Your Abilities

[Togo]

Hay Y'all not posted in a while, been busy what with exams and what not, hope everyones doing okay and training hard. Anyways after a harsh week me and a few mates decided to go out for a few pints in one of my favourite bars last night, and by a few i actually only had a few.

On the way home there where 5 of us in total, me and two mates and one of their gf's and her sister. As we got to the bus stop we where approached by a group of 4-5 drunken wankers giving the girls a bit of dirty talk and eyeing us up and saying a few unsavoury things about our mothers. This wasn't the best situation to be honest, out numbered, some of us a bit tipsy and then there's the fact that my mates are gettting somewhat pissed off and after a few thinking that they can honestly fight with these idiots.

Luckily by some god giiven miracle we all managed to walk away from the twats without it progressing further. I'd had a few but was relatively sober and was feeling pretty shaky after with the whole fight/flight adrenaline dump. But it got me thinking, if it had kicked off i wouldn't have known what the fuck to do, i suppose it depends on how it kicked off but should i try and get the girls to fuck off before trying to help my mates ? Try and just take a few of the idiots to hospital with me, try and - ha ha ha - phone the police ? As if that'd do shit in the nick of time and how would i defend myself, try and slip past one of the punches and try a knee stomp, try and duck n dodge hopefully catching someone on the jaw with a lucky hay makyer? try a finger thrust to the throat ? probably be punched onto the ground and curl into a little ball crying hoping i live, maybe an old tae kwon do 540 reverse turning kick...

So i was wondering how many of you have had to defend yourself using wing chun or otherwise, i'm interested to hear other peoples feelings etc and how they done and what was the outcome.

I know that the chances are even if you where a bruce lee, jackie chan, tony jaa high breed the chances are that in this scenario you'd either be running for your life or going to A and E or possibly worse. But I am also curious as to how long it would take roughly for someone to become proficient in wing chun. I know thats like asking how long's a piece of string, but is there and average training time - providing your training properly - that you can say someone might reach the stage of being able to just react and nuetralise an attacker because my mind went blank the other night and i was desperately trying to think of something to use to defend myself. Can anyone here say that they're proficient enough yet to to do this ?

Sorry if this is a really twat like question but i hoped someone could give me their answer and if not then tell me to stop posting crap on the forums

Sorry for the long post but i figured i'd make up for lost time

[superfoot]

Do a peepshow and use the women as human shields!!

I will do a seriously reply later/tomorrow, I'm knackered from footie. But good questions Togo! I think sifu (samuel kwok) is doing a seminar in glasgow tomorrow, you going? If so, ask him ^^

[Togo]

Yup I'm off to the seminar tomorrow ;D

Can't wait to see what's lined up in this one as the last one was kick ass. I'm also sitting my first assessment tomorrow, slightly nervous but i know that i'm more than capable of the syllabus at my level

[superfoot]

Goodluck with both mate

[Tom]

I documented an occasion on here (under "I got attacked last night") which, although rather comical, is a recent example of when I used Wing Chun to defend myself.

Last Thursday night, a bodybuilder (who is actually on steroids, and works as a doorman), kicked off with a friend of mine in a nightclub, for no other reason than he was drunk and on steroids.

As I knew both parties (the bodybuilder guy used to go to school with me. He really does take steroids, I wasn't just slandering him), I stepped in to diffuse the situation, upon which he grabbed me by the throat and started walking me towards the nearest wall. I instinctively grabbed his hand, with the intention of putting a wristlock on him, but before I actually made any sort of aggressive move, I said "You have three seconds to get your fucking hands off me", at which point he recognised me, and let go. Then he started chatting to me about what he was up to with work and shit. Crisis averted.

But, even whilst very very drunk, my first reaction was to apply a wristlock to him. And again, even whilst drunk, I was thinking far enough ahead to rationale that he probably has weak kness, being on steroids, as well as a weakened heart. Also, the way I was preparing to apply the lock would have opened his throat up, which I was going to hit hard with a turning punch, before going for his knees, and/or heart.

Now, I've been doing Wing Chun about 2 years, and I feel I've only recently got to a stage where Wing Chun techniques have taken over from my natural fighting instincts. In fact, 2 years ago, he'd have probably beat the shit out of me.

With that said though, I've heard it said before that after three months of training you know about enough to defend yourself adequately, and I've certainly felt confident enough in my abilities for the last year or so that I reckon I could defend myself well if it came down to it (but probably only if I was sober).

In terms of fighting multiple opponents, I read somewhere that the worst number of people to fight (if you can keep your footing) is three. More than that, and they tend to get in each others way. Less than that and the threat obviously isn't as great. Kind of makes sense when you think about it, although I don't know how much truth there is to that. Not that I reckon I could take on 5 or 6 people, but against those kinds of odds, I wouldn't be worrying about something like "reasonable force" like I would against just two people.

