How do you train for a street fight?
Regardless of style, mindset and physical ability,
HOW DO YOU TRAIN FOR IT
By getting into street fights.
by picking fights or by paying someone with fight experience.
How do you train for a street fight?
How do you train to avoid a car crash?You can’t.But you can be trained in First Aid,You make sure everything is in working order and your wearing your seatbelt.
I say this when we practice our techniques usually after I been punched sometimes bleeding"Martial art techniques are not 100% sometimes you get hit
sometimes maybe cut the goal is to make it home safe"Expect to be hit
You train in street fighter 
walk around in a white robe, with a white hood covering your head. Unless you live in a place with all caucasins you will most likely get some training.
trian your strengths , improve your weaknesses, and definately don’t think you can expect anything, street fights have no rules, it can be 8 people beating you up or when your fighting one person a metal pipe may crack the back of your head open, all of the training in the world can’t garuntee success on the street, however it can help in some circumstance.
My answer is awareness of surroundings.
For instance, my walk to and from the parking garage at work is where alot of bums and hoodrats hang out. As I am walking I take notice of anyone who could be a potential attacker (my basis is anyone who is in close enough in proximity, not by the way they look). I take into account the spacing around me, natural resources that can be used as a weapon, number of people together, how long it takes me to pull out my blade and flip the lever (it’s an “assisted” opener knife) to see if it’s an option. I also look at how a person is walking towards me and the look in their eyes. I then start looking at size, build, and what the best first target/strike I would use if necessary. It’s similair to how a quarterback (American Football) makes his reads as he drops back to pass. I also look around for the transit and other police as well, if I have the option to run, which is preferable.
Most martial artists train to fight. But as for actually training for a street fight, I don’t know that there is really a physical way to do so. Sure you can mess around with training knives and plastic bottles, but mental training in possible real situations is very beneficial to keep from getting ambushed by surprise.
Practice how you would truely fight, and fight how you have practiced. 
Practice sprinting and running through obstacle courses in plain clothes, you can’t get jacked up if you can’t get caught.
The only way you can really prepare yourself for a street fight is to resign yourself to the fact that you might die. Once you don’t give a shiyt anymore, it will certainly improve the outcome.
Oh and what to train? Balls and eyes, my friend… balls and eyes.
You know, I thought about it… Screw martial arts in street fights. Just carry some mace or pepper spray. Some nice chemical warfare can beat chi anyday.
A dynamite vest would work against multiple attackers. Unfortunately you would be toast as well.
On a side note, mace and/or pepper spray aren’t always that effective. I got sprayed (unintentionally) and it did burn my eyes but really just pis[size=2]s[/size]ed me off. Just like any weapon on you, you may not even have time to pull it out when attacked.
If you really want to go chemical, some bleach or sulphuric acid in a squirt-gun would suffice. But the SA would definitely limit the shelf-life of the squirt gun. 
I pepper sprayed my self - how cool is that? FWIW, I had the same experience ewallace did - it burned, but that’s about it.
been kicked in the balls in a fight before - I didn’t feel it until the fight was done. I know a few others who have had the same experience. For that reason, I don’t stress striking there as part of a self defense program.
bingo. ewallace has kicked the correct in the balls and subdued it.
that won’t get you into fights, it will get you shot and castrated…
Ah! wise observation Hook Clawed Grasshopper! perfect practice makes perfect master. always train against methods better than your own to improve your technique. fighting against multiple attackers with knives and guns very good for all around survival skills. good training see if iron shirt qiqong practice propperly. otherwise very foolish. 
I thought Losttrak’s suggestion to train balls and eyes was about training to grow a pair (get aggressive) and your perception/observation…? No?!
If he was talking about nuts strikes, twists and kicks and eye gouges and pokes or whatever, then it’s a daft thing to say. You need the position to get any of those attacks in, and the position in a streetfight is gonna have to be through keeping your (read/assume ‘well-trained, live’… ) MA principles (and of course, associated techs) in the midst of the fear, adrenalin and the thick of everything flying, and through the aggression.
Good post ewallace, but I would add to this. I don’t personally think about where to strike, because picking specific targets is begging to be lost in the initial adrenaline dump… strikes to most chosen targets are gonna come under fine motor skills, and they’re gonna get lost in the first few seconds, and then furthermore you’re gonna be panicking about a back up.
Target visualization has worked for me only twice, both times for the throat and both times when I had the benefit of at least partial surprise (both times splitting up fights).
Thinking combos and different zones is in my experience more useful. So rather than thinking, ‘this guy’s big, I’ll kick him in the knee’, thinking more like, ‘this guy’s big on top, but he has scrawny legs, so I’ll work a high low combo’ to get his big arms on the defensive while you sweep/low kick etc. Keep it general.
To illustrate, one time the guy I was against was an animal, a real animal, and he was with his friends. My old man was containing him (my old man’s huge, but this guy was berserk) and his friends and my bro were just getting to pitch in. The guy broke away from my old man, and I went for a kick in the side of the knee (I was wearing big boots), and it just bounced off… this guy was already drunk and not feeling anything… I then lost a couple of vital seconds (at least it felt like that, could have been less), giving him the initiative. The rest was pretty messy.
Apart from thinking in general zones, I’ve also found through long experience living in rough areas, drinking in rough places (in my younger days ), on the door etc that I automatically check out not how big people are, but if they have any distinctive characteristics like a limp, however slight, or other bodily imbalances.
Sounds a bit crazy maybe, but especially if you’ve practised a grappling art (maybe especially a touchy-feely one like aiki?) you get to read imbalances in people’s bodies. Dunno, but maybe it’s because in aiki there are a lot of older people, and people with progressive or repetitive injuries, and we were always taught to have respect for the people you train with, so I’m used to spotting people’s weaknesses a mile off. Maybe it’s just me.
I have been right many many times though on this one, and I do believe that it’s something you can train yourself to do. It also impresses chicks no end if you can tell them where they’re uptight etc… 
I don’t know how useful this may be in a fight, but I did accurately read a potential kungfu teacher’s weaknesses once and easily took advantage of him in chi sao (in the nicest possible way of course) so maybe it’s transferable.
BTW, most of the grief in smaller countries (than the States) and cities seems to come from closer and more unpreventable sources nowadays. Eg, in Japan, and in the UK recently I’ve been reading more and more about random nutters stabbing people on the Tube or just walking behind someone in the street.
No amount of awareness will prevent you from one of these attacks. Unless you (a) walk around like a highly-strung basket case, or (b) really cultivate the mushin (no-mind) aspects of traditional zen (chan) meditation. I think this no-mindedness can really improve your response time and even go so far as a little development of some ‘sixth sense’ kind of thing. I’ve no scientific basis for this belief, and I don’t believe it’s particularly provable/disprovable.
On the other hand, the little Systema I’ve practised and the whole lot I’ve seen and been shown would seem like a good art for street fighting. There’s no stance for a start. I mean really, no stance. And literally a little under half of every lesson is getting punched, kicked, hit with sticks and chains, rolling around on the floor avoiding people dropping real sharp knives on you and other such whacky fun and games. The other half is doing those things to other people!