Loony_midget

I use Bill Wallace's method: rear hand held tight to my chin (never moves), and front hand held down, always between me and my opponent. All I have to do is raise my leg or lay back/raise my shoulder when they come in. Never failed me yet.

A good fighter covers themselves in every range. Here are my favourite systems to cover each of the different ranges: Long Range: Taekwon-do Muay Thai Close Range: Western Boxing Wing Chun Muay Thai Groundwork: Systema Ju Jitsu Hapkido Of course, these are only my personal preferences. There are a multitude of systems out there which you should research before making your own decision. My personal favourite, though, is Taekkyon. But that is just me. But a good martial artist will cover all ranges as a means of "total insurance."

Try to do a mix of full and semi contact fighting. Full contact will allow you to learn how to take full-on hits, while semi-contact (which is easily the faster method) will develop your hitting speed.

Have you ever noticed in competition how no two rounds or matches are ever alike? That's simply because no two fighters are alike. If you train constantly with the same partners, you figure out their pattern and can start to control the situation in your favour. But in a street fight, when you're up against somebody you've never met, how can you possibly know what they are going to do? You don't know their mindset, their experience or background. They could a very bad fighter or a natural born killer. In my opinion, you can't train for street fights. No two confrontations will ever be alike, because like I stated earlier in this post, no two aggressors or fighters are alike. You can obviously train to deal with things like tunnel vision ("blanking out") or how to cope with the adrenaline rush. You best bet is to be environmentally aware. If you can spot a potentially threatening situation before it actually occurs, you can then do your best to, as the old saying goes, "run like hell." At the end of the day, the best you can do should you be caught in a fight is train your butt off in the gym and try your best to utilise what techniques work best for you.

Undoubtedly, for me, the worst sparring partner has to be the ego. Whether it is my own or that of somebody else, I hate having to fight pride in the do-jang. We've all been there. We've all mastered a technique, or achieved an amazing stretch, and won the accolade of all the other students. Then, a stranger walks into the class with a greater mastery of technique and an even better stretch. We then spend the rest of that lesson, and indeed many more, tackling our pride in acknowledging that there is somebody better than you at the thing you love most in life. And we've all been there, at least once, when the ego of another comes into play. For me, it was when a student from a different school of Taekwon-do training (I am ITF, he was WTF) joined our club. He was bigger, a lot bigger, than any member of the do-jang. His technique was crude, yet very effective. He used his size and power to destroy any confidence in whoever had the balls to step up to him. He would use amazing spinning kicks, with full power, as well as his very good boxing skills to put anybody on their *. He was even a challenge for our instructor. One of his opponent's suffered a broken rib, another a broken foot, and another a broken nose. And this was just in the first lesson. It was his ego, his enthusiasm to show off and be the "alpha male" that wouldn't allow him to control his techniques. He took the sparring totally out of context. It was supposed to be fun; he made it hell. It is the ability to subdue our egos and control our pride that makes us true martial artists

Question = why do we train relentlessly to kick high? Answer = because it works. It makes me laugh when people say that high kicks (such as turning kick) are useless in the street. The Korean army has used kicks to high targets (head, face, neck) for years during war and conflict. And they worked, often causing fatality. You have to look at your own abilities and preferences. If you train enough, and you are *honestly* capable of kicking some 6' bloke's teeth out with your foot, then by all means use your high kicks. If you don't feel safe, then use low kicks. Or resort to the Indiana Jones school of fighting and shoot the bastard. At the end of the day, in answer to the original question, high kicks do work. It's only people who can't kick above their waste who say that kicks to the head, face and neck are pointless. Remember, the head controls the body. Take out the head, and the body will fall. Taking into account that the leg is longer and stronger than the arm, it all make sense to stick a kick in your attacker's face. And in reply to this business of catching a kick, I don't know about you, but the only person I've seen stop a full-on turning/roundhouse kick to the face is superman. And even he had a problem. Next time you're in class, ask a skilled kicked to stick his foot in your face. E-mail me in 100 years when you actually manage to catch his foot.