In the first part of this article I talked about the need for more realistic and intensive training methods for street self defense as traditional training methods just don’t cut it when it comes to preparing you for real combat. As you may remember I found this fact out to my cost when I was thrust into some brutally violent situations as a bouncer.
Before we get into talking about different training methods let’s take a moment to consider a few facts about real street violence. First and foremost if you find yourself fighting with some thug out on the street then you can safely assume that your awareness and avoidance skills have failed or have let you down.
Awareness is the number one skill you should cultivate for protecting yourself against violence on the street. You should train yourself to be able to spot trouble before it starts and also to avoid places that are notorious for trouble and violence. If you go and hang out somewhere that is full of assholes then you only have yourself to blame if one of them starts on you. Similarly, if you act like an asshole yourself when you are out then you can’t expect anything different when someone decides to challenge you for being obnoxious.
The point I’m getting at here is that self defense doesn’t necessarily involve being a highly effective fighter. Real street defense is 90% awareness and only 10% fighting. If your awareness skills are defective then you’ll be taken out before you are even aware a threat exists and then were will all your fighting skills get you?
No matter how good a fighter you are you can pretty much guarantee that there is someone out there who is better. The only way to keep yourself safe from highly skilled street fighters is to simply not fight them at all. Use your awareness skills to avoid messing with such people. If you find yourself being confronted by someone then use the fence technique, control the distance between you and them with your hands, calmly talk your opponent down, and if that doesn’t work be pre-emptive and get in an effective first strike then take advantage of the moment of confusion and run to safety. If none of that is possible then you obviously have no choice but to fight and this is were effective training methods come in.
Sparring for Combat
In the vast majority of dojos across the globe martial artists tend to spar the same way, which is to say that most of us tend to spar for competition purposes. There are always rules to abide by and there are many techniques that can’t be used for either safety reasons or for reasons of style. For example, when sparring for kickboxing there is no grappling, only kicking and punching and even these techniques are done in a very stylised way. Even in MMA, which many would argue (wrongly in my view) is a close representation of street fighting, there are rules to follow and there are safety measures in place to prevent injury to vital areas. And once again, the fighting itself is very stylised and nothing like the chaotic nature of most street fights.
It is therefore wrong to assume that because you are good at sparring that you will also be good in a street fight. We can back this supposition up with a few more facts about street fighting. Consider that:
- Most street fights take place at close range, unlike most dojo sparring were the range is long.
- Real fights often involve multiple opponents and weapons, neither of which are factored into dojo sparring.
- Real fights are usually extremely fast, frantic and sloppy, nothing as controlled as dojo sparring.
- Real fights are never the skilled exchange between martial artists that we see in the dojo.
- In real fights there is no room for fancy or complicated techniques; things must be kept simple.
- A real fight could happen at any time and without prior warning. There is no bowing or touching of gloves beforehand.
- Aggressive dialogue often precedes any real fight.
- Real fights are damn scary and extremely violent, no holds barred affairs. They are therefore not enjoyable in the slightest (unless violence is your thing).
So we can see that dojo sparring is very different from real fighting and if we are to train for the real thing then we have to change our methods of training and sparring. I am not of course saying that traditional dojo sparring doesn’t have a place. People train for different reasons so all types of sparring have their place in the dojo. If you wish to train for real self defense however, then you must make the necessary adjustments to your training methods so you are better able to deal with the real thing.
Protect yourself with sparring equipment.
No matter how real you make your sparring however, it will never be real enough, simply because you have to incorporate certain safety measures into it. Making the training exactly like the real thing just defeats the object of training in the first place. If we went all out then every sparring session would be a potentially life threatening encounter. There still has to be control and this is the fatal flaw when it comes to training for the real thing. Inevitably you will have to wear protective gear, eliminate the use of certain techniques like groin strikes and eye gouges and probably train on comfortable mats instead of concrete.
These flaws and limitations don’t present too much of a problem however, as long as you are aware of them and you factor them into your training. If you happen to be wearing heavy boxing gloves for instance, then be aware that in reality you wouldn’t be able to cover your face with them (because you wouldn’t have them on) and your strikes would be much more effective without them on as well. You would also be able to grapple without gloves. These are things you need to be aware of when sparring for the street.
So you have to make these changes in your training to make it more realistic, you get away from the usual form of dojo sparring and consider the conditions that exist in a real fight scenario. Most importantly, you have to adjust your mindset and go from thinking about scoring points or submissions for competition to thinking about properly subduing and damaging a real attacker in the pavement arena.
That’s it for this part. In the next part we will be looking at how to structure your sparring for real fight practice and the things you can do to make the whole thing more realistic and pressurised.
