My buddies and I have occasionally thrown on some mma gloves and beat the hell out of each other. Things I've learned: - Getting punched in the kidney HURTS. holy fuck. -I'm a mediocre fighter, but reach makes a big difference. -I can get hit in the face a whole lot harder than I thought and be ok. That being said, I will never, ever, try to fight someone drunk. In any kind of confrontation I always back down and do everything possible to cool the situation down. I've had too many friends get jumped/have teeth knocked out/etc. because they didn't chill out.
Focus: I did Twai Kwon Do for a few years in high school, and went to a couple of tournements and won in my category, it was point sparring with padding so I lost interest and decided to try the 'full contact' MMA stuff my gym offered. I never competed with that, it was all just training in the gym but I learned pretty quick that I was by no means the badass I thought I was. Whenever I was put up against the guys I trained with I tended to get my ass beaten (the worst beating of my life came at the hands of my instructors 15 year old daughter); but I eventually learned to hold my own. During my first attempt at college (I was pursuing a crimminal justice degree), I took a class over one summer that offered a six week course in Krav Maga. There was never any sparring involved, but to it's credit it was very hands on and I got a decent grasp of what was taught and I'll occasionally look over the handouts from the class to atleast halfway remember what I learned. Outside the gym the last fight I was in was when I was in the 6th or 7th grade; there was this kid I passed in the hallway on my way to gym class that called me names every fucking day. I eventually got tired of his shit and threw a punch at his gut, to which he replied with by pushing me down a small flight of stairs before turning his back and walking off. I stood up, and threw my bookbag at him and it hit him in the middle of his back; and that was pretty much that since the gym teacher broke it up. That little bastard got a day in dention and I ended up with a week of dention for "throwing the first punch". Anytime since then when I've ended up in a confrontation, I've either just walked away or talked the other person down. I have no interest at all in fighting these days unless it's a life-or-death situation; and if it comes down to that I keep an ASP (collapsable baton) in my jeep, and a pocket knife on my person most of the time. If it's a situation that I cannot walk away from I'd rather trust my life and health to a weapon than whatever I can do with my hands.
I wish I took a martial art, but I didn't. I got into fights during 7th and 8th grade, then one more in H.S. This one time in 8th grade I remember I talked shit to this Mexican guy named Raul who was a foot taller than me, and probably had 50-75 lbs on me. I wasn't just punched, I was cinematically punched. It was a perfect swing, great form, landed right on the chin, I didn't see it but I'm sure there was that perfect ripple from contact through the rest of my face and I was out for like 5 seconds. We became good friends after, but my chin hasn't forgotten that. The other time was in H.S. me and this guy just got into a pissing match and I might have started dating his ex, and ridiculously cockblocked him from revenge fucking my ex. We drop backpacks in this little side street by the H.S. I punch him twice check/chin, he hits me twice chest and neck, no real damage either way. Then we circle around, my back foot steps on my backpack. To not fall I do this forward scissor kick, I get him in the stomach, he backs off, but no real damage. Two seconds later this guy comes out of nowhere and breaks up the fight threatening to call the police. Entire school decides he wins because kicking wasn't cool, and everyone kept calling me Blackie Chan. Fucking MMA came way too late.
