A man on vacation at a bar finds himself in middle of a fight and as so often happens – it is hard to discern the good guys from the bad. Well he puts some distance between the fight and his wife and scans for exits. One of the fighters notice and comes right at him! The vacationer side-steps the rusher and give him a little push into the table – grabs his wife and makes for the exit.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been in this type of situation before and it is a little scary if you have the family with you. This website has often evaluated different types of fighting styles and self defense but why does self defense work? I mean most bad guys can fight – right? If they can fight then why can some minimal self-defense training carry the day?

In this post I will delve into the question of why self defense works and what I think are some good ways to go about learning how to fight. Let me be clear that self defense is learning how to fight. More on that in a bit but first I’d like to show you the average caliber of fighters you have to prepare for in case you ever have to defend yourself. Take a peek at this video of a street fight – there are some weapons but no one seems to get hurt too badly.

I don’t know what was going on in this video but it seems to be one bunch of guys against some local guys. There were some clubs and a knife at one point but the injuries did not seem too bad. I saw one guy that seemed to know a few moves that kept him fairly safe. Without knowing if anyone was just in this fight I am just going to use this video to make my points.

Most of the guys in this video could not fight their way out of a paper bag. Sure they could wield a club, punch and kick but most of the moves were ineffective. I would guess that 80% of all fighters in the world are not good at what they are doing. I mean who cares how mean you look, how much you can drink, and how good your fight talk is?

Am I trying to be disrespectful to these and most fighters? Nope but I am making the point that if you agree with me that most people do not really know what they are doing when it comes to fighting – then you might understand why self defense training of any type – can work!

Let me point out that the 20% of people that can fight can include soldiers, cops, martial artists of all persuasions, and natural born fighters. Not all great fighters have been trained but more often than not – fighters had to have had some training to be good.

Are black belts good fighters? They can be but it depends on their training, ability and why they wanted to learn martial arts. I have known plenty of black belts that talk about what if this happened or that happened and wonder if they are ready.

How about soldiers? Can they all fight in hand to hand combat? I would guess that many that have been to war zones and have had to do it – can fight but not all. Many learn what they need to in modern warfare and depend on the weapons.

What about cops? Cops can learn how to be great fighters – many do not ever get proficient at fighting because it is not really part of their job. All cops have a black belt – you know the belt that holds their mace, baton, gun and radio.

So the point I am trying to make  is to be good at self-defense – you have to become good at fighting. While it is true that limited self-defense can be effective because most people cannot fight their way out of a paper bag (including people that should be good at fighting) – you should not depend on the other guy being inept like the guys in this video.

Take a look at Bas Rutten’s take on a bar fight and while you are looking at it, realize that most situations he is speaking about would only work on untrained fighters (80% of what you find out there). I’ll add that Bas Rutten certainly is one that can fight – but the video is showing close hand to hand combat where an attacker is standing right next to Bas - a mistake for any attacker (that wants to win a fight).

Trained fighters do not give stuff away for instance by talking smack right next to their opponent. Anyone can sucker punch or kick anyone else if they are inside the critical distance. That being said, Bas does make the point (my emphasis) how easily most people can be beaten in a fight since they leave holes in their defenses.

I had a stepson from a former marriage that used to get angry and fight at the drop of a hat. I noticed that most times he came back with a black eye or such and told very animated stories about the fights and why the other guy deserved to get knocked out. Most of the time he lost and I asked him the question why be fought if he realized that he could not fight?

He told me that the other guy deserved to get hit! I persisted by pointing out that it took work and training to learn how to fight – why didn’t he just back away rather than resort to a fight? He did not have a good answer other than he got so angry that he could not back down.

What do you think fighting is? Is it merely learning a fighting style such as judo, karate, boxing or mma? Would any of those mentioned martial arts help you in a fight? Are any superior to each other? Are they easily adapted to self-defense?

Fighting is any method of combat including weapons or hand to hand. I tend to focus on hand to hand combat because most people do not carry weapons legally.

Learning a martial art can help you learn to fight. I mentioned 80% of the people cannot fight before but I think that 50% of the people that take a martial art cannot fight. This is because learning the moves half heatedly will not adequately prepare one for a fight. It will give most people an edge against someone that has not learned how to fight so it is still a goal worth attaining even if you goal is not to be a great fighter!

