Fighter's Fact Book 2. Loren W. Christensen
Real situations frequently involve more than one person, Sparring with multiple opponents will teach you which methods are most suitable for the street. If you do go to the ground in a street situation, don’t try to finish the fight from there. Do your utmost to quickly regain your feet.
Fighting vs. protecting yourself
Successfully fighting off two or more assailants isn’t anywhere near as easy as depicted in the martial arts movies. With enough commitment and ferocity, it is possible to take on more than one person successfully, but it is never advisable to do so.
The subject of multiple opponents is frequently overlooked in the martial arts world with most training focusing on the one-on-one scenario. Practicing against multiple opponents will help prepare you should the worst happen. Such training also brings home some really important lessons about how you should face street situations. Some martial artists attempt to justify the lack of training against multiple opponents by stating that successfully outfighting multiple opponents is impossible. It is true that outfighting committed multiple opponents is extremely difficult (not impossible); however, it should also be understood that you don’t need to outfight them in order to protect yourself.
A few years ago, I was teaching street-based sparring drills to a mixed ability group. As part of this session we were practicing two-on-one sparring. At one end of the room was a young, relatively inexperienced martial artist who was visibly nervous at the prospect of having to simultaneously face two opponents. At the other end was a group of extremely experienced martial artists. The members of this group had multiple black belts and were all skilled fighters. This group was actually excited at the prospect of getting to test their skills against two opponents.
When I signaled for the fights to begin, the experienced martial artists went off with all guns blazing … but invariably were quickly taken off their feet and beaten up by their colleagues. By contrast, the inexperienced martial artist did not want to test his skills. He wanted out of there! He ran all around the dojo and hardly had a punch land on him.
The moral of the story is that when faced with more than one person, don’t stay and fight them but instead run away the instant you can. As I said earlier, you don’t need to outfight multiple opponents to protect yourself from them. Sparring with multiple opponents really brings this lesson home and lets you practice your escape skills.
Spar two to understand how to spar one
Sparring with multiple opponents also teaches you a lot about how you should face a single opponent in the street. What begins as a one-on-one situation in the street or bar can quickly escalate. Criminals frequently work in gangs; just because you can’t see them doesn’t guarantee they are not there.
As an example of how the possibility of multiple opponents changes things, let’s briefly discuss ground fighting. In the dojo taking the opponent to the floor and trying to finish the fight on the ground can work great. However, if you use the same methodology in the street, a second person could get involved and you would get stamped flat. Fights can go to the ground so it’s something you need to include in your training and sparring, but it’s never the smart choice in the street.
A friend of mine was once mugged at an ATM by what he initially thought was just one person. He’s a big guy and told the mugger to leave him alone (well, that’s not what he said, but Loren Christensen’s writer’s guide said no swearing). At that point the mugger pointed across the road where his previously unseen colleague opened his jacket to reveal a huge knife. My friend wisely decided to hand over his cash. He could also have hit and run, but I feel he undeniably made the smart choice. However, what would have happened if he’d decided to fight? Or worse yet take the fight to the ground? I think we can safely say that the initial one on one exchange would not have stayed that way for long and my friend would have been stabbed.
In your street sparring be sure to play with the numbers: one-on-two, one- on-three, two-on-three etc. You’ll learn a lot about how to approach real situations.
Spar when exhausted
Real situations are very stressful. Your heart rate will go though the roof, you may feel nauseous, your muscle control will be greatly reduced, you will want to be anywhere else on Earth, and you may feel frozen to the spot. Being mentally and physically able to deal with these sensations is a key part of preparing for the street.
A good way to recreate these sensations is to fight a fresh opponent when you are exhausted. I don’t mean a little bit tired, I mean exhausted! Your heart rate will be high, you may feel nauseous, your muscle control will be greatly reduced, you will want to be somewhere else and you won’t feel like fighting. Not wholly unlike a street situation.
There are a great many ways to exhaust yourself. You can do some intense exercise before sparring, do a lot of pad work, or just spar back to back with a number of fresh opponents. However you go about it, sparring when exhausted should be part of your street sparring. You may not want to go to extremes every session, but you should do it frequently enough that you get used to functioning under stress. If you don’t get used to it, all the skills you posses will be rendered redundant by the intensity of the situation.
There are lots of different ways to spar and all have value. Most martial artists train for a wide range of reasons aside from self-protection. However, when training for the street, it is important that your training methods accurately reflect the nature of street situations. I hope the 10 tips we have discussed will help you structure your sparring in a way that is as realistic as possible.
Iain Abernethy is one of the UK’s leading exponents of applied karate. His numerous martial arts DVDs and books have sold worldwide and have been translated into several languages. Iain holds 5th dan black belts with Karate England, the official governing body, and with the British Combat Association, one of the world’s leading groups for self-protection, close-quarter combat, and practical martial arts. Iain is one of the few within the British Combat Association to hold the position of Coach; their highest instructor qualification.
Iain regularly writes for all the UK’s leading martial arts magazines and he is a member of the Combat Hall of Fame. He is in great demand on the seminar circuit where he teaches his practical approach to the martial arts both in the UK and overseas.
Iain’s website is an extremely popular resource for the practically minded martial artist. In addition to numerous articles, a popular message board and free e-book downloads, the website also has a free monthly newsletter which currently has over four thousand subscribers. Check it out at www.iainabernethy.com.
Thanks to Tim Kendal for posing as the attacker and to Fred Moore for his outstanding photography.
10 Concepts to Adapt Your Training to the Street
By Rory A. Miller
It’s not enough to say that “the street” is different from the dojo. The street is different from the street. Real conflict happens in places, times, and with people. It happens for a reason, though the victim may never know what that is. The aggressor has motives, history and a plan. The professional violent criminal is one type of aggressor or threat. He has a system that he has developed through trial and error to safely and effectively neutralize you to get what he wants. There are many types of threats, and each type and each situation might require different skills.
You might be required to stop an elderly schizophrenic patient from trying to leave the nursing home. Since this is