My first fight was really short. I was in the 8th grade and making fun of a kid on the bus. Tyler. Tyler was bigger and more popular than me, and I was teasing him (in retrospect) out of jealousy. To his credit, he actually ignored me for a long time. I think the last straw was either "fag" or "idiot", though. He stood up in his seat, turned toward me, and punched me in the face. Almost a knock-out - vision narrowed almost to a pin hole and everything spun. He sat back down and I didn't say a single word to him for about 4 years. Fast forward over a decade: I'm living and teaching in Morocco. Also volunteering at an orphanage (the French girl who ran it was hot). At this point, I had developed a pretty robust dislike for Arab Muslim Males. And for an educated blue state white kid who usually votes democrat, that's still a weird thing to admit. But up to that point, I'd visited 30+ countries, lived in 5, and had never seem women being beaten in the middle of the street amidst a crowd of amused onlookers until I'd lived in Morocco. Then at the orphanage one day, a couple of social workers dropped off Hamza, a six year old girl. She was quiet and sweet and would color while the other kids played. And she had nightmares. Most of the kids in that place had sad stories, but I still wish I hadn't asked about hers. Her family had abandoned her on a road because she had started crying too loudly when her brothers and father raped her. The teeth she was missing were not baby teeth. That's the last time I can remember crying as an adult. Later that week, I saw a Moroccan guy about my age slapping a woman in the face and trying to force her into the back seat of his car. It was night time, and I was close. I jogged over, grabbed the guy by his collar and threw his head into the wall of a building. When I got back to the US, I joined the Army. There's a great little thesis from a book I read; "it's not enough to be good, you have to be strong"
I think my last fight was when I was in the fifth grade and my friend was in sixth. We were riding home on the bus and for some reason started picking at each other and the next thing I know we were talking about who would win in a fight and of course, we both picked ourselves, so we made arrangements to meet to see who was right. At the appointed time, I got on my banana boat-seat bicycle and headed off to one of the back roads where we decided this was going down. I got there first (punctuality is important!) and proceeded to take off my cardigan because really, who fights wearing a sweater? Hmmmm....where should I put it? I don't want to get it dirty. I know. I then proceeded to slip each arm onto a separate handle bar, so in effect, my bicycle was now wearing my sweater. Perfect. So I see my friend walking up the street, but first she stops to get one of her other friends to witness the fight. They get to my location and her friend's first words were, "Was your bicycle cold?" I just gave a single head nod, as I guess I was tough like that. Her friend asked who was going to throw the first punch and I volunteered. So I cock back my arm and let loose. I honestly don't even know if I connected. I don't think I did as I think she deflected my move with the old both arms straight out in front of her, palms out, eyes scrunched closed. Whatever. It worked. We then had about a 30-second slap fight until she yelled stop because I broke her necklace. Whoa. I didn't sign up for that. So we stopped and then I stood there with my arms crossed while they looked for the pieces. I saw one of the pieces on the ground and thought no way am I telling her where that is. "Hey, there's a piece over here." Or maybe I was. Since the fight was now over, I got on my cardigan-clad bicycle and went home, secure in my knowledge that I could take on a sixth grader (that was a win, right?). We were friends again the next day.
Working in quite a few places as a bouncer I only ever threw a punch once. Hanging out with my friends is a different story. My friends are hotheads, but not the kind who plain pick fights. They wouldn't be my friends if that was their platform, I do NOT associate with assholes who attack people to quash their drunk insecurities. However, if somebody messed with them, no matter how much they were outnumbered they threw down like they were on film. In our group, I'm the one known as The Guy Who Reasons With The Police. I don't like fighting and always choose words first, but you get involved now and then. Possibly the most memorable would be the one referred to as "A Christmas Story", which kind of gives us an Alt Focus: A small group of I think around a half a dozen of us went to one of the college's Christmas "superpubs", which is window dressing for shitty dance with college kids and cheap booze. We go, get drunk, blah blah blah I'll skip to the inccident. My closest friend and roomate El Nino was making out with some girl on the dancefloor, like so many people do. Well, this girl was the girlFRIEND of the head bouncer there. El Nino did not know this, but the girl takes the low raod and plays dumb, so the head bouncer decides to lay the blame squarely at the feet of my friend and decides to toss ALL OF US just for sitting at his table. We haven't bothered anybody, or are too drunk to throw out. He comes back to the table with the head bouncer and another bouncer who stood at least 6'10". Paraphrasing: HEAD: This guy is out of