Most street fighting stories I've read about involve some dramatic sudden robbery which occured without warning, leaving you as the victim with a set of options to choose from in order to protect yourself incase the situation were to really occur... But some of the street fights I've been in take place in a much different scenerio.

About 99% of all martial artists in the entire world would probably be outraged if someone said martial arts are a joke, or a disguise which doesn't work as well as it should. But sometimes I even feel like martial arts are useless, and that they don't really work. I feel that way especially after some of the fights I've had.

There are 3 general life-rules I've picked up on from street fighting:
1.) the person with the thicker bones will most likely win
2.) the person with the weapon will most likely win
3.) the person with the most buddies will most likely win

Most martial arts scenerios involve a hoodlem about to ambush the unwary victim. But what if you aren't ambushed? What if you get sabotaged, or setup for a beating? Most gang run-ins I've had involve people getting setup so that they lose before the fight even takes place.

For instance, imagine that you met a cute girl that you really liked, and you gave her your trust. She seemed very nice and always kept her promises. One night she called you and asked you to come pick her up from a party at someone's house, because she didn't want to be there around those type of people. You politely agree to help her out, and she asks you to come by yourself because they don't want too many people at the house. You try to make sure everything's alright, and she asks for your trust. So you drive to the party to pick her up, and when you get to the house, you park in the driveway. When you get out of the car, three giant thugs surround you and one of them points a gun at your head. You keep your cool and ask him what the gun's for. This only upsets him, and he starts waving the pistol around making claims that it's his house and his gun, and that he can do whatever he wants. You politely ask him to put the gun away, so he curses and throws the gun aside. At the same time, while your attention is fixed on the guy with the gun, another guy sneaks up behind you and sucker punches you out of the clear blue. The group of them push you around, throw punches at you, and then warn you by telling you that if they ever see you again, they'll kill you. With that, you hop in your car and leave...

At what point and time in that scenerio could martial arts training have served you at all? And how can it serve you even after they let you drive away, if you can assume the next time they see you will be planned the same way?

By the way, the above scenerio does not depict a sudden unplanned attack. When I read it over, it kinda sounds like just a case of bad luck where you get robbed while trying to pickup your girlfriend. Actually, I'm trying to imply that the girl you like is the person who set you up in the first place, and that she's the mastermind behind the scheme.

has this really happened to you???

well anyway i think its a god question .....

this is going on a different track but anywho

last year a girl puched me like 5 times in the face
she had ambushed me at my locker.... now at that time i was a high rank in tkd but i just stood there i was frozen i got knocked the ground and repeatedly smacked countless times in my face yet i still did not touch her??
why??
i have been training for over 3 years and i didnt even think at all .......
is this a fault in my part or my martial arts????
you would think being what i am i would have at least got a punch in..
this is one of the many reasons that i lost faith in my art and discovered the true meaning of fighting and that is that there is only one way of fighting,the most effective being jkd...
but yet how does someone know that when a situationn arises for defence that you are not going to freeze? and it is all over by the time you are aware of what had happened?
how many years would it take to react to a enemy like bruce did?
how can you ever be sure that what you are practising repeatedly everyday will come to you when you need it most?
i have had the pain that was dished with the beating and i dont want it to happen again .. but what must i do to trust my body and instinct ..
how do i know it will react when it is supposed to ?
and just not sit there and suffer someone laying fists into my head over and over again.....
this has happened once in my life and i do not intend to ever let it happen again in the rest of my life but it just makes me think am i doing something wrong ???
regards dani

I don't realy have first person experience with any kind of fighting sports yet (except 2 years of judo...) but i did fight sometimes, with some annoying person who thought he could just walk over me..
Besides your body, an important factor is your mind in a fight.
Stay relaxed, even when having pain!
You can try to train on it by just closing your eyes en pretending you are in such a fight. It is hard to realy FEEL it by that, but just try is sometimes. After a while, you will feel the adrenaline when pretending and then you can train on not freezing but fighting back.
On for the pain...
Try pulling your hair with one hand (hard but don't lose your hair ^^) and with the other hand punching on the bag, trying to keep your breath and techniques top, react quick and keep your eyes open

Note: this is an unprofessional opinion

I've already fought against 2 people at once, but not the kind of people are the car in your scenario
I just used some tactic: Beware that they don't surround you: try to stand aside of them, hit one of them, back of, hit the other, back off again, hit the other again, etc...
In that it's just the point of hitting Fast, Hard and First (and now, i feel like Lamar Davis :p)
I've won the fight actually, they couldn't hit me once...
(and almost thrown off school >.<)

But then agian, when they have any kind of weapons, guns f.e., that is impossible to perform...
When your opponnent has a gun, and you are not 100% sure you can disarm him with 1 hit and be sure he won't shoot you in the same time, you have only 1 option: RUN

Note: this opinion is unprofessional

Hello Wesley!

I have found these factors to be the most important in any street encounter.

(1) The person who is the fastest has the greatest advantage.

(2) The person that strikes first with accuracy has the immediate advantage.

(3) The person with the most "killer instinct" stands the better chance of coming out on top!

So, in other words, if you possess the speed, the ability to intercept, and all of your attacks are delivered with ruthless intent, you WILL come out the winner in almost any encounter!

Keep Blasting!
Sifu Lamar M. Davis II
Senior Instructor
Hardcore Jeet Kune Do
Sifu@HardcoreJKD.com
http://www.HardcoreJKD.com
http://www.RealCombatOnline.com
Phone (205) 956-1901

"Hit Hard, Hit Fast, Hit First - ALWAYS!"

I've been in many, many street fights. I recently just got out of jail, and you know what? I found those same 3 things to be TRUE.

