Was at Woodstock '99. Moved my way down towards the front as Rage Against the Machine was playing. Korn was getting ready to come on and it started packing up pretty tight. We were about 50 yards in front of a soundstage that was in the middle of the field. By the time Korn came out, everyone was shoulder to shoulder with no room to move. Girls started crying and guys were getting nervous. Then the music started and all I could see was a wave coming towards me as the people in the front pushed back HARD. In a couple minutes, it was crazy. It was so tight in the crowd that I had to push people away from my chest so I could inhale. We tried to crowd surf the girls out and I remember holding my arms straight against another guys chest so people could run under. By this time, that 50 yards was down to about nothing and people were getting pulled out of the crowd by the security on the soundstage. Men had tears in their eyes from fear. All this time, crazy Korn music is playing in the background. I managed to find my buddies who had been pulled out and I launched myself up, using 2 peoples shoulders, so I could get pulled out. It was nuts.
Going to see Korn again this Wednesday. I’m a little smarter about positioning now. A true feeling of being out of control is very scary.
Wilson,that sounded bad.Last time I heard of similar thing was that accident in some pearl jam concert I think,there were deaths…
TKDwarrior,
well nobody was able to give a specific answer on that,mostly common sense and few had ideas of what to do in such situation in general sense.Many had doubts,I think there was a mention that maybe skilled TKD stylist could…
I can direct you there but if you actually are located in India I doubt you will get much fun out of that unless you speak (read) finnish…referring to my note on “local” forum.
But here is it anyway- www.suomentaekwondoliitto.fi
Once I went in some cave in the ardennes (belgium), so it was this kind of ‘tour’ in a cave, but it was with some insane small tunnels, then at this end the guide tells us to go on on ourselves and inf our way to the end (since this was an adventure vacation, this was included in the little cave trip, so this was not something unexpected) but me and to other friends go down this REALLY tight ‘tube’ shaped tunnel, I mean you could only move forward, backward was really really hard, so we went in, and after 10 minutes in this incredibly small tunnel we still hadn’t reached the end. I started to get really trippy, and concluded we went the wrong way, and there was no way back, unless a three our trip… when then a minute later we finally reached the end. I think I got claustrophobic, which is weird, since I go diving an awfull lot, I guess it was the just the fact that I really thought I was ed, that made me go nuts for a couple of secs (not verbally, just in my mind .. like talking to yourself saying ’ **** .. this is the end’). Anyway this is for sure the thoughest situation I ever had to face ..
The most dangerous fight situation I was in occured when I was about 17. I wasnt practicing any MA back then.
I got drunk with some friends, and then they took off so I was alone wandering through town… I stopped at a video game arcade, but soon made my way out…
Once outside I was quickly surrounded by a gang of headbangers looking for trouble.
The tough one of the crowd comes up to me and suckerpunches shut my left eye which is near perfect vision, while my right eye is really near-sighted. At this point I’m almost blind.
Adrenaline starts pumping real hard and anger swells inside…
Then the tough guy approaches me with his face 6 inches from mine and says defiantly “come on, give me your best shot”.
I grabbed him by the sides of his waist and kneed him up in the groin three times, then ran away as fast as I could while his friends were confused, surprised and tried to help him while he writhed in pain on the ground.
Mine was getting jumped by a gang of kids outside a huge shopping plaza where kids hang out on fridays. I tried to use Ninjutsu hit-and-run techniques that I had only read about in books as best I could to neutralize enough of them to get the hell out of there. It didn’t work as good as it would have if I had been trained at the time, but I got out with a few scrapes and bruises.
Another was when I came face-2-face with a fer de lance (one of the most venomous snakes in the world) in the rainforests of Costa Rica. I wrote about that in an article I did on Shaolin Snake Style way back in our Oct 99 issue - http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/magazine/article.php?article=101 .
Writing about these experiences helps me process them. I have another about rescuing a young girl on Songshan mountain during a rainstorm and getting caught on Mt Whitney in a hail storm, but I’ll share those some other time, perhaps.
Tai-Jutsuka,I see.
i wonder if you mind telling me what you mean by hit and run tech. in detail as I pay attention to ninjutsu in a way and it´s quite hard to track down any info. on it.If not,that´s allright.
Gene,
Cheers,quite a lot of stuff.I looked into that patient related case and downloaded the article,I´ll check the other one out later.Have not had too much exposure to them anyway.
Basically just like guerilla warfare where you keep from being seen, attack vital points like the back of the neck when possible, and make a quick break for it. I said I picked it up from books but also from a friend of mine who used to study ninjutsu. It also helped that the whole ordeal took place in a crowded parking lot. I, however, have never formally trained in ninjutsu so I made a few mistakes and eventually got found.
A fer-dee lance! Cambodia! Good God!
Let’s see… I willingly jumped out of an airplane despite my absolute terror of falling/heights. Another time I was nearly drowned. I was held under so long that breathing in water actually felt good. And then there’s that time I got so sick that I had to lay in my bathtub for 12 hours because I was vomiting and dry heaving, as well as ****ting & ****ing with a nose spilling snot, all of this was uncontrollable and consitant (like I wouldn’t get even 15 seconds of rest before one or all of these ailments would go nuts). One of those times that death didn’t seem so bad compared to life. A doc came though and gave me a shot which knocked me out cold. When I awoke I was all better.
But the worst time was when…
When I was a wee lad I was in the midst of a ‘friendly’ shaving cream fight when the victim of my exploits, who had intiated the whipping (please forgive me God, that was a lame one…), picked up the biggest rock he could hold and crushed my temple with it. I thought I was crying, so I wiped my eyes and saw my hand was covered in crimson tears. Just think of magical movie scences like in “Lord of the Flies”, when Piggy gets his head crushed, and then there’s “The Taleted Mr. Ripley”, when Ripley smashes Biff (or whatever- the yuppie) in the face with a paddle. Blood literally was spreading from me in a circle on the ground. All my clothes were saturated with it, but despite this I could feel nothing. I looked at my brother and sister who bore a look of absolute horror, and I thought I was going to die. So I stupidly chased the kid who cracked my skull with the one desire I had left in life- to kill him. But, ya know, it’s very very hard to catch anyone when your losing that much blood, so I never saw him again.
Ok when i was 8 years old, me cousin and i played in a quarry near my grandmothers home. It rained the day before. I went down a little gravel (right word ?) hill. On the top of this hill was rock with about 300kg. So the rock starts rolling an i start runnig, but the rock was faster and i was jammed to another rock with about 600kg. I had luck cause the rock just jammed me to the other rock in the high of my knee/femoral. My cousin was about 7 years old, but smart enough to go to my grandmother for help. so my grandmother informed the local firedepartment. When those guyes arrived my feet were already blue. so one guy form fire dep. said to my grandmother he thinks they have to amputate my feet. My grandmother faint. Now to come to an end, after the firedempt got me out and brought me to the hospital, the doctor told me that i only have bruises and abraision. He told me that my puppyfat saved me from serious damage on my feet.
So i was a little fat when i was young, but it had something good too..
