how to measure your success as a fighter

[crazychang]

How do you measure if you are a successful street fighter or not? I've been told by a kung fu teacher that I would be flattened by a few of his students (they are all larger than me) in a boxing match. The problem is their technique is shoddy, and almost non existent. They are big though, but i still think I'm capable of beating them (my instinct has proven nearly 100% correct in life when it comes to this). The key to these people is their aggression and inability to accept defeat in a fight. Is this true? I've never seen any competition fights like this (well not many), as most fight are toe-to-toe matches and people really do struggle to knock an opponent out. The best ones are the guys with the technique. According to this guy they would charge at me and wouldn't stop! To me this sounds unrelenting, and hard to beat, but maybe this guy is just being an arsehole (I stopped going to his class long back).

[Sima Rong]

There is no such thing as a successful street fighter.
A baseball bat is a good offense against some blind drunk kid minding their own business who walks past your house.
A boxing match doesnt usually involve bricks, blades, guns, or lava.You were probably talking about a boxing match i guess...

[YouKnowWho]

According to this guy they would charge at me and wouldn't stop!

You are luck to have someone who is doing that to you. When your opponent comes toward you, either you get him or he gets you. That will be the best training environment that any TCMA guy would dream to have. Your opponent attacks you 100 times in full force and full speed. How many times that you will end with standing on your feet, or been knocked/taken down by your opponent.

What you don't want is someone just moves back, moves back, and still moves back. No matter what skill that you have developed, if your opponent can move back faster than your advance, none of you skill will be able to work on him.

[Kellen Bassette]

A boxing match doesnt usually involve bricks, blades, guns, or lava.

Lava??? You do live in a rough neighborhood! :p

[crazychang]

I shouldn't say I can beat big individuals because it makes me sound like a fool , but has anyone encountered people that go berserk in a fight who can intimidate you with fear? Some people can supposedly muster so much aggression and anger that they will knock people out. If so, and it probably is, can you train against this. The only thing I can think of, is creating a strong body that will be capable of knocking them back. Do people really get pounded and at some stage go beserk?

[Kellen Bassette]

I shouldn't say I can beat big individuals because it makes me sound like a fool , but has anyone encountered people that go berserk in a fight who can intimidate you with fear? Some people can supposedly muster so much aggression and anger that they will knock people out. If so, and it probably is, can you train against this. The only thing I can think of, is creating a strong body that will be capable of knocking them back. Do people really get pounded and at some stage go beserk?

Some people do get a big surge of adrenaline and basically go nuts, feeling no pain in a fight. I think your best way to be capable of dealing with this is to have been in high pressure situations enough to remain somewhat comfortable and have been hit enough to be conditioned for it.

I also think that for every one person that is truly as you described, there are a hundred clowns that go around saying, "Man when I get mad, I black out, I see red, dude there's no stopping me when I get mad bro." 99 times out of 100 they are probably pathetic turds that would fall to pieces under real pressure.

[Syn7]

I have never seen red. I've always been curious about that. For me, it's always been a colder more calculated decision to cause harm, even in the moment when attacked. Sure I get upset, but never like that. Personally, in my own experience, I have a much harder time with people who are calm and purposeful than somebody who is flailing mad. The former tends to make less mistakes. If you can hold off the latter long enough to get your bearings, it tends to be an easier fight to finish or "discourage through action", if you know what I mean.


Still, I find this seeing red thing kind of interesting. I guess i'll never really understand it because I've never felt it myself.

[Jimbo]

I shouldn't say I can beat big individuals because it makes me sound like a fool , but has anyone encountered people that go berserk in a fight who can intimidate you with fear? Some people can supposedly muster so much aggression and anger that they will knock people out. If so, and it probably is, can you train against this. The only thing I can think of, is creating a strong body that will be capable of knocking them back. Do people really get pounded and at some stage go beserk?

There are people out there who may not be formally trained, yet can be very dangerous in a fight. Because they have experience in fights and, more importantly, *they are perfectly willing and able to fight*, in some cases as easily as turning on a light switch. Many such people have long since refined their attacks, most often starting with a 'sucker punch' or other ambush.

A smaller man can beat a larger man, BUT, don't make the assumption that size doesn't matter, because it does. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration. There are times when size and/or aggression, power and intent will trump superior skill/technique. It's also happened that skinny untrained runts have beaten bigger men because their aggression/intent/experience, as opposed to refined technique, was greater than that of their opponents.

[Syn7]

I think the most important aspect of harm reduction is to have the ability to assess the situation quickly enough to choose the best course of action under the circumstances. Sometimes that choice is made for you, but quite often that is simply because you weren't paying enough attention before hand. Of course there are always exceptions. This applies to everything, not just fighting.

