I posted an article on Street Fighting Mistakes last week and just found another video that qualifies for that category. In this one, there are several mistakes but I’d like to make a point that is often overlooked: the risks of getting involved.
Before I go on, lets look at the video:
As always, I wasn’t there and neither were you, so we don’t know what started this street fight. That said, we can still look at the mistakes the video shows in an effort to learn something. Here goes:
- It looks like both guys have some grappling or MMA training. You can see attempts at sweeps, looking for dominant positions, side control, use of the guard, rear naked choke, etc.
- It takes a long time. The fight lasts almost two minutes, which is pretty long for a street fight. This is in part due to the grappling (which inherently slows down a fight unless one person outmatches the other significantly) but also because both men seem to lack decisive power in their techniques.
- Nobody gets involved at first. The crowd hangs back during the fight. You can even hear people shouting to leave it one-on-one. This is not uncommon but as you see near the end of the fight, you shouldn’t count on it…
- It’s only when a “winner” emerges that the third guy gets involved. To boot, he takes a shot from behind as you can see by the blond guy stumbling forward suddenly. So the key thing to remember is to immediately do a 360 scan as soon as you can. Start from the assumption that there will always be more than one threat. If the scan proves you wrong, then no harm done. If you’re right, you at least have a shot at avoiding the sucker punch from the back.
- No-Shirt quickly learns the error of his ways. He punches the blond guy and look what happens next: in the blink of an eye he gets punched and tossed to the ground. At least four people turn on him, one after the other. He’s pretty lucky that they don’t start stomping him.
Those are some of the key elements from the whole fight. There are two things I’d like to point out here. [Read more…]