here and your friends are too? ME: Why, exacly? HEAD: Messing with a girl on the dancefloor. EL NINO: Yeah, YOUR fucking girl, asshole. THAT'S why they're throwing us out. SHITBOY (other friend): Fuck that. We're not leaving. HEAD: Yeah you are... The head bouncer shoved El Nino, HARD, by the back of his head towards the direction of the exit. Now, El Nino is 6'3", and a gold glove boxer and seasoned streetfighter. He is the toughest person I've ever encountered. In a single fail-swoop move that would make Jason Bourne proud, he snatched a Christmas stocking decoration off the wall, slipped a glass ashtray into it and windmilled the head bouncer a real sweet one right in the crotch who collapsed to the floor in agony. He dropped the stocking, lept up and knocked out the giant bouncer with one punch right on the point of the chin. I could think of a lot of things to say when I saw this, and it come like "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, shit." I knew we had to hustle him out before the rest of the rent-a-goons saw what just happened, and as soon as we started moving the fucking cunt whose fault it actually was in the first place starts creaming for them. By the time El Nino and I made it to the hallway the lead to the exit, five of them had caught up and swarmed us. As I fought a painful losing battle try to fend off two of them, I glance over to see El Nino handling THREE of them like a fucking video game. They would rush him, he would sock them in the lips. Again and again and again. It was astonishing. I'd never seen anybody fight like that in my life. Of course, I was having serious problems of my own, so I decided to use my own experience in these guy's field and try to choke out the Napoleon Complex attacking me and use him to shield me from the other bouncer thrashing on my head like a pissed-off mandrill. When I did this, some guy I'd never seen socked my right across the back of the head which rung my bell. I couldn't grip the short guy any more and thought I was dead, but El Nino has already on his way to me, and wound up a punch from Saturn, threw it at the blindisder's face just as he noticed him rushing in and *PING* The guys's jaw spun up around his head, and the rest of him follwed two seconds later. It was the most disgusting blow I've seen to this day. He broke his jaw like a ceramic plate, and he was out cold with is eyes WIDE open. He had spinal fluid coming out his ears. It was a traumatic thing to look at, I thought the guy was fucking dead. The good news is that cleared a path to the exit, where we very fortunetly ran into our group and made a clean exit in a couple of cabs that were static out front. After ordering "Just drive" to the cabbie, we were mute in the cab. El Nino suddenly chirped "Fuck!! We gotta go back!" "Why on earth would we do that?" "Forgot my smokes."
Anti-Focus: I've done 20 odd years of martial arts, across a range of disciplines and have three black belts. Apart from one incident in high school, I have never been in a fight that didn't have a referee. And that one incident I defused without making a single aggressive move. There have been a number of close shaves and in the right circumstances I would have no problem destroying someone in the name of self defence. I continue to maintain that I show a phenomenal degree of self control by not viciously bitch slapping the large number of people in my life that deserve it.
I've been in a few fights, most in high school, one at the Hofbrauhaus in Vegas two weeks ago. For the most part, I feel people embellish the details too much. In general it tends to be a lot of huffing and puffing followed by a few moments of action. After high school I tended to avoid most of those situations, especially when I didn't know the people. What scares me about random fights is you never know how far the other guy is willing to go, or how far his buddies are.
My boxing coach is a scary little guy. He's short, probably about 5'4 or so, but he is fucking tanky. Like, his arms are as big as my thighs. And I have fat thighs. Anyway, he is involved with the local mma community, and most of them are pretty nice guys. However, there's always one. Coach is at a house party, and the guy who owns the house, who is a reasonably high profile local fighter starts talking shit. Words are exchanged, dicks are measured, and the other guy swings at him. Coach blocks his punch and fires back, breaking his nose. The other guy then takes him down and starts dropping elbows, gets in some solid hits before it gets broken up. A few days later, cops rock up at my coaches house and charge him with assault. He goes to court, and all sorts of bullshit follows. He hires a lawyer, and starts stressing the fuck out. I don't know how the system works, but I think there are problems with being a licensed boxing trainer if you have an assault charge against you. Anyway, this goes on for three. fucking. years. After years of stress and spending over $5k on a lawyer, the charges get thrown out and he can move on with his life. Except that now it's turned into this endless feud. People have taken sides, and now both my coach and the other guy tend to travel in packs of their friends. I'd be pretty fucking apprehensive too if I thought either of these guys were after me; fuck taking a beating from a pro boxer or getting joint locked by an mma guy outside a ring with no rules. Fighting: bad juju.
