One Tuesday night back in the late 1970’s I was working out at the school when a couple of Korean Stylists came in and spoke to my instructor (Dick Willett) about doing some sparring. Dick asked me to spar with these guys and I agreed as they seemed to be respectful. I believe that I had my fighting black belt at the time.

In our system, one could do an abbreviated test to wear a black belt early before the official test. The only problem with this strategy was one had to fight 10 black belts in a row and do ok against them to get the fighting black belt. I did it as I wanted to start fighting tournaments as a black belt early. I did later achieve my traditional black belt and beyond.

I fought the guy about my size and did well against him but the other big guy (I’m about 6 foot and this guy was about 6′ 4″) kept saying “Poor Form” as I was kicking his friend. You see I had been fighting lots of tournaments and had the timing down. The first guy I was fighting had some beautiful kicks but they were not connecting like mine were. You see I did not care about form at all… only if my kick or punch connected.

More about these fights later but in this post I will talk about kicking form versus substance and does it really matter? I mean what are the pros and cons of adhering to some long dead master’s view of how to throw a proper kick (no disrespect intended). I’ll finish my recollection of my fights that day in the late 70’s and the surprising (to them) outcome! Here is one video of some of the best karate kicks.

The two scenes I loved were the guy kicking the barrel and Van Damme doing that straight leg side kick! You see these kicks were done with very good form. They looked really cool but in a real fight would they work? With today’s MMA enlightened era – I would have to say any time you leave a kick hanging out there (and it did not take the guy out), you are risking a take down… kind of foolish to lock anything out… but again they looked cool.

First off good form means you execute the kick exactly they way it should be done the way it is taught. A side thrust kick done in kata many times locks out. While it is true doing the kick with good form is probably close to the most efficient way to deliver the most thrust for the least amount of effort; it also does not consider what the other guy is doing.

If you take into consideration substance or perhaps another word is the practicality or usability of the kick – often times you are not fighting a guy/guy in a side horse stance waiting for you to throw your best shot. No - your opponent is going to be moving around and be willing to take advantage of any mistakes in position or timing you might afford her. 

Lets consider you goal now… if you are testing for a belt – by all means do the kick the way you were taught. You need good form to pass the test. What if your goal is fitness? One argument might be to practice the kicks the way you would throw them in a fight because you will fight the way you train. But many people who have never taken martial arts lessons – have taken “kick boxing” at the local gym. What I am trying to say is these folks have no idea how to throw a kick if they are depending on the fitness kick boxing instructor to show them.

What is your goal is self defense or some type of fighting? Does form matter? Nope… the only criteria a fighter is held to is ‘did it work?’ I don’t mean that one should throw away all of ones traditional martial arts training but rather let it evolve in light of the new goal. Guys and gals today move around when they fight. They beg – borrow or steal whatever techniques work in the venue they are competing (or fighting in terms of self-defense)!

Do you remember boxing in the old days…. before they moved around in the right much? Boxing has evolved to today’s highly skilled fighters in the ring. Karate has made a similar transition but there is still a lot of old style fighters out there in schools that stress form. To me this is a lot like the karate tournaments where I used to compete. There for fighting  and forms competition. The form competitors looked very fluid, crisp and flawless in their execution of technique.  

Contrast the forms with the sparring competition. Fighter’s kicks looked sloppy but often times actually connected. If one tried to throw a good form kick – most of the time it would be telegraphed and not connect. The only thing that matters in fighting is if it works… how pretty it looks does not mean squat. Here is a old Keith Vitali vs Doug Smith video to demonstrate effective kicking.

Wow… Keith Vitali’s kicks did not really look sloppy to me as it is pure poetry when a kick lands but you can see what I mean they were all over the place – thrown from any position. That to me is the goal – actually connecting with a kick rather than throwing a good form kick that does not hit anything.

To finish my story – I sparred the big guy next all the while he was talking smack. Every inverted lunge punch or side kick I threw to his kidneys (in response to a high – fast kicking attack), he would growl ‘Poor Form!’ You can see how that might be irritating. I kept my cool as only cool heads can fight and if this guy actually connected with me – it would have been bad. You see my fighting weight back then was 165 and this guy was easily 220.

But in this guy’s defense, all of his kicks were very good form and hard kicks. I quickly realized that I would not be able to absorb any of them so since this guy was going hard – I went hard in my counters. I took no chances and fought a defensive – outside fight. I mean I fought from the outside and did not commit. As his attacks came at me, I would either side-step or back off and counter-strike to his kidneys with a inverted counter-punch or side-kick mostly right after his attack missed!

