How To Survive and Thrive In a Street Fight in 8 Simple Steps

Let’s say you’re out with your buddies (or maybe a lovely young lady) having a good time, when all of a sudden some jackass shoves you. You didn’t do anything to instigate the guy, but it doesn’t matter.
There is a special breed of males, that when inebriated, start fights with random people. This breed, when found in their wild habitat, are often accompanied by their similarly boneheaded buddies.

Or perhaps you and your posse end up in a rumble with the Socs because one of your buddies killed a Soc while trying to save Ponyboy from being drowned by a douche bag Soc. Man, I hate them Socs. Stay golden Ponyboy.


What can you do to prepare for a street brawl and protect yourself in this type of situation? Here are 8 simple steps you can follow to avoid ending up in the emergency room after a street fight.

1. Wake up! When someone threatens you, snap to attention. Be aware of your environment. Look for objects that you can use for weapons. Searching out a place to escape to is especially important if you’re outnumbered.

2. Try to defuse the situation. Try to talk with the guy and calm him down. If you did something unknowingly that offended him (like looking at him funny), then apologize. Don’t let your ego get in the way of apologizing for something you didn’t do. Your first goal should be to avoid fighting. Maintain confident body language. Don’t show the guy you’re afraid.

3. Walk away. If talking to the knucklehead doesn’t work, start to leave the scene. But maintain alertness and walk away backwards, still facing your opponent. If he’s a no-good, yellow-belly rat, he’ll attack you from behind.

4. Assume a fighting position. If the jerk is still threatening you and you have nowhere to go, assume a stable fighting stance. Spread your stance to about shoulder width apart and slightly bend your knees. The goal is to maintain balance so you don’t end up on the ground. Keep your hands up to protect your face and clench your teeth. A solid punch to an open mouth can lead to a broken jaw.

5. Defend yourself. The goal is to defend yourself from violent and unjustified aggression, so don’t be afraid to fight dirty. If you have any object to use as a weapon, use it. This can be anything like a chair, a bottle (extra man points for first breaking the bottle and then thrusting the jagged part at your opponent), or a 2X4. Here are some other techniques that could be used in this sort of situation:

• Knee to the groin. No explanation needed why this is effective.
• Low kicks to the knee, groin, or abdomen. Kick like you’re kicking down a door, using the bottom of you foot. A solid kick to one of these areas can incapacitate your attacker long enough for you to get away.
• Headbutt to the face. Your forehead is one of the hardest bones on your body. Use this to your advantage by headbutting your opponent hard across his nose. If done correctly, you can do some serious damage.
• Throw a punch. If done correctly, an overhand punch can put your attacker out of commission.

6. Take punches effectively. While you should do your damnedest to avoid getting punched, you can’t avoid them all. If you have to take a punch, strive to absorb it in a way that minimizes the impact and damage..

• A punch to the head. Move towards the punch, tighten your neck muscles and clench your jaw. By moving into the punch, your attacker may miss the mark wide to either side. Absorb the punch with your forehead. It’s the hardest bone your body. If your attacker hits you there, his hand will be hurting and you’ll have minimized the damage to yourself.
• A punch to the body. Tighten your stomach muscles, but don’t suck in your stomach. Try to shift so the punch lands on your obliques rather directly in the stomach or vital organs.

7. Give your best war cry. While defending yourself, make as much noise as possible. There are two reasons for this. First is the intimidation factor. Yelling may distract and intimidate your attackers, leaving you a better chance of getting in some good blows or getting away. The second reason is to draw attention. The more people who gather around you, the easier to call a douche bag’s bluff.

8. Make your escape. After you have incapacitated your attacker using the methods described above, get the hell out of there.

Defensive Thoughts

There's a time when I was helping teach a semi-contact karate class (low and high kicks, knees and hard hand techniques to the body, light to the face with protective gear). I had come over to two combatants, one of which was holding back and trying to maneuver to avoid the hard techniques aimed at him (we are not talking about point karate here). I stopped them.

Addressing the one holding back, who we will call Jimmy, I said, "you are thinking defensively. You are trying to not get hit and in doing so you are doing the exact opposite. You become more open by abandoning your attack and by not hitting hard yourself. Stop thinking and attack back."

"You're right," Jimmy said. "I didn't start out that way, but when I started backing off, and avoiding attacks, things turned on me."

He was right.

In practice contact sparring or in real fighting where blows are actually delivered with power, defensive thinking can get you hurt, or at minimum open you to being hit or even hurt. It doesn’t matter if you are practicing karate, kung fu, taekwondo or are on the street fighting for your life,: if you are thinking defensively you become more vulnerable.

The reasons are many. If your mind is full of thoughts of defense, or fear, these elements cloud your ability to clearly see and perceive your opponent and his actions. You react later and more slowly.

On a physical level, without attempting to hit or strike your opponent effectively and with power, you free your opponent from having to defend himself and he can more easily just wade into you with his technique. It becomes a one-way street.

This does not mean you can't move, evade, slip, angle, etc., to gain positional advantage, find openings and avoid attacks. It is just you can't do this exclusively and that these actions should be also to gain advantage in your own offense.

Most important, however, is attitude -- one of offense - some would say "indomitable spirit." In a real fight it would be an "I am going to hurt you attitude," one that almost disregards the opponent's attacks, thinking them to be a futile attempt to thwart your own attack.

Years ago I had a student at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY) who was what we call a natural. After months of training he was eligible to free fight - and this wasn't even hard contact. I still remember vividly how he whipped out strong roundhouse kicks that hit with a bang --such force that the blows would drive my arms back. On others these same kicks would stop or even off balance them. “Wow,” I thought, “he is so powerful.” It was difficult for more advanced students to effectively fight back.

Not long afterwards he hurt his big toe in sparring. I then didn’t see him for several weeks. When he returned I was a bit shocked. His total attitude and spirit had changed. When free fighting his kicks were slow and timid – as if not wanting to hurt himself again. They were easy to see and block or avoid, and they no longer could intimidate.

His own fear of getting hurt and willingness to commit to action suddenly made his fighting ineffective and weak. He was now vulnerable.