How many of you have actual combat experience?

[Yasutsune Makoto]

I haven't been in a fight since I was 9 on the playground at my elementary school, and I don't want to. I'm sure others feel the same way but after seeing what happens during kumite matches, or on makiwara, or in friendly bouts around the dorm room, I'm flat out scared for someone to attack me. I know that I'll probably get hurt, there is no winner in a fight. But I know the damage I can do as well, and that's enough to make me do anything I can to stay out of that situation. As with Thaiboxer it's everything I do, and because of that who knows what's going to come out if I need to use it.

Having no option but to fight scares me...may it never happen!

[ps1]

I do have combat experience. However, most of it was in the military and involves handling searches of Iraqi Nationals. Sometimes they would get frisky. Of course you can't just shoot someone; so we would utilize certian skills to bring the person into compliance.

[Jiffy]

I have personally had combat experience. As a bouncer at numerous pubs/clubs and a warden in wards for people with phsycological disorders, I had my fair share of hand to hand combat experience.

Martial Arts give you the tools for the job, but the person has to have the attitude to use them. Martial Arts do work if you know how to apply it in real street situations.

What Martial Arts schools don't teach you (and can't) is the adrenelin you will feel and the speed at which the whole thing will happen. Forget being able to dance around your opponent like a boxer, in the street, most fights last no more than 30 seconds, and chances are, you would have acted before you even know what you are doing. That's why we shouldn't just teach a skill, it needs to be instinctive. If you spend time thinking, you will most likely spend it on the floor, face down.

[Ace2021]

Jiffy pretty much summed it up for me.

[Rick_72]

I was in plenty of fights as a teenager, some lost, some won......many with broken bones and/or cuts on one of us at the end.

I don't train in martial arts to learn to fight, I could do that before I started training. I take martial arts because I enjoy it. Couldn't care less about fighting anymore. I have fun tournament fighting, because its light contact (so you still get the adreneline rush), its safe, and no one is going to be seriously injured (so I don't have any concious issue's later on).

I will tell you this. If your attitude is that you should only react to physical action from your opponent than you've probably already lost your battle on the street. For those of you that have been in a fight, you know as well as I do that you already knew in your head whether or not you still had a chance to walk away, simply by the tone and posture of your opponent. During the vocal stage of any confrontation, battle lines are being drawn in your head. You're probably already mapping out your defense in your mind (what will my reaction be if he does this?). In the real world what you should be mapping out is the direction your going to walk away, after you shut your mouth and stop trying to save your pride in the face of a very real danger. If there's absolutely no way to get out of the fight, and you'll probably know this fact all too well, then you strike first, fast, and hard to neutralize the situation without being to aggressive by continuing after your opponent is incapacitated.

Does this mean your incapacitating technique should be a knife hand jab to the throat, so you can watch your opponent suffocate? Heck no. Most fights can be quickly ended with a first strike reverse punch to the chin. As most street fights are preceded by a puffed out chest with hands down at the sides while trash talking (or a sucker punch from your side, in which case this really doesn't apply does it), the head punch is usually a fairly easy strike to land in this situation.

A lot of those folks with the mentality of completely defensive martial arts will disagree with me on this point of view. and maybe rightfully so. However, I would submit that less physical damage is done to both parties involved if a fight that couldn't be avoided is ended with a single, non-life threatening punch, than the amount of damage caused by a drawn out scrap that could have been ended quickly.

Those that discount TMA on the street are not fully understanding the bunkai of their training. When they reach that level, and muscle memory is achieved they will.

[alsey]

excellent post rick. i agree completely with everything you said. preemptive striking is of vital importance IMO; its by far the easiest way to end a confrontation with minimum injury.

i also don't learn martial arts to be good at fighting, i was pretty good fighting anyway. not to say i havn't learnt a few tricks from MA though!

[Jiffy]

On phrase:

Action Beats Reaction

[Myth]

I'm young, new to martial arts even, and no, haven't used any techniques in a fight, I don't get into fights really. But when it came down to one... I wonder if it isn't a bit like sparring? Okay, sparring 'goes slower', when people fight it tends be over pretty soon.

[elbows_and_knees]

I'm young, new to martial arts even, and no, haven't used any techniques in a fight, I don't get into fights really. But when it came down to one... I wonder if it isn't a bit like sparring? Okay, sparring 'goes slower', when people fight it tends be over pretty soon.

No, they are not alike.

[Myth]

(I ment "when it comes down to one", error in my post..)

What are the main diffrences?