After about 10 minutes of this I called the match because he had not hit me and I was hitting him at will. His unfriendly banter and not ceased so by calling the match I was ready to take him out if he continued. But he and his friend still had minimal respect for our school and my instructor sat down them them and I and explained to them that form is good but connecting is more important in open tournaments. The guy admitted that I had one hell of an inverted counter punch and showed me his bruised kidney. We parted respecting each other but I hope I impressed on them the importance of substance over form.

A man on vacation at a bar finds himself in middle of a fight and as so often happens – it is hard to discern the good guys from the bad. Well he puts some distance between the fight and his wife and scans for exits. One of the fighters notice and comes right at him! The vacationer side-steps the rusher and give him a little push into the table – grabs his wife and makes for the exit.

I don’t know about you but I’ve been in this type of situation before and it is a little scary if you have the family with you. This website has often evaluated different types of fighting styles and self defense but why does self defense work? I mean most bad guys can fight – right? If they can fight then why can some minimal self-defense training carry the day?

In this post I will delve into the question of why self defense works and what I think are some good ways to go about learning how to fight. Let me be clear that self defense is learning how to fight. More on that in a bit but first I’d like to show you the average caliber of fighters you have to prepare for in case you ever have to defend yourself. Take a peek at this video of a street fight – there are some weapons but no one seems to get hurt too badly.

I don’t know what was going on in this video but it seems to be one bunch of guys against some local guys. There were some clubs and a knife at one point but the injuries did not seem too bad. I saw one guy that seemed to know a few moves that kept him fairly safe. Without knowing if anyone was just in this fight I am just going to use this video to make my points.

Most of the guys in this video could not fight their way out of a paper bag. Sure they could wield a club, punch and kick but most of the moves were ineffective. I would guess that 80% of all fighters in the world are not good at what they are doing. I mean who cares how mean you look, how much you can drink, and how good your fight talk is?

Am I trying to be disrespectful to these and most fighters? Nope but I am making the point that if you agree with me that most people do not really know what they are doing when it comes to fighting – then you might understand why self defense training of any type – can work!

Let me point out that the 20% of people that can fight can include soldiers, cops, martial artists of all persuasions, and natural born fighters. Not all great fighters have been trained but more often than not – fighters had to have had some training to be good.

Are black belts good fighters? They can be but it depends on their training, ability and why they wanted to learn martial arts. I have known plenty of black belts that talk about what if this happened or that happened and wonder if they are ready.

How about soldiers? Can they all fight in hand to hand combat? I would guess that many that have been to war zones and have had to do it – can fight but not all. Many learn what they need to in modern warfare and depend on the weapons.

What about cops? Cops can learn how to be great fighters – many do not ever get proficient at fighting because it is not really part of their job. All cops have a black belt – you know the belt that holds their mace, baton, gun and radio.

So the point I am trying to make  is to be good at self-defense – you have to become good at fighting. While it is true that limited self-defense can be effective because most people cannot fight their way out of a paper bag (including people that should be good at fighting) – you should not depend on the other guy being inept like the guys in this video.

Take a look at Bas Rutten’s take on a bar fight and while you are looking at it, realize that most situations he is speaking about would only work on untrained fighters (80% of what you find out there). I’ll add that Bas Rutten certainly is one that can fight – but the video is showing close hand to hand combat where an attacker is standing right next to Bas - a mistake for any attacker (that wants to win a fight).

Trained fighters do not give stuff away for instance by talking smack right next to their opponent. Anyone can sucker punch or kick anyone else if they are inside the critical distance. That being said, Bas does make the point (my emphasis) how easily most people can be beaten in a fight since they leave holes in their defenses.

I had a stepson from a former marriage that used to get angry and fight at the drop of a hat. I noticed that most times he came back with a black eye or such and told very animated stories about the fights and why the other guy deserved to get knocked out. Most of the time he lost and I asked him the question why be fought if he realized that he could not fight?

He told me that the other guy deserved to get hit! I persisted by pointing out that it took work and training to learn how to fight – why didn’t he just back away rather than resort to a fight? He did not have a good answer other than he got so angry that he could not back down.