Well, there was that dubious fight on some random street corner in New York when people honked at you for attempting to slap me upside the head. PS - you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag, let alone out of a rapey situation. That's right, I said it.
I've been doing BJJ for about 4 years now and MMA for 2. I started doing it because I was a pussy. Now, I'm a pussy who knows how to throw a punch. While I'm pretty good on the ground I get terrified when I enter bjj tournaments and I need to work up the courage to have my first mma fight. Since I started training I've had exactly one physical confrontation outside of it. A crazy homeless dude started following me while I was alone one night. He kept mumbling to himself unintelligebly and kind of speeding his pace. I tried to lose him a few times by turning here and there but he'd follow me. Eventually I could feel he was close enough I turned around, punched him in the face and ran off. Thinking back on it I could have probably just ran away and I doubt he would have been able to catch me, but my only thought the entire time was "This guy is gonna try something just hit him and run." So yeah if you're a mentally ill homeless man don't fuck with me. If you're someone else go ahead, I probably won't do shit.
Never been in a fight. I've done a little Bunjinkan Budo Taijutsu, but I have a gun. So that dissipates any conflict fairly quickly.
I have had a few encounters with drunk people that could have been handled a little more tactfully by both sides. What I recall most is that when the hostilities start in places like bars or frat houses in throngs of people, it feels like trying to fight or wrestle someone in a closet. I have never had one of those textbook fights where you stare someone down and meet in the parking lot for an old fashioned throwdown. The one encounter that stands out to me was being at a dance club with some friends. One of my buddies was a complete pushover and also had a really attractive girlfriend. We were hanging around the bar section above the dance floor, when I noticed him having heated words with a clearly intoxicated older man. I walked over to see what was going on as the guy staggered off, I asked what was going on? My friends girlfriend said that guy had just come over and starting grinding on her and wouldn't leave her alone. About 20 minutes later, I look over and see the same thing happening, so I walked back over to talk to the guy. When I spoke to the guy, it was clear that he was more than just drunk, he appeared to be rolling. I tried to say it nicely, telling him to leave her alone but he had some unpleasant words for me. Once he finish saying what he had to say, I had some even more unpleasant words for him. His friends noticed this at some point and pulled him away from me, apologizing for his behavior. I assumed that the problem was over. I had my back to him at this point and was speaking to my friends. At this point, I noticed my friends eyes widen, I spun around just in time to see the four legs of a cast-iron bar stool with him behind it charging me. Fortunately for me, this guy was messed up and didn't have a lot of force behind that chair. I was able to grab it by the cross pieces before he struck me. I stopped him in his tracks and countered his charge with one of my own, with full-force I crushed him between the seat back of the bar stool and the bar top. After I saw him wince and struggle behind the stool, I let it go, he collapsed to the floor and in a rage I got on top of him with my hands wrapped around his throat....this is about the same time that the bouncers arrived. Generally, as you all know, once the bouncers arrive, the fun ends for both parties involved, people get man-handled and thrown out. In this instance, as I was friends with the owner and bartenders; I didn't have to leave. After that encounter ended, I realized how lucky I was not to be severely injured had he more of his wits about him and still wanted to hurt me.....I would've been in real trouble.
