Better Self-Defense By Learning From Mistakes

When I tell people in class or at seminars that there is a possibility of getting kicked or stomped by a person’s friends when you are trying to submit him on the ground, it’s not just theory. I’ve been kicked in the back of the head by a guy’s friend when I was on the ground with him in a fight. When I tell people that what you are wearing when a fight starts is a factor, it’s because I’ve stood in an alley with cheap ripped sweats around my ankles when a guy was swinging a metal bucket at my head. (The same guy who had been kicking me a few moments earlier.)

We need to learn from our mistakes, but we should also learn from the mistakes of others so we don’t got down the same path. Here’s an excerpt from Hard-Won Wisdom From The School Of Hard Knocks that shares some mistakes I made one night in a fight against two guys.

From Chapter 18: What You’re Wearing

There was one night when I didn’t pay attention to any of these rules. As I’ve said before, many times you know stuff but forget or ignore it when it could do you the most good. So there I was, standing in my underwear, another broken watch on the ground, and mad as hell because I didn’t get to smash the guy who had just been kicking me in the head.

Here’s what happened. I was sitting in the living room of my apartment in a bad mood, when I heard two drunks outside. A few minutes before, I’d heard them going upstairs with the girls who lived above me. Now, they were yelling and throwing stuff around because the girls had asked them to leave. Obviously, these guys had mistakenly thought they were going to get lucky, and they were pissed because they didn’t. It wasn’t too hard to figure this out by the profanities they were directing upstairs. I decided to go outside. I had a reason – my truck was parked out there and I didn’t want anything to happen to it. (Well, that’s how I rationalized my going out there.) I was in a foul mood and looking for some action. I’ll talk more about this in a later chapter. (And yes, as I talked about in the chapter about women, I was in a foul mood because of an argument with a girlfriend.)

Did I expect trouble? Yes! Did I prepare for it? No! I had been sitting there watching TV in a cheap pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. So I slipped on my shoes, tied them tight, and grabbed a jacket on the way out the door. My watch was still on my wrist as I walked out to the parking lot where they were brooding over and cussing at the girls. (I wasn’t the only one looking for trouble because of being upset over a situation with women.)

“You looking for a fight?” the shorter but huskier one of the two asked as they noticed me.

“Na, I just don’t want anything to happen to my truck,” I replied, actually wanting something to go down.

“Well, I’m going to kick your ass!” he barked as he started toward me. I just stood there with my hands in my jacket pockets, deciding whether I should use the keychain I had that could be used as a nasty weapon. It was too late to grab the ax handle I had in my truck. What the hell – there were only two of them.

As he approached, he was stating how he was going to stomp me in rather colorful terms. As he neared me, I decided against using the keychain and took the fight to him. I hit him first with a quick right to the jaw and then used my old favorite judo throw/takedown.[1] I grabbed him around the head and dragged/threw him to the ground with me on top. As we landed, I started pounding his head and face with hammer fists with my left hand. My right arm was still around his neck, holding him in place to wail on him.

This was working great until his friend, who I wasn’t thinking of, came up from behind and started kicking me in the back of the head. Luckily, he was only wearing tennis shoes, and I scrunched up my neck and took most of the kicks on the back and shoulders. (Remember what I said about shoes versus boots? Another thing – he could have done more damage if he would have stomped on me rather than kicked. Personally, I’m glad he did what he did; less pain for me.)

As I was getting up to deal with the second guy, the one I had been pummeling grabbed me by the waist and started to pull me down and him up. The second guy had disappeared all of a sudden, so I grabbed the guy who was holding onto me and slammed his head into the metal pole that was holding up the apartment complex carport. This pretty much ended the fight with him. He went down and stayed there.

But sometime during this, my sweats were ripped. Not just a little tear – they ripped from the waist down the leg and dropped around my ankles. This was the time the second guy got back involved. He had run across the alley and brought a metal bucket back with him, swinging it like crazy. As I was getting out of the way of a wide swing of the bucket, the sweats around my ankles tripped me up and down I went. The guy must’ve been a kickball champ as a kid, because he started playing kickball with me again. I did about the only thing I could do with my feet tangled – I rolled and got over to a parked car. He let up for a minute and I was able to get around the car and stand up. I pulled up my sweats, but I had to hold them or they would be back around my ankles. He yelled, “You better run, or I’ll kick your ass!” But he didn’t start to come around the car. Frankly, I was a little stunned. I was mad because he had given me a couple good kicks and I hadn’t gotten to hit him back. I was sure I could take him, but I didn’t want to strip to my briefs to do it. While I stood there trying to decide if I should rip the sweats off and go after the SOB, he helped his friend up and into their car and sped off.

I went back to my apartment and noticed that my watch was missing. So I went back out and found it lying there with a broken band. Then I went in and took care of my cuts and scratches. Some I got from the ground, others from his kicks. I had a couple bruises and bumps, but nothing serious.

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[1] I teach this throw/takedown in my DVDs Hapkido Hoshinsul and Streetfighting Essentials available at www.yourwarriorsedge.com.