Real Fights
Date: Weds, 24 January 2007
If you want to see how you move when you spar, you should watch a video of yourself sparring.
I've got a camera and monitor mounted on the wall of my school's workout area so my students and I can video tape our sparring and forms and see how we look. It's an education.
Here's an interesting thing, though. When people watch a video of themselves sparring, they tend to look almost entirely at themselves. They ignore the other person in the video. If we really want to prepare for a match, shouldn't we make some mental notes about what the other guy's up to?
I think so.
The same applies to street fights. Take a break from perfecting your game plan, and check out what the other dude has waiting for you. You can do this - and I'm sure many of you already have - by going to any number of websites that show home videos.
Youtube.com is a great place to start. Just pay them a visit and type in "street fights.": What you'll see is a mix of backyard matches, after school brawls, and for real street assaults.
These fights are heavy on:
- Sucker punches
- Haymakers
- Bum rushes
- 3 on 1
- very few knock outs
All of that tells me the following: most people fight poorly, they cheat, they have a limited arsenal, they fight very aggressively (they tend not to "spar"), the average person can really take a beating.
The fights are very uniform - there's little kicking, and most "ground fighting" involves the larger, fitter, more aggressive fighter sitting on the chest of the smaller, weaker, more timid fighter and pounding away.
Lessons: stay really, really fit, keep your mouth shut, if you (unwisely) get in a fight, take it to the other guy.
These video sites are a great resource for anyone interested in martial arts and self-defense. They remind us that fighting is messy and fast paced, and that you can hit your opponent repeatedly and the fight keeps going. They remind us that fights actually look pretty dumb to the observer. They teach us why we should avoid street fights, and what to really expect if we get into one.
Watching a few of these videos will really make you train like you mean it!
Take care.
Rob LaPointe