So, to answer your post, it took me about a year before I felt confident using Wing Chun to defend myself (I still remember that sparring match I had with Ad outside our cabin, where I naturally reverted to just brawling, and got my ass kicked). And so far, there have been a couple of times when I've actually had to use Wing Chun, and a couple of times when I've come seriously close to having to use it (like the time I was in Turkey and some gypsy working on a market tried to grab me and take my money. I get attacked by the weirdest people...).

As I think back now, I think the turning point was after we went to Majorca for the first time. When we came back from that I felt really confident in myself, having just spent the week training. I highly recommend it if you're serious about training.

[Dan]

If you get into a violent situation do what you did and try to defuse it, but if it looks like its going tits up just make sure you hit the nearest assainlent so damn hard. as for having friends who cant fight with you (girls or whoever) it always represents a problem. they wount be able to run or fight if the going gets tough so my advice would be if it comes to it as a last resort tell them to back off and if they dont just hit the nearest (or group leader) guy as hard as you can in the face or kick him low.

Of course its easy sitting here out of any danger and working out what is the best thing to do, putting it into practice is another matter so do lots of situation training. go to wing chun sit down next to someone and get two other people from wing chun to give you agro and maybe attack or maybe not. you will need gloves - you mate wont fight so u have to protect him, and the 2 attackers will have head gear on. they will give your friend agro and then maybe attack maybe walk off so its not a simple matter of 2 on one fighting. this is real good training. Also try and do it in dark places and narrow crridors etc for a real life experinace. you will suck to start with not knowing when to stop trying to defuse the situation and when fight, but eventually you will recognise when you need to act.

other variations that complicat this type of training are to have one of the attackers try and stop his friend from fighting so you dont know weather to fight both or just one also you can make it super hard and add weapons and extra people.

this is a cool training method we developed at uni and it will sort the men from the boys, ask your instructor to help you with it.

[superfoot]

After training for a while fighting should supposedly become easy, your hands should hit by themselves, you should react without thinking, that is the whole point of training. However, I think the main problem is with 'self-defence' that a lot of the time it will never be clear cut, people rarely arrange to 'step outside' and sort out their differences (except in my school days), you have to deal with complex situations like the one Togo mentioned or many other of the similar stories on here. So you need to learn how to position yourself when being 'started on' by multiple attackers, have to learn how to defuse a sittuation and learn when you are legally allowed to hit.

So how to you train for this? Like Dan mentioned, we developed a silly sounding but very very useful training exercise for practicing just this. I will start by explaining the method dan mentions above in more detail.

First, simply have one person as the 'defender' and one or two as 'potential attackers'. Then work out the location, we often use a very narrow dark corridor for training this as it represents the extremes of what you are likely to face, allowing you very little room to move. You can however simply 'imagine' a location in your training room, by having the 'defender' standing at a point and pretending hes waiting for the bus or something. Then the 'potential attackers' can work out the scenario together without informing the 'defender'. So for instance they might say to each other, "lets be total cunts that are out for a fight". So in this case their mannerisms, language and attitudes will adhere to this. The realer they 'act' the better the training can be, as the 'defender' will often feel butterflies and the effect of adrenaline and have to learn how to control them. So in this case they might just walk up to the 'defender' and say 'Oi dickhead, give us your trainers' and then attempt to attack the 'defender' (you can agree to the level of contact you use beforehand, when we train we make the attackers wear headgear and the defender just gloves). In this case the defender will hopefully react and let his training take over.

After you have finished analyse whether the defender could have done anything better to keep himself/herself safe during the attack. Then you are ready to start again. This time the attackers may say to each other "Lets just be drunk and rowdy, but not attack". So this time the potential attackers will walk up to the defender perhaps quite jovially and try and put their arms round them and get them to sing with them. It is important in this situation for the defender to deal with it accordingly, you cannot legally turning punch someone for saying "alright meight, had a good evening?" (that goes out to drunk tom). However things like never letting them both get either side of you, or any of them behind you are important things to train, and always keep your chin covered and your hands up. You do not need to employ a badass kung fu stance, one can simply pretend to scratch their chin, or have their hands up in a way that says 'calm down' in a non aggressive manner. The better you get at this sort of training, the more you can respond to specific things people do, rather than just sticking to what you planned before. So as to make it as real as possible. Cos if you are just being nice drunks, and the defender is being a rude cunt, in reality people are gonna have a go.

The next step is to train a more difficult variant of the above. Where it is a lot harder for the defender to judge whether to use force or not. From my experiences, when people are going out to cause trouble and hurt people, they wont give them a warning, cos they are cowards. So for instance they might walk up, ask for the time, and while your checking theylll sucker punch you. Things like this are specific to context, you know how things tend to start in Glasgow, so using this training method you can practice for them. You can recreate situations where your with a girl you feel the need to protect and suchlike. Also when you start, have the attackers use simple 'street' attacks, then you can gradually build it up as you see fit. You will find that a strong punch solves all.