What do you think fighting is? Is it merely learning a fighting style such as judo, karate, boxing or mma? Would any of those mentioned martial arts help you in a fight? Are any superior to each other? Are they easily adapted to self-defense?

Fighting is any method of combat including weapons or hand to hand. I tend to focus on hand to hand combat because most people do not carry weapons legally.

Learning a martial art can help you learn to fight. I mentioned 80% of the people cannot fight before but I think that 50% of the people that take a martial art cannot fight. This is because learning the moves half heatedly will not adequately prepare one for a fight. It will give most people an edge against someone that has not learned how to fight so it is still a goal worth attaining even if you goal is not to be a great fighter!

Any fighting style is good to learn. I used to be prejudiced against most because I personally like karate. But over the years I’ve seen and heard examples of judo, jiu-jitsu and even tai chi practitioners using those arts in self-defense! Why a boy even saved a girl from a dog by choking it with jiu-jitsu last year!

Boxing, karate, kung fu, muay thai, mma, judo, jiu jitsu, wrestling and more are all good to train for fighting and ultimatly self-defense! There is no best style! If anyone tries to tell you their way of fighting is better then the rest – he or she is mistaken.  They will all work effectively in a real life self-defense secenario.

I’ve tried to make the point that most people, even people that say they can fight – cannot! Sure they know a few moves and against another inept fighter, it will seem to work but that does not mean they are any good.

It is kind of like learning how to play chess. Anyone can learn how to move the pieces and look like they know what they are doing but most will never be a master. If they ever play a master, they will be beaten 10 out of 10 games in short order. This is true even though they may play their peers and win 8 out of 10 games and appear to be a great chess player!

So if you agree with me that most people cannot fight, and if you take steps to learn how to fight and avoid beginners mistakes from the martial arts style you like (read Eastern or Weastern styles), you will stand a very good chance of defending yourself in a self-defense situation!

So I encourage everyone to head down to the gym, school, dojo, or club of your choice and learn to fight! If you enjoy the lessons, the school is good, and you have a desire to learn, you will be learning self-defense too. Here is a video of a school but there are many choices out there to make your self defense work!

I learned how to fight as a kid out of necessity but I did not really think of girls fighting. I mean that it did not happen when I was a kid. Girls were the weaker sex and they were too nice. Girls did not seem to have the ‘killer instinct’ boys did to do whatever it took to win, or even fight!

As I grew up I was exposed to the idea of women fighting. Yes girls were weaker than boys but with karate or judo, a few fighting tricks, I reasoned could even up the score. 

In this post I am going to explore the idea of women having the ‘fighting spirit’ necessary to win a fight, I will also look back a bit to the fabled Women Amazon Warriors and then comment about some of today’s women fighters. To get this started here is probably one of my first exposures of a woman warrior – Wonder Woman!

Wonder Woman to me was a great example of how a woman could fight and even beat men! If you stop and think about it – strength is not everything in a fight. For instance if you are really strong but cannot hit the other person – you cannot beat the other person. I did not think too much about Wonder Woman’s skimpy costume at the time but grown up – I can see how this show was marketed to increase TV ratings!

Did Amazon Warrior Women really exist? I found some information on a Ancient Greek’s – Who were the Amazons website, that seem to backup the existence of a race of fierce warrior women. Here is an excerpt of this webpage:

Outside of the questions of the Amazon origins, other questions pertaining to Amazons concern their view of men, and if they were a fierce (blood thirsty) people. The Greeks often questioned (as do modern scholars) how the Amazons, a race composed entirely of women, were able to sustain themselves throughout the generations. The most credible theory holds that the Amazons had contact with men from other lands, the Amazons kept the female children born to them, and sent the male children to live with their fathers. As to the Amazons blood thirsty nature, Quintus Smyrnaeus wrote of them during the Trojan Wars:

“In the pure rapture of triumph the Amazons charged, and with anguished groans and shrieks the Greeks perished, their manhood withered by the women from the fierce and untamed northlands. Like Goddesses amidst earth born heroes the Amazons pursued their reeling foes, dashed them down, cut them apart, and, scoffing, tossed them through the air – till the Greek formations dissolved in consternation.”

It really looks like throughout history women have had to take up arms and fight for their survival alongside men! I don’t really know why this would be surprising and I think it should be empowering to women to know they are capable of fighting! Here is a video that discusses a couple of iterations of the Amazon women briefly for your perusal.

