How to Beat & Bash a Gang Attack!

VIDEO: Watch this bad-ass martial artist knock out a Gangster!

There is a lot to be said for the convenience that one gets when they learn martial arts at home. There is no crowd looking on, no surly instructor who scowls at you for not getting things right and no danger of falling behind the class. A self defense video offers you the training you need and can help take you to the next level so long as you are ready for the challenge. You will not be constrained by location and you can practice wherever and whenever you like, no hourly classes twice a week for you. All of this means that you can make tremendous progress but there is only so much you can do at home.

What happens when you train in the martial arts or study self-defense, learn techniques designed for damaging human beings, but never develop the master’s trait of self-control. This story is true and highlights how, through our own lack of self-discipline, we can cause more damage to ourselves than we ever feared from an attacker in a self-defense encounter.

Today, I have a high number of parents bringing their children to me, along with many adult students, looking for lessons in self-discipline and self-control. The reason is because, even for the uninitiated members of the general public, the image formed when you think of a martial artist or someone learning self-defense includes that of a highly disciplined person.

But, it wasn’t always this way. In fact, we still have practitioner’s today who have missed the lessons of humility, discipline, respect, and self-control as a part of their training. And, those who do talk about learning and practicing self-control, are usually talking about the discipline that makes them practice or attend martial arts classes on a regular basis. Watch one of the popular mixed martial arts (MMA) or other fight-challenge programs, and what you’ll see are people who brag about their abilities, bad-mouth other people, and routinely get themselves into fights outside of the ring.

As a young man karate students are taught to avoid fights, walk away, deescalate and maybe even run away! This is all an attempt to avoid needless carnage for perceived slights and needless fights over quarters at the pool table (I don’t know where that came from). As a young man – hormones surge through ones body and everyone (men and women) are preening for each other. No one wanted to look weak and many did not let challenges to their man or woman hood go. They defended their honor! Even most martial artists ignored the advice to walk away and digressed to fisticuffs at the drop of a hat.

Well fast forward to late middle ages to the elderly and you will find many that the mind is still willing but the body does not respond so well. Even among martial artists (the subject of this article) you will find old men that will fight a younger man at the drop of the hat. I will argue that older men cannot fall prey to their youthful horrormones [misspelling intended] and actually have to use some of their fast dissipating grey matter and fight smarter at old age if they expect to win. It does not matter your rank or how many fight stories you can tell your children (grandchildren?) about what you could do in your youth! Them times is not now!!!

Always Create A Line Between The Person In Front of You And The Rest Of The Group – Move yourself around and keep yourself in front of them as much as possible in a straight line.  The idea behind this is to never allow yourself to be surrounded. 

Street fights usually end up on the ground quickly and whoever happens to be on top tends to win. Unless that is you know what to do on the ground. If you have your ground game down (wrestling techniques, ju-jitsu skills), you win fights period. You can go up against a big, bad brawler, but if you know how to take him down (which you can do in seconds) and be effective on the ground, then you completely dominate and destroy your opponent.

The same goes for the cage. Competitors who don’t know how to roll around on the ground, end up losing big time. You can go up against boxers and kickboxers, but if you have your take down and ground game in check, you can easily dominate.

Stand up.

You shouldn’t neglect your stand up striking game by any means. Even if you want to take someone down, you should still employ a few strikes to set them up, soften them up and inflict some damage before the take down. Stand up techniques involve striking and kicking, as well as employing knees and elbows. You should definitely take advantage of knee and elbow strikes when you learn mixed martial arts. They are very effective and can do much more jarring and impacting damage that a traditional arm strike or leg kick.