Alot of the time you could in reality run off and stuff, which is hopefully what youd do, however you dont learn much by doing that, also this may not be an option if with friends.


The main point of this exercise is:

1)To learn when you can legally hit.
Look up the legislation yourself, but basically if you feel generally threatened and know they are gonna start, you can hit them first. So if two guys are being really mouthy and threatening just hit them hard and turn the tables.

2)Get yourself used to positioning your body and hands when your not sure whether things are gonna kick off or not.
This is very important, as the number of people who just stand their with their hands down when we first practice this and get suckerpunched is amazing. Also dont turn all your attention on one guy, thats when the other ones gonna hit you, as your not covered.

3) Gives you the mindset of the attacker.
Allows you to see and workout different ways of attacking people, how to be sneaky.
This in turn allows you to better defend against it.

4) Gets you used to butterflies and adrenaline.
Surprisingly enough the majority of people who practice this, experience butterflies before the exercise or during intimidation, as well as adrenaline dumps. Experiencing this allows you to get used to the unfamiliar, so hopefully youll be less overwhelmed during a real confrontation.

5) Gets you used to reacting.
Dont worry if it looks messy, or you use a technique incorrectly. Just be concerned with keeping yourself safe and finishing the fight as quickly as possible. Be careful when using full power strikes.

6)Learn to take a hit
The attackers get to be hit and generally beat down, but the defender might get caught too. It is good to learn to take a hit and carry on, not worry about why youv been hit. Just fucking do them!!
Be careful when doing this, dont take each others heads off, the attackers can also act to certain strikes, for example the defender can tap a kick to the knee to simulate a real stomp to the knee, in which case the attackers can react accordingly.

7)Fun and very useful.
I and many others who have done it have found it very useful and I have used what Iv learnt from it in a real life situation, to keep myself safe while defusing the situation.

8) You will see how you really deal with the unknown. It is easy to deal with a non resisting opponent when you know what they are gonna do. It is far more difficult to react a resisiting opponent who is throwing unknown attacks, this is where you will see your real skill and how useful your training has been so far. However, dont be disheartened if you get decked a lot, iv seen experienced guys get killed the first few times, then improve very quickly once they get used to the whole thing. Dont think too much and keep things simple, if they are swinging or trying to grab you are just gonna be punching. Keep things simple, dont be sad if you are using only one technique, be happy that you are defending yourself successfully. Remember the point of wing chun, hit them hard, hit them first, finish the fight as quickly as possible.

If you have any questions just ask.



ps. I think you did the right thing in defusing the situation, and it is always annoying when you have friends who think their superman, or friends who seek fights cos they know you do that kung fu bruce lee stuff!

[rosenrot]

I agree and support Ad's above message. It really is the only way to train for 'real' situations because of the unknown and adrenaline factors. I sucked at first, but this wasn't anything to do with my physical attributes or fighting skill, just that I wasn't mentally adjusted to being in threatening situations. Once you get the mind-set right you can 'pwn noobs' as the geeky folks say.

In reality I shy away from confrontation until it can no longer be avoided...and then go fucking mental. Its the best way: avoidance where possible and sudden aggression to catch opponents unawares if there is no alternative to violence. I will be more assertive and get angrier quicker if people are aggressive to my friends, as saving my own skin is not an option (unless you are a cunt who leaves his mates to get battered).

[rosenrot]

Oh, and big right hand is the usually the answer/finisher.

[rosenrot]

youtube.com/watch?v=D3K-mrlYG7Y&feature=related

Learn from the master...

[superfoot]

never get tired of that, <3 EL GUAPO

[rosenrot]

In Bas we trust.

[kizz0]

Togo, if you want to some some examples of what our head gear training is like so you can replicate it add me to friends on facebook, search for 'Kieran O'Brien' on the lancaster university network. To you other guys that already have me as a friend on facebook, check out the videos too. Peace

[Togo]

Cheers for the input guys, muchly appreciated. Sorry if i've not bee adding in much lately i've not had a proper chance to be on really with studying etc.

I'll defo check out that facebook thing when i have the time as well.

My sifu has quite a clever way of dealing with multiple attackers, basically if u can manage to get one of them in a lock or restraint then you can use him as a human shield/hostage kind of thing and basically get his mates to back the fuck off or you'll be doing some not so nice things to him.

As for the headgear, my class is still at pretty basic level for most of the student but we are being urged to get the head gear etc. so we can take training to the next level. I'm especially looking forward to trying some alive drills etc.

[bigtouch]

few, my situation diffusing skills were tested the other day on the 15 hour bar crawl in lancs, i dunno what it was but ppl tried to start fights with me 4 or 5 times. it wasnt cool sports fans, i nearly decided not to be nice to the last few but im quite proud of myself for not hittin neone all night. yay for me, lol