It seems the world over women have had to defend what was theirs but in the case of Amazon’s – it seems they have banded together to be safe from men. What a novel concept! Humans have always done what it takes to survive. In history, survival has been supreme – I mean to say that you and I, brothers and sisters are the cream of the crop! We and our ancestors have survived all of the wars and injustices of the past to get to this point.

What I am hoping to impress on the readers that have been dumbed down by civilization, is that men and women are quite capable of learning to fight and in today’s context – learn self-defense!

What does it take for a woman to have the warrior spirit? In karate we used to call this fighting spirit when teaching sparring so one could understand that a fight was more then the sum of the kicks, punches, parries and foot work. Fighting called for a drive or strong will and the belief that one could win the fight! Here is one video of women that have successfully learned fighting spirit!

The boxer that recounted the tale of punching a guy that tried to touch her reminded me of my wife, Sly a year back having to defend her honor against a pig at a bar! Sly was out with her sister and girl friends at a local bar and a guy was trying to get friendly. After rebuffing him a couple of times the guy copped a feel of her thigh when she looked away. To his surprise Sly back elbowed him in the face and challenged him to a fight in the parking lot.

The guy backed down in light of the peer pressure so she did not have to resort to fisticuffs but you can see what lengths women have to go to get some respect!  One woman fighter in MMA today that is commanding the respect of both men and women is Christine “Cyborg” Santos. Chris has been seemingly easily running through the ranks and captured the title last year in a widely watched fight against Gina Carano. Here is video  of Chris Cyborg demolishing Jan Finney.

Chris Cyborg would give any normal guy in a bar devastating loss if the messed with her. I thing she embodies what fighting spirit is by her non-nonsense attitude and her attention to training. Jan Finney did ok but did not really understand how to distance herself properly so Cyborg was able to connect with most of her punches easily. Finney is a good tough fighter in her own right as she was able to hang in there a round.

I think today’s women fighters embody the ancient Amazon Warrior Spirit and it is easy to imagine any of these women picking up the weapons of the day to defend what is theirs – just as the Amzaon woman of folklore did in the days of old. So the next time you wonder whatever became of the Amazons – look across the kitchen table to see the new breed of potential Amazons and mind your manners!

WEC 49 had some interesting bouts  (June 20th) as did Strikeforce Fedor vs. Werdum (June 26th). I’ll just highlight a couple of the fights and link to some results for each. But let me just say they were worth watching!

The main WEC fight was a battle between Jamie Varner and Kamal Shalorus that was marred by Shalorus kicking Varners family jewels three times. Kamal lost one point. If you get a chance to watch this fight you’ll see Varner getting the best of Shalorus in most clashes but Shalorus has a good chin. Even without the penalty point taken away from Shalorus I had Varner ahead on points easily. The fight went the distance and much to my surprise two judges were split with the third calling for a draw! Results here.

Here is a video of Fedor vs Werdum (don’t know how long it will be up).

I was not really that surprised by this result as while Fedor is a great fighter – he has pulled out some surprising wins at times. But wow – Werdum really pulled off the win while Fedor was trying to pummel him on the ground! Results here.

The fight I really enjoyed on this ticket was Scott Smith vs Cung Le rematch. Le fought this bout better than I’ve seen him so far by choosing his shots and fighting a bit more defensively. Le easily out classed Smith this time and found a home for his decisive spinning rear kick that Smith had so much trouble with in the last fight. Here is a video of this match up.

This has been a good month for MMA fights. There were some other really interesting match ups but I wanted to highlight the Smith vs Le as my favorite. What was your favorite this month?

My wife (Sly) recently had an experience witnessing road rage that has mademe revisit this issue. Sly was driving in a 35 mph zone behind on car when another come up on the side and tried to cut in front of her suddenly! Sly stomped on her brakes and the guy waived to her and swerved back out. The guy then sped up past the car in front and cut him off and stopped suddenly! Sly again stomped on her brakes and came to a stop. Both cars doors ahead flew open and the guys ran towards each other screaming. Sly drove around when she could to escape the madness!

While I don’t know what ended up happening in this case, it did upset me because my wife almost hit a car twice inside of a minute due to aggressive drivers. I previously posted about, “Road Rage!” and “Road Rage! What About Sticks and Stones?” but I think aggressive driving legitimately has a place in the context of self defense because one never knows if it will lead to an attack.

