There are many street fighting mistakes that need to be exposed and this is perhaps one of the most common: thinking that every street fight is to the death.
I’ve seen numerous self-defense instructors and their students claim you should always use lethal techniques, treating every street fight as if the other guy is trying to kill you. That simply isn’t the case, not by a long shot.
There is a problem though, a particular issue inherent to all violence, and I’ll cover that later in this article, but first let’s look at an example of a street fight not devolving into death and destruction.
The usual disclaimer:
- I wasn’t there and neither were you. So all we can do is interpret and give an opinion on what we see. No more, no less.
- I don’t know what happened before the video starts or if after it ends. Maybe the guy walked away, maybe he got beat up anyway. No clue.
- Just because it worked in this video, doesn’t mean it will always work. Nothing does, violence is too unpredictable.
That said, here is the video:
Some of the critical points in this incident:
- Leather Jacket is talking lots of trash. He’s going on a righteous tirade in French, calling Grey Jacket a dirty faggot and more. He’s escalating things really hard.
- He avoids a first intervention. The guy next to Grey Jacket gets ready to step in, but he is stopped by the guy in the hoodie. Leather Jacket keeps on insulting Grey Jacket, doesn’t reposition, nothing. He’s oblivious to the danger.
- He avoids a second intervention. Grey Jacket slaps Leather Jacket’s hand down, steps into the street and it looks like he’s getting ready to start the fight. Leather Jacket doesn’t care and yells at the guy to hit him.
- He is completely blindsided. Mr. Dreadlock catches him completely by surprise as he rushes in and drives him down on the ground. He gets very quiet as Mr. Dreadlock talks to him and eventually lets him up with the clear message to move on. Mr. Dreadlock seems to go away to hand off his glasses and make the guy leave, but he doesn’t return for an unknown reason.
- He’s not sure what to do next. Leather Jacket waves his finger about a bit and seems unsure how to proceed. Go away? Get back to whipping himself into a frenzy? The video ends before we find out.
As a friend of mine would say: no blood, no foul. Street fight avoided and everybody gets to go home alive and (more or less) unharmed.
Could this have turned into a full fight? [Read more…]