Any fighting style is good to learn. I used to be prejudiced against most because I personally like karate. But over the years I’ve seen and heard examples of judo, jiu-jitsu and even tai chi practitioners using those arts in self-defense! Why a boy even saved a girl from a dog by choking it with jiu-jitsu last year!

Boxing, karate, kung fu, muay thai, mma, judo, jiu jitsu, wrestling and more are all good to train for fighting and ultimatly self-defense! There is no best style! If anyone tries to tell you their way of fighting is better then the rest – he or she is mistaken.  They will all work effectively in a real life self-defense secenario.

I’ve tried to make the point that most people, even people that say they can fight – cannot! Sure they know a few moves and against another inept fighter, it will seem to work but that does not mean they are any good.

It is kind of like learning how to play chess. Anyone can learn how to move the pieces and look like they know what they are doing but most will never be a master. If they ever play a master, they will be beaten 10 out of 10 games in short order. This is true even though they may play their peers and win 8 out of 10 games and appear to be a great chess player!

So if you agree with me that most people cannot fight, and if you take steps to learn how to fight and avoid beginners mistakes from the martial arts style you like (read Eastern or Weastern styles), you will stand a very good chance of defending yourself in a self-defense situation!

So I encourage everyone to head down to the gym, school, dojo, or club of your choice and learn to fight! If you enjoy the lessons, the school is good, and you have a desire to learn, you will be learning self-defense too. Here is a video of a school but there are many choices out there to make your self defense work!

My wife (Sly) recently had an experience witnessing road rage that has mademe revisit this issue. Sly was driving in a 35 mph zone behind on car when another come up on the side and tried to cut in front of her suddenly! Sly stomped on her brakes and the guy waived to her and swerved back out. The guy then sped up past the car in front and cut him off and stopped suddenly! Sly again stomped on her brakes and came to a stop. Both cars doors ahead flew open and the guys ran towards each other screaming. Sly drove around when she could to escape the madness!

While I don’t know what ended up happening in this case, it did upset me because my wife almost hit a car twice inside of a minute due to aggressive drivers. I previously posted about, “Road Rage!” and “Road Rage! What About Sticks and Stones?” but I think aggressive driving legitimately has a place in the context of self defense because one never knows if it will lead to an attack.

In this post I am going to focus on how to stay safe if you find yourself in the middle of a road rage incident. While I do not want to make lite of this issue – I thought I would demonstrate the mentality (or lack thereof) of the participants in an aggressive driving or road rage situation in this video to set the stage.

Did you notice how easily this escalated? While (hopefully) this might be an extreme example of the escalation, it did show how each lady wanted to be right, get even and win the one upmanship contest! The real losers in this were all of the innocent bystanders. It is one thing if both drivers choose to participate in this but quite another if anyone else’s life or property is affected!!!

Here is how this works. One driver slights another driver somehow (perceived or real) and the driver aims to get even – after all (and you have seen the signs) he DOES own the whole damn road! So the other driver (who may be unaware of the slight – or not) gets accosted verbally by the first driver and decides the deed is no good – He, NOT the slighted driver, owns the whole damn road! Before we go on – this is a good point to insert today’s song that each driver should take to heart.

So what are your responsibilities when you are driving a one ton missile? Does your missile have a hair trigger or a sufficient safety mechanism. I would argue that a driver has the responsibility to take every reasonable step to NOT engage in aggressive behaviour with their car and if someone tries to egg you on – you make every attempt to diffuse the situation! Watch this video and think of how some of this might have been avoided.

Warning – Some Strong language in this video

Watching this video we have no idea who started this fight. We might glean that the guy outside of the car started the physical confrontation but my guess is both guys might have egged each otheron. Who is charged and convected in a court of law is a matter for the police and courts but if you were the guy inside of the car – what would you have done to de-escalate the situation?

Do you have to respond if a guy calls you a name? Do you have to respond if a guy cuts you off? Do you have to move over if a guy is trying to pass you and you are going the speed limit? Before I give you my answer to these questions I would like to introduce you to the concept of shared libility. What this says in a nut shell (depending on the laws where you are) is one may be liable if he or she was partially responsible for an event. What I take this to mean is if during the participation in a road rage incident, say both parties start fighting in middle of a street and another car swerves to avoid hitting the fighters and crashes into a mother and child on the side walk – both road rage participants may be held responsible!

Another consideration if one resorts to open fighting and the had a way out – what if the aggressor is killed? I mean so what he started it – did you have the right to defend yourself or could you have walked away – taken some verbal abuse and property damage? Would a smashed head light be worth the life of the aggressor? I mean do you know if the aggressor was a father, husband, son, or otherwise had people that depended on his but had an aggression problem?

