Batman who?

“You know how to fight six men. We can teach you how to engage six hundred.”

You might have seen the seminars where the Sensei fights 4 or 5 students at one time. Most of the time it’s so fake you can see the student fly in the air without the instructor touching them.

Maybe you heard on the news - one person was assaulted by a gang. So, to get back to the title of this article, “How do you defeat 100 opponents at once?” Drum roll please…….

RUN!!!

Okay, this may not be the super ninja tactic you wanted to read about, but hold your judgment off until you finish the article.

If you are facing 100 people intent on attacking you, your chances of survival is so low it’s nearly zero.  Even if they engage you one at a time, eventually your stamina will give.  There are just too many opponents for you to handle.

Image this for a moment, you are in a good shape and you cross train in many different areas of fitness….

So you run and they follow.  Maybe after 500 meters you separate the pack and only 50 are able follow you on foot.  Now it’s 1 verse 50. You just defeated 50% of your opponents.

You run to a river and swim across it.  During this swim half their numbers either give up or are not strong enough to follow.  Now it is 1 verse 25.

You reach the other side of the river and find yourself facing a couple of fences which are 4 meters high.  Since you’ve trained in Parkour Urban Ninja Freestyle running, this is no problem for you.  You hop over the fences easily.  Your attackers are either too tired or not skilled enough to follow.  It is now 1 verse 5.

So far you’ve drastically increased your chance of survival without even throwing a punch.  Where you had a zero percent chance of survival before, your situation is starting to look pretty good.

Still, 1 verse 5 is not quite the odds you’d prefer.  So you take the race to the city weaving through traffic, moving through obstacles, crawling under bridges and over walls until you look behind you and only see one person – a banged up and tired assailant giving chase.

You turn around and see the one attacker left is near exhaustion.  You pass a corner to get out of sight and either disappear or wait to take him out quickly and quietly.

Congratulations, you’ve just defeated 100 opponents!  Bruce Wayne who…

Photo Credits: kevindooley

Originally posted 2010-04-15 03:09:15.

Street Fight

Nowadays so many Martial Arts schools claim to teach realistic self-defense.  But how can you teach realistic self-defense purely in a dojo training hall with padded mats.

When it comes to any kind of physical encounter (where you are attacked), your biggest threat is not your attacker, but your environment.

Did you know that you do not fight the same on the sand or ice as you do in a parking lot or on concrete?

You need to be comfortable and flexible with many different environments if you want “realistic self defense” training.  Most attacks will not happen on a mat in a dojo environment.  They will happen outside of your work, on the beach, in a night club, etc…

If you only train in a dojo on a mat, you will not know how to handle obstacles like tables, street curbs, loose gravel, trees, etc…

Imagine you are attacked while taking a nice walk on the beach.  One of the best things you can do is kick or throw sand into your opponents face.

If you are attacked in a night club, put distance between you and your attacker.  Roll over a table and use that as a buffer until security comes and takes him away.

If you are attacked in the street, make sure your attackers back is to the curb, not yours.

When you are attacked, you blood will flow to vital organs and your adrenaline will sky-rocket.  Most people in these types of situation don’t have the time to take a minute and assess their physical surroundings and place themselves in the best spot.

You will need natural reactions, this will need to be done without thinking.  The only way to build this kind of natural reaction is by training in many different kinds of environments and terrain where this becomes second nature.

Don’t limit yourself to the dojo mat when learning – switch it up a bit and introduce other environments such as the jungle, desert, beach and more.

So, next time you spar with your friend, try sparring on a different surface and really feel what its like to be swept and land on something other than a soft mat.  I can guarantee you, it will not be as comfortable as sparring on the mat, but you will be on your way to learning “realistic self defense"

Photo Credits: digitalshay

Originally posted 2010-04-13 03:59:39.

Ground Fighting

On the street - 80-90% of all fights end up on the ground. This is enough awareness to make the case for learning to fight on the ground and it is the fuel behind the cage fighting craze.

The Gracie family started the UFC and dominated the cage fighting arena by having a training background in grappling - ground fighting.  All they had to do was take their opponent to the ground as soon as possible and even the most experienced black belt was helpless without having experience in ground fighting.

As the sport progressed, so did the ground fighting skills of the athletes performing at these events.

The truth is that for you to be skilled in street self-defense, you must learn how to fight and grapple on the ground. However, fighting on the ground in a street fight is hardly realistic. Consider the following:

Multiple Attackers

If you are on the ground focused on a wrestling match with an opponent, you leave yourself open to more attackers. Remember, whether you are controlling your opponent or your opponent is in control - you are still tied up.

Restricted Movements

Being off your feet, you limit your ability to react or run if required. Getting someone off his or her feet is a key strategy in combat and the same applies to you. Your goal in realistic self-defense should be to ALWAYS stay on your feet.

