Neal Martin! Long time no see. I remember you mentioning that fight between friends… always a tough situation to be in.

I put in a link to your new blog. Cheers!

Hi John, by the way. Been a while!
Neal Martin recently posted..Combination Techniques

To me i believe to overcome the fear and willingness to hurt that other person would end fights in a few seconds with 1 or 2 solid hits. Even if its untrained people flailing their arms around. True intention to hurt the other person trumps in any situation…i believe atleast
WingChunBear recently posted..Self Defense Tips – By Bas Rutten

What we’re working on now in the dojo is exercises leading up to sparring: one guy attacks using only straight punches, the other party defends. I don’t know how you were taugth exactly but for most people sparring is a trying exercise and should be worked up to through in stages. No one who’d learn to swim is thrown right into the deep end of the pool, at least I hope so .

Hi Charles, I know it sounds kind of like a saying but you truly win all fights in your mind first. When I was defending myself as a bouncer (I was not the kind looking for fights as I weight 175 pounds at the time) – I had the advantage of being young and hungry. I was competing at point karate and initially working up to my black belt. I was the definition of being a trained fighter at the time.

I will say to fight a gang of overly exuberant youths would be challenging for me in my 50′s. I would still plan on winning but I would take some hits. Back in my 20′s – I was good at striking without getting hit back in real fights. Normally I did not fight anyone that could fight – only those that thought they could (sometimes influenced by what I called beer muscle).

Hi Zara, I get your point and can only say the way I was trained – fighting in the bar seemed easy compared to fighting in the school. We used to have Tuesday and Thursday evening sparring class. Tuesday’s were the easier of the nights. At the time I had lost my job as a brown belt and I was living in my instructor’s studio. I was living and breathing karate.

Thursday nights were the trying nights as I would spar with Lap Napolean, Terry Crook and John West. I weighed about 165-175 out of high-school. These guys were taller, heavier, experienced black belts at the top of their game.

My normal method was to try to survive with my instructor’s watchful eye to give me pointers of how to mitigate some of my strategy the next day. After I kept sparring Thursday nights – the animals started to give me pointers too. After a couple of years I could hang with them and started coming into my own.

So for me – real fights were nothing. I seldom even fought someone challenging for real. The hardest fights I had were not the mass attacks (I was in good shape so I could single them out and weed them out) but actually athletes of other disciplines. I fought a wrestler once that luckily I did not go to the ground. Another fight was for fun. A boxer and I talked fighting the whole night and after the bar let out – we fought in the parking lot for fun. He was challenging but I was able to through a couple of back-knuckles and on the third one – I faked the back-knuckle and pivoted into a shuffle rear kick and landed him on his butt!

So to your point – I think one has to have a hunger to succeed and become good at fighting strategy to overcome inertia or fear.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment Zara.