In this post I am going to focus on how to stay safe if you find yourself in the middle of a road rage incident. While I do not want to make lite of this issue – I thought I would demonstrate the mentality (or lack thereof) of the participants in an aggressive driving or road rage situation in this video to set the stage.

Did you notice how easily this escalated? While (hopefully) this might be an extreme example of the escalation, it did show how each lady wanted to be right, get even and win the one upmanship contest! The real losers in this were all of the innocent bystanders. It is one thing if both drivers choose to participate in this but quite another if anyone else’s life or property is affected!!!

Here is how this works. One driver slights another driver somehow (perceived or real) and the driver aims to get even – after all (and you have seen the signs) he DOES own the whole damn road! So the other driver (who may be unaware of the slight – or not) gets accosted verbally by the first driver and decides the deed is no good – He, NOT the slighted driver, owns the whole damn road! Before we go on – this is a good point to insert today’s song that each driver should take to heart.

So what are your responsibilities when you are driving a one ton missile? Does your missile have a hair trigger or a sufficient safety mechanism. I would argue that a driver has the responsibility to take every reasonable step to NOT engage in aggressive behaviour with their car and if someone tries to egg you on – you make every attempt to diffuse the situation! Watch this video and think of how some of this might have been avoided.

Warning – Some Strong language in this video

Watching this video we have no idea who started this fight. We might glean that the guy outside of the car started the physical confrontation but my guess is both guys might have egged each otheron. Who is charged and convected in a court of law is a matter for the police and courts but if you were the guy inside of the car – what would you have done to de-escalate the situation?

Do you have to respond if a guy calls you a name? Do you have to respond if a guy cuts you off? Do you have to move over if a guy is trying to pass you and you are going the speed limit? Before I give you my answer to these questions I would like to introduce you to the concept of shared libility. What this says in a nut shell (depending on the laws where you are) is one may be liable if he or she was partially responsible for an event. What I take this to mean is if during the participation in a road rage incident, say both parties start fighting in middle of a street and another car swerves to avoid hitting the fighters and crashes into a mother and child on the side walk – both road rage participants may be held responsible!

Another consideration if one resorts to open fighting and the had a way out – what if the aggressor is killed? I mean so what he started it – did you have the right to defend yourself or could you have walked away – taken some verbal abuse and property damage? Would a smashed head light be worth the life of the aggressor? I mean do you know if the aggressor was a father, husband, son, or otherwise had people that depended on his but had an aggression problem?

Now that I have mentioned the obvious (maybe not so obvious), I’d like you to see a what to do about road rage video put out by videojug. Sorry but you will have to click the road rage video link to view this on youtube because they do not allow embedding. One thing to note is the Britt’s seemingly call “cutting people off”  as “cutting people up.”

The video makes a good point about not holding your ground if someone wants to get past you because you have no idea what is going through the other person’s mind. I mean he may be heading off to his child’s hospital after getting a call she was in a terrible accident. Someone in a compromised mental state might do things he would not normally do. It makes sense to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. If everyone did this – there would be less road rage incidents I think.

Ok – what should you do if you find yourself the focus of a road rage incident? Try to diffuse the situation by not responding vocally or with gestures. If cornered – do not get out of the car. If you take on some property damage to your car – try and keep things in perspective – I mean is that worth you, your family or him going to the hospital or worse? Your insurance and the police should be the ones to sort it all out – way easier if you are not a co-participant in the lunacy!

What if you have no other choice other than to defend yourself? Then you do what you have to do – mitigated by the reasonable man standard. This standard is more of a legal concept that you might be judged by the police and a court of  law. Do only what you have to do to end the conflict. If you knock a guy down you can hold him but hammering him with blows might not be considered reasonable if witnesses thought you had bested him already. You definitely should not fight past the point where you have incapacitated him.

Why don’t I talk more about how to defend yourself against road rage? Mostly I think this is silly and mostly avoidable. I was guilty of getting caught up in some incidents when I was a kid and came out ok but in retrospect I was really lucky no one got seriously hurt. As with most fighting if you cannot answer the question, what is so worth risking my life for? – then you have no business participating!

I am happy to say Sly came out ok from the idiots raging on the road and she handled it ok but had she realized what was happening sooner – she would have given them even more space I’d bet. That is the tricky thing because you don’t know if a couple of cars are street racing or what. As soon as she realized they were after each other- she gave them a wide berth.

I would argue the best defense is not a good offence but rather the avoidance of the conflict altogether!