Wim Demeere's Blog

Martial Arts, Self Defense and a Whole Lot More.

Ground fighting against a knife attack

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This video of ground fighting against a knife attack is NSFW. It’s gruesome and some people will find it hard to watch, so be advised before you click on it.

That said, I don’t have a lot of information about this video, but this is what seems to be going on:

  • I appears to be shot somewhere in Brazil.
  • We don’t know what started the fight.
  • The video says the guy died after getting stabbed, but he looks to be alive when the video ends. What happened afterwards, no idea. Given the amount of times he got stabbed and where the knife punctured him, I’d say odds are good he is now dead.

If you have official information about this incident, feel free to post it in the comments section.

Here’s the video (try this link if you can’t see it):

Some thoughts:

  • Both fighters are engaging in a typical street brawl when the video starts. It’s nothing special, we’ve all seen this kind of street fight before.
  • Notice how the guy in the white shirt is not doing anything. He’s standing close by, but he doesn’t intervene.
  • Notice the number of times he could have intervened He had plenty of opportunity to surprise the guy he ends up sticking with a knife. Notice how that guy seems oblivious to white shirt’s presence. More on this later…
  • As soon as the fight goes to the ground, he moves in. He drops his bag and it looks like he’s opening a folding knife as he steps forward. It’s hard to see clearly in the video, but given as you don’t see him reaching in a pocket or under his shirt, he seems to have palmed the knife the whole time the fight goes on. Considering the previous bullet, let the implications of that sink in for a minute…
  • He stabs right away. The guy on the ground has almost no time to “surrender”, let go and get clear of the stabber’s friend or pretty much do anything before he gets stabbed. One second he’s fighting on the ground, the next he’s facing a knife attack from a second attacker. There was no way he could have escaped getting stabbed…
  • There is no fight. Ground fighting against a knife attack is a losing proposition. This isn’t ground and pound: you can’t trade blows on the ground against a guy attacking you with a knife. As you’re lying there, you can’t generate a lot of power in your strikes, let alone consistently knock the other guy out or even away from you so you can get up. What’s more, he can soak up your shots, take some damage and still continue. But the same doesn’t go for you: he can stab you once with the knife, puncture an artery or damage a vital organ, and you’re dead. So all in all, when you’re on the ground, there is no “fighting” your knife-wielding attacker: there is only trying to survive.
  • Let’s kill the Brazilian myth. There’s a myth that has been kept alive ever since Gracie Ju Jitsu became popular. Whenever you mention the dangers of ground fighting in a self-defense context, somebody brings up that in Brazil, people will not intervene when two people fight on the ground. Yeah… We just saw how that worked out…
Ground fighting against a knife attack
Ground fighting against a knife attack: a slashed wrist…

Some people will read this article and think I’m bashing BJJ or other grappling systems; I’m not. These are excellent styles in certain environments and contexts. But in others, they are not such a great idea. Knowing when and where to use them is critical. As you can see in the video, you might not get a second chance when you mess up.

In a sporting contest, secondary opponents and knives are not an issue. You can fight on the ground for rounds on end and do your thing there, that’s perfectly fine. On the street, you should assume that a second attacker and weapons can always come in at any time, especially when you least expect it. Going to the ground leaves you vulnerable to both these issues.

Does that mean that every time a fight goes to the ground in the street, there will be a knife or another attacker? No, not at all. But it is a realistic possibility, one you ignore at your own peril. In contrast, in the ring or the cage, you will never encounter them so you don’t need to take them into account in your training. You can flat out pretend they don’t exist and become a UFC champion. However, if you train for self-defense, these factors are two of the most important ones to take into consideration: they influence your training on all possible levels.

This video is a sad reminder of that.

Violence is chaos in action

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An instructor once told me that violence is chaos in action and it’s your job to bring order to the chaos. I believe this is an accurate statement and would add “before it kills you” to the end of that sentence. Violence comes in many shapes and sizes and each situation can be radically different from the next, despite starting off with the same or similar parameters. Predicting how the encounter will unfold is difficult and unreliable, to put it mildly. If you’re truly honest about it, you accept this. But that truth is uncomfortable because, in general, humans don’t like chaos.

We like things to make sense.

We like black or white answers.

We want it to be easy and simple.

It rarely is.

As a result, there is a need to analyze, scrutinize and study violence to put together a system that allows you to handle it when it comes your way. Martial arts and self-defense systems are a part of that. Studying human psychology, the legal system, physics, avoidance and prevention, etc. are also part of the solution. All those together make it difficult again and we typically don’t like that. A commonly used quick solution is to make assumptions by willfully omitting factors you don’t have an answer for or relying on “common knowledge”. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. That is why I always harp on Randy’s quote of “The differences are just as important as the similarities.”

You can take a violent situation and look at the similarities to come to certain conclusions. These conclusions can be completely accurate or completely false, depending on certain parameters you won’t know up front will be present. I covered this dynamic in the first article in my newsletter series, but when I saw these two videos, I found them to be prefect illustrations for it.

