Thought for the day: **Some good thoughts on street fighting from AH
Out here in the regular world, where law enforcement is just a phone call away and most bars have bouncers employed specifically to break up fights, fist fights tend to be pretty short.
Fighting for survival doesn’t work like that. A fight for your life doesn’t end because one party is willing to acknowledge the other is the victor and, more often than not, no well-intentioned bystander (let alone police officer) is coming to your rescue. If you ever find yourself in a scrap with someone that legitimately means to end your life, the rules play out quite a bit differently than they do between rowdy frat brothers outside a Margaritaville.
There are a million things that go into effectively managing a fight, and many of them don’t translate well into the written word. I could tell you, for instance, not to get tunnel vision when your opponent reveals that they’re holding a weapon, but learning how to balance awareness of the blade with defending against the attacks of their other three limbs is the sort of thing you just have to do, over and over, before you get good at it. The one thing I can impart, however, is perhaps the most important — and can improve your chances at surviving long enough to worry about things like tunnel vision: it’s simple, counter-intuitive, and one of the toughest concepts to impart on new fighters, but it’s integral — efficiency of movement.
Most one-on-one fights end up on the ground eventually. We don’t have choreographers in real life, so dramatic roundhouse punches and hooks and jabs soon give way to stumbling feet and adrenaline. Before you know it, you find yourself in the grass, grabbing and feeling for soft spots on your opponent like you’ve been given the green light on prom night. That’s when efficiency of movement needs to kick in. You’re in close quarters, your life is in danger, and this fight isn’t going to end until one of you is unable to go on.
Unable to go on, of course, might mean different things to different people. If my family is in danger, “unable to go on” comes right after “completely dismembered,” but your opponent may be willing to give up their assault after you convince them with a concussion and separated shoulder. The secret is lasting long enough to seize your opportunity.
Ground fighting is different than stand up fighting at a fundamental level. When you’re standing up, every time your body comes into contact with your opponent is about causing harm or defending against it — but when you’re on the ground, you’re constantly in contact with your opponent, feeling your way through attacks and defenses, looking for opportunities while trying to minimize the ones you present to your opponent. Most stand up fighters struggle to appreciate this difference and will keep trying to hurt their opponent through force exerted the entire time they’re in contact on the ground – burning through energy all along the way.
Surviving a ground fight is about more than defending yourself and seizing an opportunity — it’s about lasting until the opportunity arises. When you find yourself tied up with your opponent and you feel them struggling to exert force against you, slow down and think about what the outcome of that force may be. Are they just squeezing your torso or are they sinking a submission? If they’re just squeezing, hell, let ‘em squeeze. When you feel their legs start to give, that means an opportunity is on the horizon.
Staying calm when someone’s meddling their way through a sloppy choke or a poorly executed armbar can be tough at first, and like all things, practice will make you better. Even if you don’t have a chance to train patience into yourself, you can improve your chances at surviving a life or death struggle by simply taking a deep breath and slowing yourself down a bit.
In that sort of fight, you’re going to get hurt. You’re going to want to quit. If you can last longer than your opponent though, you’re going to get to walk away.