I have been in three fights, and all of them were involuntary white-knighting for white trash schoolmates about to get an ass-whooping by their wannabe-Eminem boyfriends. Apparently I send off some kind of even-though-I-wouldn't-piss-on-her-if-she-was-on-fire-I-can't-stand-around-and-watch-her-get-beat-up-vibe. It was as lame as it sounds. The aftermath of one episode was funny though. This one weasel-looking guy decided to threaten me afterwards using his cheating bipolar girlfriend as a messenger. He was going to get his drug-dealing friends to "get me". The girlfriend said I had to be careful. Me being so tough, I laughed at this. Just kidding. I knew of these people, and they were just bad enough to be a potential danger. So I was legitimately scared. But I was angry too, and I decided my best chance was making it seem I had no fear of him, or his friends. If I could come across as "crazy" enough, the dope-slangers might decide their ranga hang-around wasn't worth the bother. Every time I saw him after the threat, I made a point out of terrorizing him without saying a word to him, done in a blasè manner, almost as an after-thought. If I passed him in the bar street, I'd walk over and bitch-slap him, and then casually continue on my way through the crowd. At the pub, I'd pour a pint over his head, then turn around and keep talking to my friends. I pushed him, tripped him, even threw a chair at him. For some reason, he never pursued me to escalate the situation. Maybe my actions were so far outside of the bounds of normal human behaviour, he thought I was legitimately mental. A few weeks of this, and one night he approached me in a bar, apologized and made peace. I may not be a bad-ass, but neither was he, and he blinked first.
I've never been a big guy, so fighting has never really appealed to me because I never felt like I'd have the power to actually defend myself appropriately. That said, when I have been placed in scenarios when I've had to defend myself, my mantra has been, "Hit this fucker so hard that it's over then, because if he gets back up, you're screwed." Aside from school yard squabbles as a kid, I've been in two fights--both in college. The first was at a Halloween party, and a story that I've told here before, so I'll spare the long details. Short story: fight broke out, friend got sucker punched by some guy in a Mr. Incredible costume and was nearly knocked out. Guy who punched him got on top of his limp body on the ground to keep going for some reason. I walk over and blast the dude in the side of the head, he rolls off of friend. Guy gets up (shit), so I push him over, get on top of him and lay a few elbows into his face--all while wearing a full body Tigger costume. The second one wasn't too long after the Tigger v. Incredible fight. My buddy's friend from home had come to visit, intent on getting incredibly drunk--which he succeeded at quickly. We were standing outside of the neighboring apartment when we heard a scuffle inside and the friend and neighbors busted out the door, with the neighbors beating the shit out of the friend. We have no idea what's going on and we try to break things up. Offended, some of the guys start fighting us. I learned that my head can take a pretty nice elbow shot and that a straight kick to the gut actually works well in some situations. Also, your hand hurts when you punch a face without the protection of the orange mittens that a Tigger costume provides. We later learned that my buddy's friend had bitten the ear of one of the neighbor's friends during an argument--a totally appropriate action if there ever was one--and that their beating his body with fists was pretty warranted. We told the friend he was an idiot, made him go apologize, and continued to drink beer. That's actually how we became friends with the neighbors.
I've been in more grade school fights than I care to remember, and lost almost all of them. I was very small for my age - I was 4'9" and 78 lbs when I entered high school. It is why I turned to words to hurt people, as it was the only real resource I had at the time. I did finally grow, and by senior year I was 6' and 130 lbs, and freakishly strong for my weight. I was in cross country at the time, and our locker room had soccer guys too. One of them fucked with my car, and despite the fact that I got my ass handed to me on most occasions, I was never afraid to fight. I found out who did it, walked up to him in the locker room. He saw me coming. He smirked, I lashed out, punched him in the face, grabbed his hair, and smashed his face into a locker. He crumbled. That was the last fight I had in high school, or college. I am glad for my size - 6' 2" and 208 lbs. No one bothers with me. On the occasions someone has fucked with me, I have always been able to diffuse the situation and am grateful I've never had a physical altercation since. While I understand, and am not afraid to, there are situations that physical confrontation is necessary, I hope I'm never in that situation ever again. Kudos to Winterbike, though, for handling a really shitty situation really well.