Both videos feature a man armed with a gun facing an unarmed man. These are the similarities. My point is that the differences are just as important and the chaos of violence makes it unpredictable what the outcome will be. Let’s take a look. [Read more…]

Body slam knockout in a street fight

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I just saw this video of a body slam knockout in a street fight. There is some worthwhile information there and I’ll get to that here below. First, take a look at the video:

http://youtu.be/GmsampdHBl0

Here are some of the things I’d like to point out:

  • Lost opportunities. Notice how long it takes before there is an actual street fight? There were plenty of opportunities to walk away. White shirt seems to be posturing and isn’t immediately targeting Red shirt. He verbally engages the other men too. At this point, red shirt could have walked away.
  • She knows what’s up. The lady in black clearly doesn’t want there to be a fight; she sees it coming a mile off and does all she can to avoid it. Red shirt would have been better off following her cue…
  • Don’t punch softly. If you have to throw a punch, punch. But don’t throw a slow and sloppy punch like Red shirt did. It was telegraphed, lacked power, left him off balance and with an opponent at his back. Nothing good comes from that.
  • There are no mats in a street fight. Falling on pavement sucks, even if you manage a perfect break fall. If you get body slammed onto your head, it is a lot worse. Red shirt is knocked out immediately.
  • There is no “one-on-one” rule in a street fight. Red shirt did a good suplex: He used his body to throw the guy and managed to twist him in the air so he could fall on top of him.  But then he makes the mistake of staying on the ground and gets put in a (sloppy) choke hold by White shirt’s buddy. Things could have gone horrible wrong for him too, with his back exposed like that: he could have gotten punched, kicked, stabbed, clobbered, etc. The friend had all the opportunities in the world to finish it hard, but he chose a softer options. Depending on the benevolence of others is not a winning strategy. There is no rule in a street fight that says other people can’t knock you out when you’re winning as you do some ground and pound. Case in point:

http://youtu.be/9PaQOOwGaiM

  • It looks bad. I don’t know what the aftermath of this street fight was, but that body slam was nasty. Sure, it caused a knockout, but when you pause the video on impact, look at the angle his neck is at. Red shirt could be dead or gravely injured. If so, White shirt could go to jail for a long time. Both of them could have avoided this by walking away; they had plenty of opportunity to do so.
Body slam knockout in a street fight
Lots of things wrong with this picture.

All in all, this is a textbook example of both parties making one bad choice after another.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Boxer hospitalized after confronting burglars

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I just read a story about professional boxer Anthony Crolla. How he got into a fight outside of the ring and it ended badly. All the details aren’t out just yet, so take everything with a grain of salt until more details are released.

What seems to have happened is this:

  • Anthony Crolla noticed burglars climbing over the neighbor’s fence into his yard.
  • He chased them and managed to get a hold of one of them.
  • The other one grabbed a brick (or slab of concrete) and hit him over the head with it.
  • Crolla suffered a broken ankle and fractured skull and was taken to a hospital.

That’s pretty much all we know so far.

I’d like to make two specific points here. Neither one is related to Crolla as an individual. Before I do, take a look at this highlight and keep in mind that Crolla was scheduled for a world-title fight next month.

You can argue many things, but you can’t argue that Crolla is a poorly skilled boxer. He’s a professional, young and in awesome shape, especially given his upcoming title bout. Yet all that wasn’t enough to avoid getting his head bashed in and as a result, he might never fight again. At the very least, that title bout is gone and he’s in for a long recovery.

The first point I want to make is this:

If a professional, world class-level boxer can’t make boxing work in such a situation, why would you think you can pull it off?

You can again argue many things against this statement, that he is a lightweight and maybe the burglars were heavier. That it’s two against one, or some other issue you might want to bring up. If you do, you precisely make my second point: [Read more…]

Street fighting mistakes: being an innocent bystander

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One of the things I’ve written about a lot is that street fights and violence are chaotic and unpredictable. If you have some experience in this area, then you know what this implies. If not, then chances are you don’t have a realistic idea of what I mean. Just to be clear, I don’t blame anybody for not having this knowledge. Not having to face violence is a good thing. If I can go my entire life without ever having to do so again, I’ll be a happy man. But violence can pop up any time, any place so it’s best to prepare.

That aside, there’s a fundamental flaw in human nature: we are intrigued by violence and want to watch it.

I’m going to leave the explanations to the scientists, but to the best of my knowledge and after plenty of research, I think this is a fair statement. People are intrigued by violence, men as well as women. You find public executions and torture in all cultures, all over the world throughout the ages. In Saudi Arabia, public beheading is still the norm and somehow there are always enough people willing to watch. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say humans want to watch other humans suffer violence.

For the point I want to make now, let me put that differently:

People who don’t understand violence and haven’t suffered enough from it will put themselves at risk to watch it.

Once you understand the true danger, you don’t want to get involved with anything that could end your life. Once you come face-to-face with your own mortality, have lost loved ones to violence or have had to take somebody’s life, the allure tends to diminish significantly. Like a friend of mine likes to say: “The cost of it.” Those who have not experienced this cost sometimes consider themselves an innocent bystander and assume this keeps them safe from harm. Why should they do anything to avoid becoming collateral damage? After all, they’re just watching, so they can’t get hurt, right?

Wrong.

Street fights are living things, they change and evolve constantly:

  • They add numbers to the active participants in an instant and decrease them just as fast.
  • They start in one spot and then move several yards in a few seconds, to swing back to the original spot (or another) right after.
  • One side may be wining when the dynamics suddenly change and they start losing.
  • They start as fisticuffs and stay that way until somebody starts shooting or stabbing his opponents.

In short, they are chaotic and unpredictable. Making assumptions about your safety because you are just a bystander is a dangerous game. You can be very, very wrong.

Here are some examples of the chaos and unpredictability of real violence: [Read more…]

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