3-on-1 street fight/mugging as told by the 1.

[Nothingfancy]

Additionally gentlemen, I would be lying to myself if I didn't say part of that adrenaline rush was fear. In a way, I didn't want to get close.

[colinwee]

As a kicker I must ask, what was NothingFancy's expectation when he launched that front kick?

Colin, To be honest I had a huge adrenaline rush at that point. I thought the kick may serve two purposes, 1. to put a moments distance between myself and he, and 2., a "warning shot" of sorts, had I not been sucker-punched, it was on my mind to have pivoted to face the next person. I think the adrenaline and the hit in the temple changed my whole demeanor. I sort of had "tunnel vision" after that.

Please know I don't mean to be discourteous. What I'm saying is that as a martial artist I have been conditioned to 'expect' some things from what we practice. The last few years I have tried to reassess these expectations, and hopefully be a little more real for this kind of self reflection. Since, I've tried to be mindful of what I teach and how we approach 'traditional' martial arts.

Again ... it's good you escaped with just a few scrapes and bruises.

[colinwee]

Hi, Colin. Nice to know the old guys can still beat up the newbies.

For this discussion, if any one of you saw several guys who've literally come out of their dark alleyway to accost you ... what would 1) reduce the threat posed by your new friends, and 2) what would tip the scales in your favour?

I think the right answer is the classic "Run away!" That said, I was never any good at running. I teach my students not to run "away," but to run toward something. Run toward lights. Run into traffic. Run toward weapons. Run toward anything that alters the tactical situation. And in particular, get some distance from that alley! They picked that spot for its privacy.

Hey Dr Clayton ...

A significant part of my training is for home intrusion ... so no, running away is not really an option. I guess if my family wasn't in the house that's a good option. But if they're there, I've got to stay and fight.

So yes, I'm happy I can still do well in sparring given I've not really focused on it much over the last 10 years or so!

And there is that fact that I *am* over 40yo. Hahhahah ..

Colin

[Nothingfancy]

Please know I don't mean to be discourteous

.
I didn't think you were. I'm just trying to answer as honest as possible, and by doing so, am hoping to understand my self better. So for example, I'm begining to see how my emotional state at that very small instant in time really predicted certain outcomes.

[Nothingfancy]

When I went to the doctor the other day, I told him about the finger in the eye routine. He was as surprised as I that the man didn't jump off. I also asked why blood didn't gush, he said its a socket and the blood would only gush if there was a tear in the tissue somewhere.

Additionally, I just did a cursery google search of "reaction to eye gouge" and on an old thread from England, this is what I found. I will Highlight with the quote function.

The eyes are actually a lot more robust than people give them credit for. We automatically close our eye when they are attacked. Attacking the eye directly it is very easy to damage it, but beating the blink reflex is extremely hard. I work as a Doorman and I've had my thumb buried into a few eyes now and have to say that it serves more effect in damaging the recipient mentally than it does physically.

A couple of years ago me and colleague was dragging a guy out for doing cocaine and I started to loose the lock I had on him because he was turning his way of it. Anyway I messed up a bit and put my fingers too close to his mouth and he bit my little finger down to the bone. I stuck my thumb into his eye as hard as I could, which I honestly believe is the only reason I still have the top of the finger left. The only ill effects the guy had was a totally bloodshot and watery eye.

another poster;

I had a guy put his thumb in my eye once. It wasnt comfortable, but it was far from deadly either. He slipped when I turned my head and his thumb ended up in my mouth. I nearly removed it for him. I ended up with a black eye from the thumb. Thats it.

one more:

I remember one "friendly" scuffle I was in which resulted in five of us being locked in a pitch black box car used for storage. There were alot of objects in there and we were still going at it pretty hard (stop it perverts!)when I caught a thumb to my eye that felt like it tickled the back of my skull. I wanted to stop immediately and get help,but I had to wait until the melee deceased,which was a few more minutes.
After the smoke cleared my eye was red with blood,but not bleeding. It bothered me for about two days and was fine after that.
Hd this been a real fight I would have continued,but with mucho rage and aggression.

http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubbt ... d=1#import

[LaVerne]

I am mildly disappointed that (what I consider to be) a major point has been overlooked. Granted, it is unlikely that he really should have gotten out of the car at all, but the instant there were three of them against one of him, he should have been thinking WEAPON for himself. He had available an excellent weapon, a superb weapon - his CAR. It's a great weapon, 2000 - 3000 pounds, solid, and powerful, and very versatile - useful for either defense or offense. He could have gotten back in the car and stayed there, gotten in and left, or (if he was convinced he and his girlfriend were in true danger) gotten in and and hit them with the car rather than his foot.
Then again, if his car were properly equipped for driving around NYC at night, he would have stepped out (if he did so at all) holding a MagLite flashlight, 2 or 3 C cell if his hands are small, 2 or 3 D cell if he has big hands, or 5 D cell if he works with the Sheriff's or Police's Search and Rescue team. After all, where they hit his car may not be well enough lighted to look at without it ...

[HanshiClayton]

Some miscellaneous comments from scanning recent posts...

I don't know if it's so much traditional karate (or in my case traditional taekwondo) that teaches us to lose fights. It's what we value in our training and what we're setting ourselves up for.

I was thinking specifically that karate stresses high kicks while teaching nothing about attacking or defending the legs in combat. Then there's the assumption that people never grab you, that you'll never be on the ground, that you'll never be in the dark, and that you don't need to learn weapons. That's training people to lose.

