the street fight article on the announcement

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=542

It is a good read and should be discussed.

some key points

  1. walking away is usually the best option (avoid legal and psychological consequences).
  2. if one choose to fight or cannot walk away, be decisive and end it quick.
  3. the mugger has a lot of experiences. he can get more by mugging more people. you probably don’t have the experience. you are at a distinct disadvantage.
  4. beware of weapons used by your opponents and improvise weapon from the environment.
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Good basics, I liked his “what I did wrong” sections.

Fast forward to your adult years. Unless you are a gang-banger living in a tough, slum neighborhood, you would probably never get into a street fight.
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The classic adult street fight is this. Two men in a bar get into an argument. One of them says, “Let’s step outside.”

Too broad a statement. I’ve had or know people that have had incidents in good restaurants, theaters, expensive hotels, traffic, at kids sporting events, The Magic Kingdom, with a pack of pizza delivery boys, theaters, concerts, a kids birthday party and checkout lines. Some were difused some weren’t. These are generally places where you wouldn’t think something would happen which maybe has you in code white. I got involved with a jerk yelling at a waitress about his food at a really nice restaurant. I thought having someone try to calm him down in a nice way would work. Wrong. He went postal towards me and that one came close to going bad, but I talked him down somewhat and he stormed out. I got free desert, but what an embarrising ***** it was for my family and I might have had to hurt someone over his meat not being cooked to his likeing. Not fun.

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I recon if you really have to fight with someone, strike the opponents’ neck, using a little bit strength is good engouth. Hitting groin should be the second alternative, cos the consequence would be more severe.

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tigerwing, that’s incorrect, IMO. I’m in a hurry, but I’ll go into details later if someone else doesn’t while I am away.

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Originally posted by tigerwing
I recon if you really have to fight with someone, strike the opponents’ neck, using a little bit strength is good engouth. Hitting groin should be the second alternative, cos the consequence would be more severe.

No way man, that’s if you’re dealing with some drunk guy in a bar who’s never been smacked in his life.

If you REALLY have to fight with someone, that means they intend serious harm to you. Anything less and you should have walked away before it got to that point.

What you REALLY wanna do is damage something from the waist down (and NOT the groin, the adrenaline going through someone in a real fight negates whatever pain your groin shot might produce) so that you can OUTRUN your assailant. Make sure you know exactly where to run.

Damage something like their knees, instep, basically whatever will cause a loss in supporting structure so you can really outrun them. Then run.

There is no honor is streetfights. And I would hope your life means more to you than to throw it away needlessly in a streetfight.

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There is no honor is streetfights. And I would hope your life means more to you than to throw it away needlessly in a streetfight.

Trying to either include or exclude honor in any kind of fight is silly. Also saying that you’d be throwing away your life needlessly in a streetfight is too absolute. You might have a real good reason for being in what we’re calling a streetfight. What I’ve learned about fighting in the real world is that there are no absolutes.

I recon if you really have to fight with someone, strike the opponents’ neck, using a little bit strength is good enough.
Great, and now that you’ve ****ed him off do you try the groin shot? And now that he’s really irate do you start using dimak?

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Originally posted by rogue
Trying to either include or exclude honor in any kind of fight is silly. Also saying that you’d be throwing away your life needlessly in a streetfight is too absolute. You might have a real good reason for being in what we’re calling a streetfight. What I’ve learned about fighting in the real world is that there are no absolutes.

I agree with the no absolutes part… I’m taking things to the ‘safe’ extreme of assuming that whoever wants to fight me in a streetfight could possibly end my life. Ergo, I avoid them. With this philosophy, the scenario of a streetfight is a LOT closer to life or death considering the avoidance factor. By the time it’s come around to a real fight, all other avenues (including leaving) have been pursued, and I’m now cornered.

I’m not saying that others out there get into streetfights which aren’t life or death situations, my statements are if you REALLY have to fight someone, then it means all other avenues have been persued and you are now cornered into an unavoidable fight.

Again, my philosophy is avoiding places and situations where uncontrolled fights can erupt, in particular with myself in the middle of it all.

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By the time it’s come around to a real fight, all other avenues (including leaving) have been pursued, and I’m now cornered.
I may be misunderstanding you but to wait until you’re conered is a bad thing. All situations are different and sometimes establishing who’s **** is bigger earlier can save your ass better than trying to avoid a bad situation altogether.

Again, my philosophy is avoiding places and situations where uncontrolled fights can erupt, in particular with myself in the middle of it all.
I agree, but there is no such thing as a place where an uncontrolled fight can’t happen. I haven’t been in a bar fight since my 20’s, but I’ve had adult fights happen at a kids soccer game, a kids football game (I helped break a fight up) and recently a restaurant. Avoiding certain places just means you’re not going to get into a fight there. That still leaves alot of territory where things can go wrong.

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Originally posted by rogue
[B]Good basics, I liked his “what I did wrong” sections.

