If you was to fight today?

[Throwdown0850]

Of course you need to practice it against a resisting opponent. Not to do so is to say you can hit a home run because you know how to swing a bat, but you've never tried to actually hit a ball.

Exactly.

[GeoGiant]

For me, I wonder how long it will take for me to get beyond the shock of being in an altercation. I’m 37 and I don’t think I’ve been a “fight” since middle school so it has been awhile. It is one thing if the fight occurs after some type of an exchange but what if it is a sucker punch type attack. Since I don’t train like a police officer I assume that there will some lag time between… “what just happened”… “I’m being attacked”… “Evaluate & defend”.

[RW]

If I were in a fight (a REAL fight) I'd probably try things such as a soccer kick to the knee (or maybe a side kick to the knee, karate style) or hitting the ear with my open hand (to cause loss of balance).

We could say, I'd try "weird", unusual, "out of the box" things that I'd think that the other guy would not expect, and that could probably end the fight with that one blow.

[kamahlthedruid]

If I were to fight today, I would be confident only against yellow and orange belts at other schools because I learned a lot in three months at a school called ISD, and from my dad who taught me some moves from itf taekwondo. I did controlled sparring only as a white belt. As a person goes up in belt ranking, he or she has to do more hardcore sparring at ISD! My senseis at isd taught me very practical self defense and dirty fighting.

[etali]

I haven't been doing a martial art for very long. I have had cause to defend myself on three occasions in my life, and on all of those occasions I did OK. I'm female, and each case was a single, male attacker, unarmed. Two of the occasions were muggers (I went to college in a rough area). They were expecting easy prey, and when they grabbed me I reflexively flailed / kneed them, or hit them over the head with a very heavy bag of college books. Then ran away as fast as possible (I used to run competitively, so was fast, and could run for longer than most "normal" people).

I now live in a much nicer area, and don't anticipate any more trouble, but if I ever did have cause to defend myself, I think that right now I'd probably fall back to the same crazed / shock the person by being a lunatic defence.

My style of Karate does involve sparing, and I'm finding that when I'm up against men my short stature means that if I'm close enough to hit them (even with a kick), they're close enough to grab me. I have learned a lot about blocking incoming hits, but at my current level of experience (very low), I don't think I would rely on anything I've learned in the dojo as a way to end a fight.

[JiuJitsuNation]

I'm 6'1" 230 lb brazilian jiu jitsu blackbelt, tatted from head to toe, bald, intimidating and most confident. Typical I know. I have been in a few altercations and did well subduing the misguided individuals without hurting myself or them. One of which the guy dwarfed me! I feel as though I am in control everywhere I go. But there is always a fear of the unknown in the back of my mind. Just as those guys didn't realize who the were about to tangle with... neither do I. it's our minds that will save us then. Being alert and observant will allow us to recognize a situation that we can't handle moments before it gets to that point.

[StrangeBacon]

We'll do a fair bit of training while yelling at each other and making agressive behavior so that if we did have to fight at a certain moment especially in a mugging the idea would be to be more used to that bodily reaction of freezing up when confronted with an attacker yelling at you and getting in your face, and being able to more effectively deal with that threat.

[JiuJitsuNation]

We'll do a fair bit of training while yelling at each other and making agressive behavior so that if we did have to fight at a certain moment especially in a mugging the idea would be to be more used to that bodily reaction of freezing up when confronted with an attacker yelling at you and getting in your face, and being able to more effectively deal with that threat.

I'm not sure you are going to get the emotional response and adrenaline dumped from this. I know for me going to other schools(where I don't know anyone) to train live and going to comps give me a similar feeling of being in a confrontation. However there have been times when I compete and am completely calm. The few altercations I have been in, I have also been calm, even with having a gun waved in my face. I relate this to normal everyday life. Emotionally I get upset when I trip over my wifes high heels because they were left out and because I think it's preventable. lol. But whenever something very serious happens it's more like I just sit back and watch life happen. Even when it happens to me. I guess that's me learning to let go of the things I have no control over.

[Kensei723]

Simple answer, do nothing which is of no use.

[wolverine uskf]

I've been in real street situations, befor and after i started learning martial arts, and yes the proper training helps, but the 2 on 1 live training, and the full contact 1on1 sparring from striking to grappling until someone is either just covering up or submiting on the ground ( with safety equipment so you still have training partners) is the best thing i've ever found to prepare you for the street. No you can't do this every session, but once or twice a month is a big help for real world confidence. Even with all the gear on we still got the idea of what works, and what needs improvement.