Now that I have mentioned the obvious (maybe not so obvious), I’d like you to see a what to do about road rage video put out by videojug. Sorry but you will have to click the road rage video link to view this on youtube because they do not allow embedding. One thing to note is the Britt’s seemingly call “cutting people off”  as “cutting people up.”

The video makes a good point about not holding your ground if someone wants to get past you because you have no idea what is going through the other person’s mind. I mean he may be heading off to his child’s hospital after getting a call she was in a terrible accident. Someone in a compromised mental state might do things he would not normally do. It makes sense to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. If everyone did this – there would be less road rage incidents I think.

Ok – what should you do if you find yourself the focus of a road rage incident? Try to diffuse the situation by not responding vocally or with gestures. If cornered – do not get out of the car. If you take on some property damage to your car – try and keep things in perspective – I mean is that worth you, your family or him going to the hospital or worse? Your insurance and the police should be the ones to sort it all out – way easier if you are not a co-participant in the lunacy!

What if you have no other choice other than to defend yourself? Then you do what you have to do – mitigated by the reasonable man standard. This standard is more of a legal concept that you might be judged by the police and a court of  law. Do only what you have to do to end the conflict. If you knock a guy down you can hold him but hammering him with blows might not be considered reasonable if witnesses thought you had bested him already. You definitely should not fight past the point where you have incapacitated him.

Why don’t I talk more about how to defend yourself against road rage? Mostly I think this is silly and mostly avoidable. I was guilty of getting caught up in some incidents when I was a kid and came out ok but in retrospect I was really lucky no one got seriously hurt. As with most fighting if you cannot answer the question, what is so worth risking my life for? – then you have no business participating!

I am happy to say Sly came out ok from the idiots raging on the road and she handled it ok but had she realized what was happening sooner – she would have given them even more space I’d bet. That is the tricky thing because you don’t know if a couple of cars are street racing or what. As soon as she realized they were after each other- she gave them a wide berth.

I would argue the best defense is not a good offence but rather the avoidance of the conflict altogether!

Is it ok for a boy or man to cat call to a hot babe walking down the street? In this day and age it seems weird to be asking this question but many if not most women have heard cat calls or rude comments by men and boys. Young men and women learning about social interactions are a bit awkward about it in their teens and often think behaviour like this is ok. While there is no excuse for poor manners hopefully they soon learn that women feel harassed by the unwanted advances.

In this post I will attempt to talk a bit about sexual harassment on the streets and what I think of behaviour like this. I will also attempt to put this into the proper context from the greater self defense perspective. To get this conversation started – take a look at this video I found at the Strategic Living Blog about Miss Washington D.C.’s experiences.

First off what is harassment or sexual harassment? I am not going to deal with workplace harassment but more of the street variety. I think a good definition would be any unwelcome advances because of a person’s sex. The reason is there can be same sex harassment too but I will focus on men harassing women in this post. Do women have a right to equal treatment in our society? I would argue yes although that may not be strictly correct in some countries. If you agree with that statement, are women treated as equals by men? Many times yes but there are some men that treat and think of women as sexual objects.

Why might you be thinking, am I focusing on men harassing women? The short answer is I believe that is more of a problem then women harassing men or same sex harassment.

So is this fair? Nope. Should women expect some men to act poorly and some might say criminally? I would say yes. Miss D. C. makes an excellent point that women should not take this type of behaviour but rather should learn strategies to deal with harassment. She mentions a couple of websites that women can share their experiences at: Holla Back DC  and Stop the Street Harassment. Here is another video that depicts how women feel as they are being harassed.

WARNING – Some strong language

As you can see women being harassed by strange men do not take the cat calls as complements. Should women just tolerate this because  after all – boys will be boys? Are women asking for the cat calls because it is hot out side and they are flaunting it in a summer dress?

Huh? I say HELL NO!

If women tolerate this – boys and men will just think it is ok to treat women like sex objects. Women have made great strides in the workplace in the US since the civil rights act of 1964 and subsequent updates – so standing up for what is right is part of the process of making changes in expectations.

Men and boys should understand this because we all have a mother, grandmother, sister, wife, girlfriend and female acquaintances that are important to us. One could argue if a man harasses any women he is granting the same license for other men to treat the women in his life badly. I doubt you would find any men to agree to that.

