me, is he hitting me” … BOOM.
Freeze from BAR is real.
Training shrinks the response time between freeze and action.
Fear and intimidation are utilized through rage, intensity and vocalisation.
Anger and ‘rage’ are some peoples natural state, people go out to fuck and fight.
But it is fully pushed along by ego and alcohol.
King hit from behind or the side
There are many people who take the cowardly option of just knocking out a total stranger.
Scum
Situational awareness is the only real option.
Conclusion
The conclusion isn’t the same as the usual.
Speed, intensity and yelling abuse are the normal accoutrements to a street fight.
Street fighters can be seemingly bullet proof and very sure of them selves and their skill, this is the norm…or they wouldn’t be picking the fight.
Many street fighters have been in 10s if not 100s of street fights.
The calm single focus of a lot of dojo/gym practice does not prepare you very well for the noise and insanity of a street altercation.
Situational awareness and being prepared to do and take anything – doesn’t get taught in many dojo/gyms. We do technique after technique without getting much context.
Do they punch you ‘karate’ style? Do they spar kickboxing style? Do you exclusively ground fight? …or are you attacked fast and hard with loud vocalisation??? Do you work from a shove – double hand push? Do you use a fence??? What distance do you work from? Are you taught to pre-empt a fight?
Street fighting IS NOT the same as dojo practice.
In fact I have known multiple martial artists who have quit because after 5 years of martial arts they get beaten up on the street.
DONT FOOL YOURSELF – STREET FIGHTING, COMBAT SPORT AND MARTIAL ARTS (as they are taught these days) ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
People who do martial arts have a certain advantage, with a good instructor their situational awareness and technique can be on point.
Combat sport guys have other advantages as well….having to deal with people actually trying to punch you in the head and the knock out or get knocked out view.
But both are only advantages – nothing guarantees you wins in the street….you pick on a 40yr old ex bouncer with 150 odd real street fights or a 4 tour combat experienced angry vet…there may be issues.
SO…
- Don’t pick fights.
- Be aware of your surroundings
- Get some training
- Count on them having a weapon.
- Assume they have friends.
- Violence does not cure violence, but it may save your life.
- Be aware of pre fight ques.
- GET SOME TRAINING
- Be aware of where your own lines are crossed, you may have to pre-emptively hit them.
- Get some training
- When its time to go…go HARD
The speed and or the intensity of real life combat is something we should all probably up our games with,,. we all need to add some realism.
Unconventional attacks – car, alley way, front door or hallway, tube station or bus stop.
At training always punch to/towards head (or body), do not punch to miss, that does neither of you any favours.
The que of their root movement in sparing gives you tools to notice that same movement pattern in someone trying to hurt you.
Try to stay out of, (as much as possible), the fear/flight response by being proactive…DO something, it is very important for fear control.
but most of all…
BE THE ONE WITH SPEED AND INTENSITY.