You can spend a lifetime perfecting your craft and still get steamrolled because you didn't have the good sense to bounce out when you had the chance. There is a lot more to fighting, and engagements in general, than just the mechanics of the actions themselves.

[Stickgrappler]

My kneejerk reaction to the question was: "To have been in no 'streetfights' at all"


"The four truths: Assaults happen closer, faster, more suddenly, and with more power than most people believe"
~Rory Miller from 'Meditations on Violence'


Perhaps your sife was thinking something along those lines crazychang?

[Syn7]

The key to fighting somebody who is over aggressive is to weather the initial storm and regain the upper hand when they start to gas. This is not easy and you stand a good chance at getting KO'd or KOing before you ever see them gas. But you have to play the long and the short game. They are only playing the short game, this is where you gain an advantage. Of course, none of that matters if they just walk through you.

[crazychang]

I think size and strength is important. If you have enough strength in the arms, you can be confident to do the damage when you strike even against big people. It's just that these individuals didn't look very intimidating, but they were quite big which is why I question the instructors snap statement. Its pretty hard to keep taking punches in the face even if you do go into a fury.

[Jimbo]

Well, I don't know about the individuals you mentioned, but you can't necessarily make a judgment on how tough or how good a fighter is based on whether they 'look intimidating' or not. Some good fighters look like tough guys, and some, by all outward appearances, absolutely do not. You don't really know the toughness or resilience of a man (or woman) until or unless you're fighting them, or see them fight. This applies to how different people might deal with many other issues in life, too, besides just fighting. I've witnessed many instances where someone picked a fight, thinking the other person would be a pushover, only to get the surprise of his life.

[Syn7]

We also need to understand that bigger does not always = stronger.

I have also seen significantly smaller people punch harder than bigger guys because they know how to throw a proper punch. I learned that one as a kid with that carnival punching bag game. You would see people run at it, spin into it, jump in and all that, then you see a guy walk up plant a solid stance and utilize proper mechanics to put the rest to shame. It was a common occurrence. Of course if two people who know nothing get into a fight, the bigger one has an advantage, but as the knowledge base grows, that gap gets thinner. In hs wrestling I was in a lower weight class and spent most of my time practicing with bigger guys, some a lot bigger, and older in some cases. One of the most valuable lessons I learned going against the much bigger guys is to get ready to spend the first bit surviving at best. But if you are open to the early win but also considerate of the longer game, you can beat them. Of course if you take two guys with the same skill level and one is much bigger, the big guy will win almost every time. When I took that attitude into other arts later in life it always served me well.

[Pete]

How do you measure if you are a successful street fighter or not? I've been told by a kung fu teacher that I would be flattened by a few of his students (they are all larger than me) in a boxing match.

fight them? just not in a boxing match :) would be a good measure lol

if you lose, you should train harder!
if you win, you should train harder! :p

[gunbeatskroty]

How do you measure if you are a successful street fighter or not? I've been told by a kung fu teacher that I would be flattened by a few of his students (they are all larger than me) in a boxing match.

The problem is their technique is shoddy, and almost non existent. According to this guy they would charge at me and wouldn't stop! To me this sounds unrelenting, and hard to beat, but maybe this guy is just being an arsehole (I stopped going to his class long back).

Your question is hard to answer because you're not clear as to what kind of competition fights you've been in. Points sparring or full contact, timed rounds to knock the other guy out? And how many?

In general, someone trained and experienced fighting in the ring or cage, even once or twice, should be much more capable than the average turd on the streets. Because what leads to these 1-2 or two cage fights, is a lot of dedicated training...not just hitting pads, bags, cardio & strength training, etc...but most important, sparring, which can be from light to full sparring for KO's. This is what separates real fighters from the kata-fighters.

Noobs and toughguys comes into our gym all the time. Some of them want to spar. No problem on the BJJ side, but with standup, they need to show some skills as it's more damaging when they get hit in the face (as they're potential fee paying students). It's pretty easy to pick them apart and make them miss. They gas and get frustrated. Many of them go crazy, throwing full haymakers, one after another. No big deal, usually I can just stop them cold & bloody their noses with just jabs, footwork & defense.

Some Karate Masters told me that if I was able to jab in a streetfight, then I wasn't really in "real" danger. He's obviously not a fighter.

Like this video. This guy is decent, although nothing special. Maybe a mid level amateur fighter. This is one of our exercises, but against other trained fighters and not some slob from the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSX0PCQXiO4

[mawali]

That's half the battle right there!
The base is cardio and some stamina and the rest is a lot 'easier' relatively speaking.

[crazychang]

Yeah I thought one method to beat someone bigger than you might be to move around them quickly. Supposedly according to my old instructor some fighters will snap later on in the rounds when you are worn out, which means they can throw a dangerous ko punch with full aggression. I guess he's referring to something along the lines of what you see in the movie Rocky (not really a good example) where he becomes indomitable and beats the opponent blind. Its a movie but its the only example I've seen.