Too broad a statement. I’ve had or know people that have had incidents in good restaurants, theaters, expensive hotels, traffic, at kids sporting events, The Magic Kingdom, with a pack of pizza delivery boys, theaters, concerts, a kids birthday party and checkout lines. [/B]

I was blown away several weeks back by a 2 psycho colleagues in two different schools respectively. I’ve never encountered this before at work and to be honest the first one caught me off guard. I am a very little chick, weighing from 44-46 kgs on any given day ( even give or take a kg or 2 ) and this guy was at least 100 kgs and a trained and pre-conbditioned ex fire-fighter.
1st, I want to say that as a chick, I find most of my street encounters are sex related and 2nd that maybe it’s the nature of alot ppl who take esl positions to be volitile??

Anyway, how it happened was that after the after school term after party we were sitting on some stairs chatting, then after an hour or so, the guy stood up and me having drunken more than I would’ve had I thought a colleague would ever be a threat, threw me down the stairs / side ramp. I re-approached twice but hadn’t really registered an intention to fight back nor defend until after the third, but by then I think he realised he was going to have fight me if we continued and I so he allowed me to walked away.

I was eying off his undefended points though and was fairly confident I could plant something that counted if it went any further.
But I was undoubtedly vulnerable for those 30 seconds!

At another school after that, I had another run in with a colleague and a couple of weeks later a travel service employee in much the same circumstances, except this time I hadn’t been drinking much and was prepared. For a female and an adult in real life situations, which often involve sexual btw of some kind and generally are in much closer proximity to their attackers before the need to defend arises. I like ribs and takedowns, but I think a nice blade press ( over strike ) to a pressure point and maybe a thumb in an adams apple, with option to take a palm to chest or elbow to shoulder, an employ some kness or trips, is really much kinder than a serious strike .

Just one for the chicks, but if distance allows, I think a throw and lock is ample.

BL

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I enjoyed the article overall and think there is some good advice in there. Since I plan to criticize it a bit, I should point out what I think is the good advice first.

“As we train, so shall we do.” - amen to this point. Remember in your training to take things seriously. You never know if the technique you are learning in class will be effective for you unless you practise with sincerity and vigor. When it works for you, practise it often so that if you need to react to a street fight, it will be engraned in your muscle memory.

“THE FIRST RULE OF PREVENTING INJURY IS AVOIDANCE” Read it, believe it.

Now for a personal opinion:

“DON"T RUN AFOUL OF THE LAW”

As for weapons. I think police grade pepper spray is a good device to carry when you know you will be in somewhat questionable surroundings. i.e. - You have to work late and catch a cab after dark in downtown Detroit. Having some spray in hand while hailing a cab might be prudent.

As for more lethal weapons, “I would rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6” is my philosophy. While I agree that in most street fights you will not have time to pull out a weapon, there are possible situations where you might need a gun or knife. I would rather have the weapon and not need it, than need it and not have it.

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Brooklyn Monk

Here’s a link to Brooklyn Monk’s previous ezine article, just for your reference. Note also that our last issue (Sep Oct 2004) had two articles about multiple attackers and Choy Lay Fut which both derived from street fight incidents that the authors experienced. All three articles have a similar format, masters discussing the incident then reflecting with ‘bullet-point’-like tips.

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Who is Rocky Rambo?

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Originally posted by rogue
[B]I may be misunderstanding you but to wait until you’re conered is a bad thing. All situations are different and sometimes establishing who’s **** is bigger earlier can save your ass better than trying to avoid a bad situation altogether.

I agree, but there is no such thing as a place where an uncontrolled fight can’t happen. I haven’t been in a bar fight since my 20’s, but I’ve had adult fights happen at a kids soccer game, a kids football game (I helped break a fight up) and recently a restaurant. Avoiding certain places just means you’re not going to get into a fight there. That still leaves alot of territory where things can go wrong. [/B]

with both of these responses, rogue has assaulted the correct while it wasn’t looking.

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Assaulted while wasn’t looking exactly, as the context of what rogue was responding to seems to have been missed or misunderstood.

It’s not WAIT until cornered, it’s ‘done everything possible, but now you’re cornered’. And just 'cuz adults fight at kids soccer games doesn’t mean you have to be involved.

So really, in the context of the original message, moot point.

However, since the context seems to have been missed, then it’s a good point to remind everyone to be alert so the potential problem doesn’t ‘assault you while you’re not looking’.

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“, but I’ve had adult fights happen at a kids soccer game”

Yup… When I was 12-14 I umped occasionally at t-ball, and machine pitch. There was always at least 1 cop at every T-Ball game, because fights between parents was almost unavoidable.

"For a female and an adult in real life situations, "

I doubt both of those for some odd reason…

“. I would rather have the weapon and not need it, than need it and not have it”

Dont got a strap, but I pretty much always have my knife on me.

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look shakey : you can deny that women fight and are competant ( and for all their dimuntiveness ) for all you like, but welcome to real world !!

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Thanks SevenStar. I’ve learned about the limitations of avoiding bad places first hand. Tons of people think just because there aren’t a crew of gang bangers or outlaw bikers standing around that they’re safe.