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Sport martial arts are a lot of fun and matches can be thrilling and competitive. They teach us a lot about character and discipline, but they don’t necessarily teach you how to fight.  While they give you a good idea of what it is like to grapple with another person or strike an opponent they don’t teach you about real self defense.  In a real life situation where you would use self defense things are much bloodier and nastiest, and that is because it has to be that way.  When life and death is on the line there is no such thing as “fighting dirty.”

Not long ago a training buddy shared some pictures taken in an emergency room by a police officer of an assault victim.  It seemed someone decided that they should take it on themselves to tell someone to leave a bar rather than let security handle the situation.  Well he lived to regret it, but not before the other guy who turned out to be an ex-con and an ex-boxer proceeded to cave in the side of his face damaging his eye socket.  The moral of the story is that you don’t know who you’re dealing with out on the street, so you must assume the worst.

You must always assume an attacker is stronger than you and that they have a weapon handy.  Also you don’t know if they have friends nearby that could jump in at any time, and you don’t know what their intentions are when the violence starts.  They might just want to knock you down and will laugh and walk away, but they might knock you down and begin pounding your head into the pavement.  Only a small percentage of the population is actually capable of committing murder, but you can’t tell who they are, and the jails are full of people who didn’t mean to hurt anyone (at least that is what their defense attorney says).

So if you can’t run away and you can’t get help it is up to you to defend yourself, so if you want to live don’t play their game.  If they’re looking for a straight up fight get out of their way and hack them down.  If they want to wrestle you to the ground do everything possible to stay up and keep hitting them until they don’t want to get up again.  If a weapon is pulled grab a chair or a pool cue or anything else handy and be the first one to strike.  Some people might call it “cheating” if you grab the fire extinguisher off the wall, but at least you’re not the one bleeding on the ground.

Another thing to remember in a street fight is that any technique should be used even if it is considered “yucky.”  You might not like the idea of gorging out someone’s eye, but I’m sure you like being strangled to death even less.  The thought of biting a man’s scrotum might sicken you, but being beaten and violated is a much more unpleasant thought.  The sport martial arts of today may have once included some bloody and outright savage techniques, but they have long since been removed for the safety of athletes.  In a real fight though nobody is concerned about your safety and security accept for you, and to stay safe you must use any means necessary.