Weapons

In addition, being on the ground will make it challenging for you to respond to weapons or other dangerous elements that are introduced into the situation. In a cage, you only have the chain links and mat to worry about. However, in the street you have concrete, chairs, and sharp objects to avoid.

The best way to learn to stay on your feet is to learn the strengths and weaknesses of ground fighting tactics.  For example: how to keep your balance when an opponent attempts to move you around. Keeping a low center of gravity is a simple, but effective foundational strategy for staying on your feet.  Getting into a low stance prior to an encounter and during the fight will aid in keeping off the ground.

You can practice this concept by having a partner try to pick you up off the ground. The first time you should stand straight with both of your feet touching.  The second time get in a lower stance (maybe a horse stance) and have them pick you up again. With practice you can make it much harder for your opponent to pick you up or knock you off-balance.  It is easy to be pushed over or off-balance when you are not in a low stance.  You might remember this advice from high school if you ever played American tackle football or rugby.

The only true strategy that will give you the combative edge will be training. Work with your partner on trying to stay off the ground while they work on tactics to take you down.

Photo Credits: The National Guard

Originally posted 2010-04-01 13:37:46.

Falling

Take some time to imagine a movie fight scene with people flying through windows, opponents using chairs to smash over their targets back and people falling down the stairs and onto the floor.  This all looks great on the silver screen, but in real life, they do not use sugar glass to hit you over the head with a beer bottle.

On the set of a movie, all of the actors and stuntmen are protected with hidden padding under their clothing. The tables and chairs are designed to break and often made of balsa wood or rubber.  The floors all have padding too and everything is designed to be as safe as a kids playground. This is not the case in the real world.

If your opponent was to throw you to the ground - that ground becomes the most dangerous item in that scenario. If you are knocked into a counter, thrown into a glass window or pushed over a table, you will have to deal with the fact that these objects fight back in a way that is hard to defend against.

Consider that in the bathroom people often slip and fall backwards and hit the back of their head on the bathtub or counter and are often killed instantly. This accident is one of the most common household deaths. The same goes in the real world (in or out of the home) and we need to learn to protect ourselves against the environment if we are to truly understand realistic self-defense.

Once you are aware that your environment is the most dangerous part of the self-defense situation, you can then move on to learning techniques of self-protection against your environment. For most martial artists, training will start with basic rolls and falls. By learning to roll if you learn and rebound from the ground.  By learning to fall, you learn how to take the least amount of damage as possible.

Once you have mastered rolling and falling you will want to focus on improving your agility in an environment with obstacles. This type of training requires you to play a stunt man/woman and pad up. You will also want to create an environment that is typical to many of the locations you might be in if a situation did occur – for example, in the bank, school, coffee shop, office or even on the street. You will need to set up elements that represent dangerous obstacles in your environment.  However, these elements should be SAFE to fall or roll over. Consider using items designed for playgrounds – or protect tables with pillows and thick padding.

With some practice and professionally guided training, you can be well on your way to feeling safe even in the most arduous of environments.

Photo Credits: chibij918

Originally posted 2010-04-03 03:44:07.

Bruce Lee Statue

But many martial arts were developed back when conventional weapons and hands and fists were used to dominate other people. Today's world is drastically different. If you want to become a world-class survival artist in the modern world, you have to embrace not only martial arts, but knowing how to avoid trouble in the first place and build a secure, balanced life. Here's how you can hone your survival skills outside of the conventional martial arts.

Learn urban and rural survival skills. Sure, you may be a good martial artist, but if you're ever caught in a tough situation in an urban environment, could you survive with your wits alone? Urban survival can include different skills such as blending in with the crowd, learning how to escape a city, and using technology to your advantage. Rural survival skills are also crucial, as you never know when you might get trapped in a survival situation far from the comforts of civilization.

Learn financial survival skills. The economic crisis that the world sunk into last year is a wake-up call: today's financial world doesn't stand on stable ground, and all of the martial arts skills in the world won't help you retain your bank account should a bigger crisis hit. How protected is your financial situation? If you lose your job, will you be out of money in a hurry, or do you have emergency funds saved? Do you have all of your money in cash, or do you diversify with commodities like gold and silver?

Avoiding danger, even while traveling. It's not possible to always avoid danger, but that doesn't mean you should walk into the rough part of town simply because you have a black belt. A wise martial artist knows how to avoid danger in the first place, even if you're in places that you don't know quite as well as your home. Make sure that you generally avoid bad areas, rough situations, and, when overseas, areas where tourists are constantly targeted. Information is valuable, so ask around if you're not sure.

The modern renaissance man won't only know how to defend himself, but how to protect himself and his lifestyle. Being able to block a punch is great, but achieving more balance can help you survive other threats to your livelihood.

Photo Credits: juanma.

Originally posted 2010-01-26 03:36:15.