I have to agree with Sifu Lamar. I have had the unfortunate luck to be invovled in many street fights as well as amatuer kickboxing matches. My two cents are basically this:

1.) Size does matter but it can be overcome with the proper strategy, technique and mental prep. (As I am only 5'6" 150 lbs. i can attest that size is a major factor but not a deciding one.)

2.) "Speed Kills" meaning that the faster person is going to get that all important first shot. That is about 50% of the fight right there. If you can connect with the first major shot the fights is pretty much over.

3.) Killer instinc is essential. Burce called it Concetrated Efforts and you should use it in every aspect of training.

4.) As far as mult. opponents and armed encounters my advice is RUN! why would you want to fight someone in those situations. If your forced into it your only goal should be to survive until you can retreat. That is the smart thing to do. You are not Bruce Lee and this is not the movies so dont try to take on those odds you try to minimize the damage while trying to escape!

ok....

its funny as the chick that hit me was shorter then me and im about 5 foot 2
she was a kickboxer and as i said before i did tkd...
she practially sat on me and just punched .. when my arms came up to protect me face she just pulled them off and punched me again...
the next thing i knew i was up getting yelled at by the teacher with her laughing and me having a swollen face (purple) and tears streaming down my face (i wish i hadnt cried ) (i didnt want to giveher the satisfaction)
but i did and now when i see her to this day at school she thinks she is better then me and walkes all over me .. (of course no physically i wouldnt let that happen agaion even if i had to trun and run away) i wouldnt take that beating again .... (nearly broke my cheek bone)

the only thing good coming out of iwas 1: i am now interested in jkd lol
and 2: i know that at least i can take 5 average (hard) punches to my face without getting knocked out

i know i shouldnt have fallen that just gave her an avantage and i know that i could have fought her off and probably won but why didnt i do it????????

Well it's a situation where you get pumped with adrenaline in a short time...
It's all a matter of experience...
Next time you will fight you won't have that problem that much any more. If you still feel freezed, try to push her/him away, quickly shake your pain off yourself en make yourself ready to fight back quick.

Hello Wesley,

Ok, I may sound like a smartass for saying this, but the scenario itself is too unrealistic. If a thug has a gun pointed to your head there is NO WAY he's going to "toss it aside". That's a plot from a b-movie. Think about it. Introducing a gun into a situation automatically raises the threat level. The agressor is unlikely to to spontaneously lower the threat level from balistic weapons to 3 on 1 fist fight. How would he know that YOU were not carrying a gun?

Here are a few real scenarios. The first two happened to me.

Real scenario 1

Back some years when I was young and stupid I got involved with a woman that was a "street hustler" to use polite langauge. (Some may say I'm still stupid, though I'm not young. ) She lived in the projects down the street from the main Birmingham post office. Lamar can tell you how dangerous this area is. (Like I said, I was stupid). Anyway one night I was dropping this woman off. As soon as she stepped out of the car a big man slid in, pulled out a 22 and pointed it at my ribs. Of course he asked for my money. I promptly gave him the five dollars worth of "mug money" I always carried around. Then he started yelling at me saying "I know you've got more damn money than that!" The truth is that I didn't. I had an ATM card and only pulled out the amount of money that I needed when I needed it. I didn't have a weapon. My martial arts background at the time was limited. (I had a summer of Kyokushin training at the Oyama school in Homewood Alabama. I hadn't met Lamar yet. I'm not sure if I had trained with Mr. "Kung Fraud" Keenan by that time.) Besides I haven't ever trained gun disarms. Also most gun disarms I've seen are praticed standing up with the gun at your face. This is sitting down, limited manuverability with the gun at your ribs. I'll leave figuring out what happened next as a reader exercise. (I'll tell the rest in a few days if no one figures it out).

Real scenario 2

I was back seeing the same woman. (Like I said, I was STUPID!) She took me in some appartment, went somewhere and told me she'd be right back. Meanwhile there was this crackhead named "sugar" there talking to me. During the course of the conversation he walked behind me and lightly brushed his forearm against the small of my back. I immediately thought "He's checking to see if I have a gun!" Of course like a complete idiot I just stood there and kept talking. Sure enough he pulled a kitchen knife on me. This time I wasn't COMPLETELY unarmed. I had a Swiss Army knife on me that I had gotten for Chrismas. Yeah, not exactly a "tacticle folder" but it did have a screwdriver and a corkscrew! I weighed my pros and cons through my head. He's knife's bigger, but it looks dull. He's obviously on some kind of drug, I've got all my wits. He may have actually been in a knife fight before, I haven't. Again I'll leave it to the reader to figure out what happened next.

Real scenario 3

This happened to the grandson of a friend. He was at one of those "teen clubs". He was there with a friend. His friend was put out of the club earlier. As he left the club gang members started swarming at him from all directions. I won't leave this one as a "reader exercise". He was beat unconscious. The owner of the club never called the police or the ambulance. When he came to he had to drive himself home with one eye swollen shut.

One common theme through all three scenarios is "don't be stupid"! I've been in those projects I described many times doing good things (helping underprivilidged kids) and was never bothered even when I had to drop kids off late at night. It was only when I was there for stupid reasons that I got jacked up. Also in scenario 2 I stayed after it was CLEAR that I should leave. Scenario 1 was like one of those "slow moving car crashes". I saw the guy slipping in my car. To this day I'm not sure if my "reaction time" could have been quick enough for me to drive off. (I was parallel parked). In scenario 3 the poor kid should have left with his friend. Of course he may not have known just how dangerous this "teen club" was. Hopefully the club will be shut down.

Regards,

John M. Drake