“At the beginning of any battle, there are no choices but these three initiatives. Since it is a matter of gaining victory quickly by preemption, therefore preemption is the foremost concern in martial arts….preemption from a state of waiting, preemption form a state of mutual confrontation, and preemption from a state of suspension.”
Miyamoto Musashi, The Fire Scroll, The Book of Five Rings

“[On the intimidating effect of aggressive posturing, when someone really gets in your face…the guys screams…]I don’t give a f*** that you’re a black belt. I’m gonna come round your house when you’re having tea with your Mum and I’m going to bite your nose off and spit it down you f***** throat!…That terror of this guy not caring…that immediate confrontation of (his) posturing, it triggers the flight instinct in us. That flight instinct is so powerful that I’ve watched legends run away from fights…We prepared people by dealing with the most difficult thing, which was posturing…the reality of close range…maybe you’ve got 18 inches…preemption is the only constant. It’s the only thing that works all the time….Just to hit first.  Hit first and use artifice.  Even Musashi only had three preemptions…hit them before they think of hitting you, hit them as they think of hitting you, hit them when they twitch.”
Geoff Thompson”

I think anyone who wants to be prepared for a street fight needs to read and listen to Geoff Thompson.  No one doubts his credentials as a man who not only survived but dominated hundreds of fights, including arranged no-rules bare knuckle matches,  life and death street fights, and many “bum rush” incidents in his job as a bouncer in Coventry.  He also has top notch credentials as a classically-trained martial artist (he’s an ABA Boxing Instructor, a Greco-Roman wrestling coach, holds a 1st Dan in Judo, and an 8th Dan in Shotokan Karate).

I’ve written about him before and I expect I will again!

I especially admire his arc from extremely violent man (driven, from his own admission, by fear) through his career as a bouncer, then on to being a internationally-known martial arts instructor.  He is particularly known for his application of street realism in his training, such as his infamous Animal Days.  And recently, he has reinvented himself again as an advocate for non-violence!  I appreciate his very honest self-analysis and his discussions of the roots of violence in our psychology.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
Sun Tzu

But meanwhile, Thompson is also a first-rate source for those of us who are into fight training but don’t have the hard-won street experience.  The best way to learn hard lessons is to let other people learn them for you!  Its true that experience is irreplaceable, but listening to experienced and wise people is the next best thing, and a lot easier on your dental work.

“The thing you can do in a real fight is go to the floor…even strangers come round and…I’ve seem people literally jump on other people’s heads. They’re not even involved…if you’re in the mount, people just assume you’re the bully and you get your jaw broke or you get hoofed in the head…or you get stabbed. I’ve seen loads of people get stabbed by the girlfriends…the mothers.”
Geoff Thompson

His best books (in my opinion) to help you benefit from his street experience: Three Second Fighter: The Sniper Option, Animal Day – Pressure Testing the Martial Arts, and the classic (and worth its weight in gold) The Fence.

The great thing is that his ideas, dragged straight from violent altercations with the worst and most dangerous and unpredictable people you can imagine, are in perfect agreement with the fundamental principles we find in the Wing Chun Keun Kuit, the ideas which make up our system.

Be quick to end the fight.

Make the first move to have control. Attack according to timing.

A strong attitude and posture gives an advantage over your opponent.

To win in an instant is a superior achievement.

Our system was developed by experienced fighters like Thompson, who developed a system that works best in the conditions Thompson describes.  Very close.  Hands up.  Explosive attacks.  This is why we train reflexes, because many fights are over before your conscious brain even knows what happened.

“(In) people for whom violence ‘doesn’t happen’ or they haven’t been in a physical conflict since they were kids, there is huge denial factor…Overwhelming shock and confusion…They’re going waste time trying to find a palatable way out of having to use violence…. One, you’re going to freeze. Two, you’re going to walk right into it. Three, you’re going to get flattened while trying to find some way not to fight.”
Marc MacYoung, No-nonsense Self Defence

Something I like to dwell on here is the reality of fighting.

Its easy to get sucked into a gym/dojo/kwan bubble and play a lot of “if you do this, I would do that” games based on very speculative assumptions.

In real life, violence plays out differently than we typically imagine.  The consequences are often counter-intuitive.  We see too many movies and so our perspectives get skewed.

For one thing, we don’t really understand just how much damage can occur from one punch.

A 2007 article in The Situationist told the story of Brian Walsh, who now has metal plates in his face and suffers headaches resulting from one punch to the face.

Walsh got annoyed by some young guys speeding by his house while he was barbecuing in the yard.   Then a lieutenant and Navy pilot at Coronado, he sprayed one of the cars with his garden hose.  The driver stopped, got out, walked up to Walsh and punched him in the face, shattering his left eye socket and crushing his sinus cavity.  Plus he could no longer fly, as he lost about 40 percent of vision in that eye.

This is  why its so important to understand how easy it is to avoid fighting!

Marc MacYoung has a lot of material on his site about this subject, but the Cliff’s Notes are:

• In a confrontation, always understand you can usually deescalate and walk away.  It’s never too late.
• Give the other person a way out without stinging their pride (face is very important with the sort of people who are often picking the fight) – don’t give in to the impulse to shoot off your mouth.
• You don’t want to get injured and you don’t want to injure others!  Hospital bills and legal fees and possibly incarceration are not worth that last one-up comment.
• Awareness is king – if you keep your eyes and ears open, you can usually spot trouble coming a mile away – head in the other direction!

This isn’t really a worst case scenario (no kicking, biting, weapons), but it is a good one to look at if you are getting a little of what you might call “Dojo Syndrome,” that is, the only people you “fight” are friends and you are all playing the same game and you are all training pretty mildly.

While I’m no advocate of full-contact training (since I train to feel better, not to get concussions and cuts and abrasions), I think it is always good to do the occasional reality check.

This is how people really fight who have something on the line. Real fights have crazy energy. People move fast. They throw flurries of punches at you.  They grab you and struggle with all their might.  They can soak up a lot of abuse.

You may have to deal with someone wailing on you like that so you need to think about what sort of power and endurance and skill you might need to survive such an encounter.

Just saying.

If nothing else, its helps to visualize such a situation while you are training and mentally prepare for it.

Ideally, understanding the possibilities, you will work to develop real power (ground power) in your attacks (and not bullshit yourself) and train some endurance, because it may take a few minutes to put down an enraged and strong opponent. Or in some cases, just manage to get away!

Thinking about such scenarios helps me with my Geng Ging during training.  Working the banana bag.  Hitting “Bob,” the rubber torso and head guy.  Keeping my hands up because I anticipate I’ll be dealing with a hail of blows and trying not to get knocked out.

On another note, notice how most of these guys duck and curl up.  A lot of dropping the head way down and throwing defensive overhand shots.

Not good!  They are lucky their opponent is not targeting very well.  Of course, here I am, an armchair quarterback!  It takes a lot of nerve to maintain a Wing Chun stance in the face of a dedicated attack — this is why we want it to be the reflex, rather than a thoughtful response.

The reflex has to incorporate the nerve to attack, when the rest of you wants to run!

Note all these guys watching these fight club fights like its TV!