In the greater context of self defense, all of us have to endure some harassment at times to keep ourselves safe. What I mean is no one is immune to harassment, muggings, and such in life so we have to be prepared to deal with whatever happens. I don’t mean that just because men have to deal with harassment that what women have to deal with is no big deal but rather men should be more sympathetic to women’s plight!

Some men might have the classic case of kick the dog. I mean a guy gets hassled by some gang bangers so he goes after the cute gal that happens by to feel superior. Bad move – very poor form. Regardless of the reason girls and women should learn how to keep safe and not give these guys the time of day.

Guys and gals being human will still be attracted to the opposite sex but with a little civility we can all interact in such a way to let the opposite sex feel comfortable. So if you see “boys being boys” you might put the bug into their ear to behave themselves – how would they feel if their wife was treated like that? I guess a post on a blog will not change things too much but in the context of self-defense we should all attack the causes of bad behavior and take a self defense class as a minimum in case things get out of hand.

When I was a kid I was bullied a bit in grade school. My dad had to show me the old one – two (jab – cross) combo and told me that if someone attacks me – I had to fight back. He proceeded to teach me the basics of fighting in the living room.

I soon caught on to this and became a bit aggressive if anyone messed with me to the point of challenging the duke of the school to fisticuffs after school. Well let me must say that losing that fight brought me back down to reality.

Last night in our neighborhood there was a party raging on with seemingly a life of its own? During the daytime there were the usually girls parading about in summer attire – giggling hysterically at seemingly nothing. Along with the girls there were plenty of guys. During the night, as the hour grew later, the party spewed out into the streets. I’ll get to the punch line (pun intended) later but suffice it to say there was a lot of beer muscle and drama into the wee hours in the morning.

In this post I’d like to discuss the notion that anytime someone messes with you – irrespective of the circumstances, one has to respond to a provocation. Specifically at a party and what makes sense. Take a look at this video I found on youtube of young people partying and the obligatory fight before I start the discussion.

WARNING – there is a liberal use of profanity in this video – seem to go hand in hand with partying, youth and beer.

This was tough for me to watch. The kids were were getting into a beef with another guy and the aggressor dropped both kids. Looking at this video you might be wondering what the fight was about? I was too but usually in these fights – it is over nothing but maybe he was a party crasher. Did the kid that won the fight have any provacation to sucker punch the other two guys? You be the judge but it looked like he could have just walked away.

When I was age 21 to 23, I worked in a bar as a bouncer and I can tell you honestly I have never seen so many fights start up about nothing. It got to the point that when I heard arguments start up over who stole whose quarter that was in line for the pool table – I gave the “victim” a quarter and told them to work it out politly or I was closing the pool table down for the night.

After I left the bar I did not get into many more fights. You see if you take the party atmosphere, beer and lots of folks looking to hook up out of the equation – whats left to fight about? I’ve had some interesting parties over the years with some heated discussion about politics and religion but none of these gatherings have let to open fighting!

So say you are a young man or woman and like to hang with your friends at parties. Do you have any standards when it comes to fighting? Do you need the pretense of self-defense before you unload on someone that “stepped out of line?” Is a guy ogling over you woman reason enough to tattoo some knuckles on his nose? Does a skank commenting on you boyfriends behind deserve (your) a elbow to the face?

Now that I’ve set the stage – here are my views. Youth are young and dumb. That does not mean that the emotions one feels at that age are not real but they are in the scheme of things of no consequence. What I mean to say if you boyfriend or girlfriend goes for another hookup – who cares? He or she is not worth your effort. You cannot change anyone else. Smacking the perpetrator around a bit will not help. It takes two to tango.

If someone makes a crude comment to your date. Consider your surroundings, level of intoxication and the fact that words cannot hurt you. True you have a right to defend yourself but that does not include teaching anyone manners!

The law takes a dim view of people threatening, assaulting or battering other people no matter how much they have asked for it. My guess is in a party setting, you would have lots of different versions of the events that cops would have to sort through and then hopefully they would agree with your assessment.

So what would I have done in the video above? First off I hope as a youth it would have occurred to me that trouble makers might crash the party. If the party digresses to the point of open fighting – perhaps it would be time to end the party. Not an opinion in this video as this seemed to be spring break. A reasonable action might to confront a trouble maker with a group of guys politely asking the guy to leave without all of the threats. The guy who sucker punched the other guys might have just walked away when challenged.

