of the key fighting skills that you need to develop is to appraise the situation and adapt to it. The skills you use are much the same; for example you can use groundfighting skills to disengage from a “street” attacker who has managed to take you down, or to obtain a submission from a sporting opponent. The skills are much the same; the important thing is to use them intelligently and to adapt to the situation.
Habits can be dangerous in this context. If you routinely train in an environment with rules against striking or grappling, it is possible to become over-fixated with one mode of combat, and to develop a blind spot regarding possible attacks. This can be overcome by occasionally changing the rules during application work such as rolling, sparring, or self-defense drills.
Very few techniques have only one application. The “arm wrap” movement normally used to trap an arm can also give you control of an opponent’s leg, which can protect from being kicked.
There is nothing complex about any of this; it is simply a matter of being realistic about what will work in a given environment and fighting accordingly. The basic principles of personal combat are exactly the same for the street as they are for the sporting environment. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances is one of the hallmarks of an effective fighter. A good fighter is a good fighter wherever they happen to be.
Winning A Fight
Winning simply means making the fight end on the most favorable terms you can obtain. Sometimes it is possible to emerge victorious and unscathed; on other occasions the price of victory can be high. As a rule, more effective fighters take less punishment on the way to victory, but there is more to this than simple fighting ability. The best way to avoid getting hurt in a fight is to make it end quickly, which requires a combination of techniques, tactics, and psychological factors.
There are three ways a fight can end: self-stop, inability to continue, or intervention. Multiple variations of each exist, but all fall under these general headings.
Self-stop
Self-stop occurs when one combatant decides not to fight any more. This can take the form of surrender, voluntary collapse or a choice to break off. In a sporting context, the most common form of surrender is tapping out.
Some submissions do not cause harm but hurt so much that most opponents will tap out if they cannot escape. Opponents with a huge pain tolerance, or who are drunk or drugged, may not submit despite incredible pain. The threat of physical damage, or the ability to inflict damage, may be necessary to get some opponents to submit. Pain alone, or just holding someone in place, is rarely enough to make the opponent give up. The combination of pain and helplessness, i.e. a situation where only submission will make the pain stop, is far more effective than just one or the other.
On the left, the arm is isolated and all he has to do is crank the lock. Resisting will just result in injury, so tapping out will indicate concession of the bout. This is the most common form of self-stop in a sporting contest.
It is possible to take the fight out of some assailants by applying a painful restraint or submission, and warning them of what will happen if they carry on fighting. This is only worth trying if you think there is a reasonable chance of success. Someone who is clearly determined to fight will not self-stop in this manner.
Self-stop can occur before actual violence begins, for example where a potential assailant realizes that you could hurt him quite badly and decides that finding an easier target might be a good idea. The same can happen during a fight when one opponent realizes that he is getting the worst of it, or that the price of victory will be higher than he is prepared to pay. Sometimes an opponent panics and begins to desperately try to get away, but more often self-stop occurs when, for whatever reason, the combatants move apart and there is an instant to take stock of the situation.
It is important to be able to recognize an opponent who has self-stopped. The condition does not always last; sometimes an opponent will get back into a fighting mindset. It is critical to exploit the situation while it lasts. In a sporting context, an opponent who has given up in his mind but has not conceded the bout presents an opportunity to finalize the victory. A determined attack at this point may cause him to simply fold up, or the referee may end the bout. Even if this is not the case, you can still press your advantage while the opponent is mentally out of the fight. By the time he pulls himself together you will have tipped the odds even further in your favor.
In a self-defense situation, an opponent who has self-stopped will often posture and make threats—usually while walking backwards away from you—to save face. At this point you have won providing you do not give him a reason to get back into the fight. He will most likely retreat behind a barrage of abuse and threats. If you let him go, the matter is over. If, on the other hand, you show weakness (e.g. by dropping your guard) or say something that pricks his ego and makes him angry enough to come back for another go, then you will have to fight him all over again.
An opponent who is moving away from you is almost certainly not inclined to fight, but someone who says the same words while staying close to you is still a threat. Correctly reading the situation will allow you to bring the matter to a close without further effort. The opponent will probably go and tell other people that he won, or that he would have if only… whatever reason he invents… had happened. That does not really matter; what is important is that you have ended the situation on reasonably favorable terms. Your ego might like it better if you battered the opponent senseless, but it is not necessary. And of course, whatever the opponent might say, you both know what really happened. He gave up; you won.
Self-stop can also take the form of voluntary collapse. This occurs when one fighter cannot take any more and goes down. Exhaustion often causes a fighter to give up—a blow that would have been merely painful in the first round may cause a boxer to fold up and go down in round nine, simply because his will to continue has been eroded by weariness. The decision to give up is not always conscious; it is often triggered by self-preservation instincts.
A fighter who is down and winded may be physically capable of getting back to his feet and carrying on, though most likely in a feeble manner that will merely invite more damage. He has an opportunity for voluntary collapse, and it may well be the right decision. Fighting on until you are too broken to even get up may be admirable in some ways, but it achieves little and is unlikely to result in a victory. Going down, or staying down for the count, might be the right decision. It might also be the only possible option—the will to fight can be broken just as the body can be damaged.
This is especially true in a sporting contest, where survival is not threatened. Sometimes a fighter subconsciously decides that he is taking too much damage for what is at stake. A knockdown or a momentary pause provides an opportunity to collapse, ending the bout. This subconscious decision to give up can be overridden by a determined fighter, but only so many times. Everyone has their limits.
A fighter who is down but not out has a tough decision to make: get up and risk taking more punishment, or accept defeat? Fatigue and pain can wear down a fighter until he just can’t go on.
It is easy to be contemptuous of someone who chooses to go down to a blow that they could have taken and fought on, or who taps out to a painful but not damaging submission. However, it is not as simple as that. A fight is more than an exchange of physical techniques; combatants attack one other’s will to fight at the same time as they inflict pain and damage on the body and attempt to tire one another out.
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