Question about eliminating fear (by making the unknown known)

[Guest]

Thanks for your replies guys. I think most of you are misreading what my intent is here. Most of you seem to feel that using this strategy is a waste of time, due to time constraints, lack of room for moving around, or dealing with the type of fighter who simply walks up and gets in your face, and the fight is on. This isn't what I'm referring to.

The type of situation that I'm referring to is a worst case scenario. This type of scenario would be where you are dealing with someone who is in a large open area, who is in a good fighting stance, moving continuously, not allowing you to simply throw punches, kicks, take downs, etc., because he is constantly in motion. In this situation, you could use those techniques, but they would most likely miss because he would be out of range for them. A few good examples of this in the boxing world are Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard. They largely avoided trading blows with opponents who were a threat to them, by using continuous footwork to stay just beyond the range of their opponent's punches. If you watch some of their fights (Ali vs. Frasier or Sugar Ray vs. Marvin Hagler), you will see what I mean. They were always falling back, always backing up, mostly avoiding contact with their opponents, then hitting when they had an opening.

When you are fighting someone who is skilled, in a stance with his hands up, using footwork to move continuously, and has a whole parking lot worth of room to utilize that footwork, you are dealing with someone who is a pretty serious opponent, in my humble opinion.

In this situation, a simple 1-2, a quick double leg take down, a well placed thigh kick, etc., are not going to be as effective as they would be on someone in a bar, who walks right up to you and starts a fight.

So this is the situation that I'm referring to, and that's what my question is based on...so does anyone have anything good?

P.S.-Michael Wright, you are so right when you say that sometimes it's difficult to know when Paul is talking about something to actually do in a street fight, and when he is referring to a training method. I know exactly what you mean. If you haven't seen them, his new Enigma videos are pretty good at clarifying the difference between the two. Also, didn't you say you are a PFS instructor, or train with one? If so, I would be interested in hearing more about your opinion regarding the original topic of this thread.

Thanks guys.

Aaron,

I think what we are all saying is the scenario you are describing is not something we have ever encountered in the street.

The number of street physical encounters I have been in is nothing real serious, but serious enough to be real. All of these situations have started in conversation range: no stances, no moving around, no footwork. It has typically been a verbal confrontation that has descended into close range violence very fast, its over in 5 seconds, and I'm out of there. I have never been in lots of space, up on my toes dancing round an opponent, throwing feints in the street - thats what I do in the ring.

This may be a cultural thing, as most of the guys who have replied are from the UK. Here in the UK the vast majority of situations are alcohol related, fights happen in bars and clubs, violence is fast and its ugly. Unfortunately, very few people have the balls to step outside on the pavement and "duke it out". Its all nose to nose abuse, sniping, multiple opponents, improvised weapons, watch your back - knock him out and get the fck out of there.

I've been with Paul for about 10 years, I'm a Full Instructor in PFS. The key reason why its often difficult to clearly differentiate the purpose of a drill is down the to medium of video and DVD. Paul's teachings tend to be very specific to the person stood in front of him, on the screen he does the best he can to cater to a wide audience. I think the kind of drills you are talking about are very valid and I do teach them, but you just have to adapt them slightly. From years of moving around and sparring with many different people, you start to get a feel for a person's physicality and confidence. Just because you aren't dancing around with the person in front of you, doesn't mean you can't do some preliminary analysis on what they have in their arsenal. Whats their posture, their body language, their eye contact, where are their hands, is their base underneath them, do they project confidence etc.

Paul has always stressed since the very beginning that fighting is all about a superior mix of attributes, and often you will do drills with him that at first don't seem to make sense, but he is just challenging your attributes. To give you an example from one of my sessions with him at his home. He had me spar against a former US Marine - the guy was built like a house and was a v good martial artist. He has two knives, I was unarmed and Paul said I was only allowed to use my groin kick. Now, my immediate reaction was...this is nonsense, I would never stand there and try to groin kick a guy with two knives. I would run, get some help, grab a weapon, throw things and I certainly wouldn't be dancing around using groin kicks. But obviously what Paul was doing was putting as much pressure as possible on my groin kick. He was pressure testing my timing, distance, footwork, balance, accuracy, speed, power etc. Tell you what sir, my groin kick is pretty sharp

So, to sum up. In my experience Paul may reference a streetfight in a training method, but in his mind that is not what he is trying to achieve - he is trying to bring out a mentality in you and develop specific attributes. To counter that I will stress again that I am sure Paul has had very different (and many more) streetfights than me, so he may well have used the method you have described very effectively. Its just not something I have personally experienced, but I have benefited from this training in the ring, and in an adapted sense on the street. If it helps to develop your attributes then its always a good thing.