Here is what the fighters did not really consider. First off in fights it is possible that someone will get hurt bad. Fighting for any other reason than self defense is silly. I don’t care if the guy mocked your mother!

If you fight for any other reason than self defense you are opening yourself up for criminal and civil litigation. Did you notice the cell phone videos that were capturing the fight? Either one of those two guys that got beat up while they might not be successful at having the guy arrested (cop’s call to take one or all three in) – they could come probably sue for damages in civil court easily.

I hope you understand that I think just because you can fight, you should show a lot of restraint if you come up against people trying to provoke you. I would add attending parties with lots you young people and beer are not a place that I would like to be because of the increased chance of stupidity. In this video I did not see anyone I considered right or smart, only varying degrees of bad judgement.

Now the fighting in my neighborhood last night was equally as dumb. As I mentioned the party was outdoors and at about 11:30pm or so we heard a biker driving by several times. Eventually he stopped and tried to join in the party. As a rule I don’t go outside when stupidity is afoot but when I heard the idiots fighting in the street I took a gander.

I saw (from a few houses away) about 50 people of all ages screaming at a few guys rolling around in the street (you know – punch, grab, and wrestling). It was very amusing the girls and guys trying to yell who started it and everyone seemed to be calling the police. The biker eventually took off and the and the dumb partiers stayed put – yelling at each other in middle of a street.

The cops finally rolled up on the scene and yelled at everyone to lay on the ground. I must say it was very amusing to see a large group of girls and guys laying face down on the street. I think they each thought their position was correct and they were just going to point out the instigator and be done with it. I finally could get to bed without the screaming. I don’t know who ended up going to jail if anyone but I hope the lesson learned is deeper then flee before the cops get there.

I really hope the lesson learned is distancing one’s self from bad situations. It is one thing to attend a well run party but quite another to mill about on the streets to all hours of the night and have no standards as to what constitutes self defense! Please join with me and let those young people around you know that rather than self defense, behaviour like this is nonsense.  

Here are a couple of stories about girls fighting back and getting away! To set the stage, girls and women are mostly attacked by big boys or men (at lease bigger then they are) who want to rob or rape them. The reason I bring up this point is it must be very unnerving to a girl to have a big man attack her.

A girl has some choices but if she finds herself in an attack her only choices are to run if possible, fight back or give in. I like the first two choices because it give the girl the best chance at survival but if a girl give in – she is putting her life in the hands of a bad guy.

Who knows the outcome. I’d argue in most cases it makes more sense to fight overwhelming odds than get into a vehicle with a bad man. But I understand this is a tough call to make as many women survive bad situations.

Before we get started with these stories, I’d like to show you video of the John Gardner victim who got away (struck him in the nose). Candice Moncayo got a reaction of anger from Gardner when she mentioned the strike in open court. Candice Moncayo fared better then Chelsea King or Amber Dubois by fighting back. I don’t know if Chelsea or Amber were able to put up a fight against this big bad monster of a man.

The first story is about a National City (south of San Diego) girl who was accosted by a sexual predator with a GPS ankle bracelet, on the run. He grabbed the girl by holding a knife to her throat. The girl realizing she did not want to end up in a lake, grabbed for the hand around her neck – not realizing it was a knife and pulled it away and elbowed the guy! She ran away!

The police were already looking for this guy from an attack the prior evening and had a good description here. It was good the girl was able to fight the guy off. One point here – a girl does not have to fight toe to toe with a man to get away many times. She just has to surprise the guy with a sharp strike, scream, and run like the dickens!

I like elbow strikes as even a young girl can muster a hard enough strike to hurt a large man if he does not expect it. I found one video I like of some ways to throw elbow and knee strikes.

Did you notice that putting a couple of moves together can throw a guy off guard? The old one-two strike you might remember from your youth is still an effective defense. You throw one strike, dazing the guy and then launch into another to make your get away!

The next story an 11 year-old girl is accosted in front of her home on Long Island, NY. This girl had some training from her father and she also practiced kicking in Cheer leading.

The girl was able to fight back by kicking the man’s knee and running. One point to note here – the father had worked with the girl ahead of time. He told her to fight back, kick, bite, escape! Bravo Dad! Here is a video of some younger kids being taught how to do the basic front snap kick (that is effective to the shin, knee, and groin).

I hope you will consider getting some self defense lessons for yourself and loved ones as often times it can make the difference if one is accosted. Not everyone can be the next MMA contender but most anyone can mount a good defense if he or she has some self defense training.