I shouldn't try to boast because I'm nothing special (but alot of people aren't that great at fighting!) but he was saying added aggression is the key to success.

He was more or less saying that anger mixed with some skill is the hardest to beat. It makes some sense if you can direct in a controlled way, but this doesn't sound like the shaolin mindset.

[crazychang]

Sorry in answer to your question my experience has been restricted to full contact karate (not heaps of full contact sparring but a bit). The scenario is a boxing style fight. It's very hard to grapple with people bigger than you when you don't train in that aspect of fighting, so I wouldn't make the claim that I can beat bigger people in a wrestle.

[gunbeatskroty]

He was more or less saying that anger mixed with some skill is the hardest to beat. It makes some sense if you can direct in a controlled way, but this doesn't sound like the shaolin mindset.

Personally, I think your old instructor is not a credible nor experienced fighter. When fighting in the ring or sparring hard, getting crazy is usually a waste of energy when going against someone of the same skill level.

Now maybe 2 untrained or low skilled fighters in a street brawl, that may work....say, both go into beast mode and just throw wild haymakers for 30 seconds until either both gasses out or someone gets a KO. But an experienced fighter should easily pick apart dum-dums who throws rapid wild punches. Just a stiff jab stops all of that crap right away.

[crazychang]

I just picked up the latest copy of Blitz magazine (an australian martial arts magazine) and noticed there was an article that addresses this topic to an extent. It covers the physiological responses the mind and body goes through when a random assault occurs, and breaks the two typical responses into two main categories. One is fear which leads to either freeze, fright, faint or flight. The other main category is anger which leads to fight. The article states there is a third category which is neither fear nor anger, but rather a neutral state where one can either choose to fight or not fight. The problem with the neutral state according to the article, is the avoidance of the benefits that come from entering a survival mode: increased speed, strength, endurance, and pain tolerance etc.

I guess my old instructor is saying that a lot of fighters go into this more instinctive, survival mode where there is more power, aggression and speed due to the physiological processes that occur within the body, which can be dangerous becasue they can KO someone. But like you said its probably short winded, uncontrolled and without direction.

Its interesting though because the article to an extent favors anger over the typical martial arts mind because of the extra power.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I have had far more "street fights" than I care to remember.
From just scrapping as a "kid", to the years as a bouncer to real life situations in the military.
I have also had quite a bit of fights in full contact sport MA.
My toughest physically have always been in the ring.
Fighting a trained fighter is always tougher than fighting some "wannbe".
The toughest mentally were as a bouncer, typically when weapons were involved and there was more than one guy.

[gunbeatskroty]

I just picked up the latest copy of Blitz magazine (an australian martial arts magazine)

I guess my old instructor is saying that a lot of fighters go into this more instinctive, survival mode where there is more power, aggression and speed due to the physiological processes that occur within the body, which can be dangerous becasue they can KO someone. But like you said its probably short winded, uncontrolled and without direction.

Its interesting though because the article to an extent favors anger over the typical martial arts mind because of the extra power.

I used to do this when I was new to fighting. Get all angry because someone just popped me in the face or something...so I go crazy, then gassing out. Some would sucker me into going crazy, while they just cover up. Once I gas, they'd attack, and now my defenses, footwork, counters, etc., are crap now. Then there also fear when someone that I know is much better than me and have always beaten me.

As I got better and sparring hard for full knockouts often, I realize that I do the best when staying calm and relaxed in both situations. In the 2nd, I still lose and get whooped by the better fighters, but I still do better in general (ie. take less damage, not get knocked down or out, etc.). There's still fear and anger to some degree though.

[gunbeatskroty]

I have had far more "street fights" than I care to remember. From just scrapping as a "kid", to the years as a bouncer to real life situations in the military. I have also had quite a bit of fights in full contact sport MA.
My toughest physically have always been in the ring.
Fighting a trained fighter is always tougher than fighting some "wannbe".
The toughest mentally were as a bouncer, typically when weapons were involved and there was more than one guy.

See, this guy knows what he's talking about.

I like what you said about ring fights vs. your bouncer job. It's so true about fighting equally trained opponents in the ring being the toughest, physically. I used to bounce too, and usually I would say to myself....I'm pretty sure I can take the average idiot on the street who's usually untrained that steps up, but do I really want to risk getting stabbed in the back today or sometimes next week....rather handling this peacefully and professionally?

And for me with firefights, usually there's no fear as we're all pulling the trigger and blasting away. But when rounds comes real close and you can feel its impact and/or ****zing nearby, that's when I start to fear getting shot. Then of course, once you're shot...it's almost like tapping out.