Reading some of these posts, how many people have actually seen a real fight where anything goes?
Grappling like in UFC is not real self defense and like some already have mentioned, on the street level, a large gap in speed/awareness/reaction/strength/intelligence will decide the outcome more than style.
The only times from my experience when BJJ/Judo/Grappling was useful was when some drunk dumbass needed to be disabled, however, I don’t consider this a real fight.
A real fight experience is for example when you are walking home at night and some dude will come up behind you and usually try to strike your head or choke you out if he doesn’t want to get arrested for murder, then steal your stuff and run off.
Example:
Consider a real fight to be basically a hood environment in this case: concrete pavement everywhere, houses are wall to wall so there’s no where to turn/run mid-block aside from staying on the street/sidewalk, no remote objects usually such as a rock/pipe/stick/etc, especially after the recent migration to LED lighting the streets are very dark with limited visibility, will add more if it comes to mind.
The most important thing first, off the top of my head so I might leave something out, would be detecting threats. An experienced thug will never let you see his face directly and will wait for potential victims to pass by, watching out for those that look weak, walk fast, look like they are nervous or lack confidence, etc. Having peripheral vision without turning your head and still seeing both sidewalks of a street is critical. Other things include learning to use shadows from multiple light sources to be able to judge distance/location, good hearing, etc. Walking on streets with businesses provides benefits since they have, usually, decent lighting, more cameras, businesses with glass walls at night have good reflection to extend your visual range, are usually not empty so thugs are less likely to do something however that video attack I referenced earlier was on a big non-empty street. A good number of thugs do things alone out of fear of being snitched on. A trick to use if you think someone is stalking you from a distance is using your phone, but you need to practice in front of a mirror to learn how to hold it so the camera can see what’s behind you but someone behind you can’t see the screen (also tape over the record light). This serves two purposes. First is detection. Second, if you see someone potentially suspicious, you have your phone ready to call cops or 911 in worst case scenario.
For those operating in a two man team, you will have usually two cases.
- Both approach you to stop you. One person would then distract you while the other gets out of your sight to strike you. You want to move around the person trying to distract you in a circumference such that the other person does not get to either side of you nor is directly behind the person trying to distract you so you can see if he tries to do something such as taking out a knife or gun.
- The second case is like the first case but the person that will attack you is already out of sight. You want to again move in a circumference against the person trying to distract you. You have two directions to start, left or right. I suggest the direction perpendicular that is away from the street, therefore when you move your back will face a much lesser area, only the house on the side and you will be able to see the entire street.
I have to go now but will drop some things quick here so I remember to get back to them.
Usage of environment. Learn to jump short/mid height fences. When opponent tries to jump fence to follow it is good time for counter attack unless you are much faster then gtfo. I personally used this one against 4 dudes that tried to jump me on my way home when it was late after a late class at university. I was able to knock out the first dude mid-jump in one shot and the second guy messed up his jump and severally injured himself to the point he could only hold his stomach and twitch on the floor (picking a fence that had strong metallic rods was a good choice). I then put him in a choke hold and told the remaining two that they had 30 seconds to be gone or he would no longer be breathing. When I noticed they got enough distance to the point where shooting me would not be reasonable, I ran off. I had a knife but I didn’t use it because the black kids looked like they were still in high school and contrary to what some people that I even know think, taking out a knife to scare off attackers is not a good idea because it may provoke people to take out a gun that otherwise wouldn’t. On the subject of UFC/MMA and grapplers, I had friends that did it competitively and we used fake knife to practice and grapplers had no chance after knife user had only a year of practice. Also, in a street fight, I doubt grapplers would know what to do if they try to go even one on one (a style which isn’t mean for 1 vs 2 imo) and I would have used that fence trick or a myriad of other street tricks. People joke about sand in fights, but people I know have used salt packets. Glasses help in that regard. Also, in a street fight, there usually is no ground game. When my grappler friend got attacked, he dropped this dude on his head on the concrete. It was GG. Ambulance took like 5 minutes to come and no one saw anything when police came obviously.
Anyways, hope no one in this thread actually tries to do something that gets either them or anyone else injured. Sadly we don’t live in a peaceful world and it doesn’t appear to be getting better any time soon.