As Kyoshi Clayton communicates in his book you need to finish your opponent in one or two techniques. I'm sure he said that somewhere in his book!

In one or two seconds. That could be lots more than one or two techniques.

This is where you use your environment to help defend yourself. You may use a wall, corner, vehicle, dumpster to defend your back. Watch someone throw full force into your face when they can bust their hands on the concrete behind you with a small slip.

In one of my very few "potentially violent" encounters, I was being threatened at my front door. I leaned casually against the left side of the door frame, and watched my opponent trying to figure out how to take a swing at my head with the door jamb in the way. Using the environment really works.

We all know now that the prescribed "Best Karate" Shotokan series books and the copycats do not contain accurate interpretations of the kata movements. This is well documented and one of the reasons we have this forum.

Kousaku Yokota has published a chapter on applications in Shotokan Myths stating that Nakayama deliberately made up impractical applications for his American students to practice as punishment for their bad manners in asking about applications. Fifty years later we are still trying to block groin kicks in horse stance using returning-wave kicks. He was laughing at us then and he's laughing at us now.

Why did Funakoshi say it took him 3 years to learn one kata????? It because it took him that long to study it in depth.

I don't think he was "studying in depth" in that instance. Itosu and Azato had just abandoned the beginner sanchin kata and were looking for a substitute that would strengthen the legs as much as the chest and shoulders. The sanchin tradition was that the beginner should do three years of body-building before being taught anything about fighting. Azato may just have kept Funakoshi in a deep stance for three years to strengthen his legs. This policy was generalized into the modern policy of doing all the katas in deep stances. That strengthens legs and is much less boring!

A significant part of my training is for home intrusion ... so no, running away is not really an option. I guess if my family wasn't in the house that's a good option. But if they're there, I've got to stay and fight.

I have made a policy of putting some kind of weapon beside every door, and in every corner of the house. I don't want to be reduced to throwing sofa cushions at people. See my article on home intrusion, which is here.

I just did a cursery google search of "reaction to eye gouge" and on an old thread from England, this is what I found.

Outstanding! Thanks very much.

Granted, it is unlikely that he really should have gotten out of the car at all, but the instant there were three of them against one of him, he should have been thinking WEAPON for himself. He had available an excellent weapon, a superb weapon - his CAR.

Yes, all of the above. I routinely use a layered defense that includes the car, the maglite in the car, the stun gun, the martial arts, and ... something else. The point is, however, that I have arranged my life so that I have never needed to reach for any of them. For instance...

So we can all see and agree that this is not how we would encounter most real life self defense situations with the exception of the bar encounter where, as gentelmen, we ask our adversary to politely step outside.

Just about the only bar I've ever been in is the one at the Seaview resort in Atlantic City, and I only go in there looking for Tom Frobel. Otherwise bars don't enter my life at all.

[Nothingfancy]

LaVerne,...are you from Brooklyn??? Its been mentioned!

To Kyoshi......

Nakayama deliberately made up impractical applications for his American students to practice as punishment for their bad manners in asking about applications. Fifty years later we are still trying to block groin kicks in horse stance using returning-wave kicks. He was laughing at us then and he's laughing at us now

This makes me a bit sad.

And Glad we have people like yourself and others looking deeply into the style. I don't know if you mentioned it, but can you pinpoint (within a couple of years) just when did the practitioners begin to delve into the "masked' techniques? And are you familiar with that English gentleman Geoff Thompson?

[dpinchuk]

Hi all,

I was intreagued by Nothingfancy's blow-by-blow description and self analysis of this unfortunate incident. I am happy he and the GF weren't hurt but i'm quite sure both will remember this for a long time comming.
My first reaction was to analyse the scenario line by line; however Kyoshi Clayton did a super fine job and beat me to the punch. It's important to learn from this and to mine the information so that our students (and future senseis) can gain from these real life experiences.
I've always looked at the martial arts -as Mr. Funakoshi rightly stated- as a 'way of life'. I own a manufacturing business for the past 28 years and yesterday (Monday the 9th) I learned that we were scammed by a con artist for more than 20k$. I was not directly involved with this 'artist', but the short story was that this 'artist' bought 20k$ worth of stuff from my company and paid with a certified check that we later found out to be bogus. (Looks like I'll be hitch-hiking to the Lopresti AC camp this year).
Like Nothingfancy's incident we sat down with the whole chain of people involved (we're an ISO9001:2008 company) and wrote out a procedure that would never allow this to happen again.
Some of you may be old enough to remember IBM's Big Blue computer (sensei). The chessmen(karateka) were programmed with the basic moves (kata) to play chess (kumite) on the chessboard (dojo). The 'kumite' would begin and the 'karateka'...lose!. 'Sensei' then modified its program to never play that sequence of moves again.

[HanshiClayton]

Just when did the practitioners begin to delve into the "masked' techniques? And are you familiar with that English gentleman Geoff Thompson?

Generally, it had to wait until the old-guard Japanese sensei began to die off. Iain Abernethy began to publish bunkai-jutsu books in 2002. It mushroomed after that.

There have always been how-to-fight books like Geoff Thompson writes. I've been writing them since 1978. The fix-the-bunkai books are mainly in the last ten years. (I recognize Thompson's name; I have not met him nor corresponded with him.)

And LaVerne is in Sunnyvale, a few miles south of San Francisco. I think he could hold his own in Brooklyn, though.