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Skorzeny, I have nothing but respect for BJJ as I have mentioned before. I heartily agree that for one on one unarmed it is the best around. For me though, I have absolutely no faith in being able to arrange the one on one unarmed scenario with an opponent in a street fight.
Your signature line is the key for me. I have studied Sun Tzu's Art of War for twenty years now. Give us two opponents, one who is sixty years old, arthritic, weak, and a lifelong student of Sun Tzu. Another who is a world champion in NHB and a multiple black belt holder. I know who I'll bet on. I humiliated a TKD black belt once simply using terrain 'cuz he couldn't turn into an eggbeater in the sapling grove I retreated into. Some guy is the reincarnation of Elmer Keith with a pistol? Time to dust off the long range rifle. Victory in combat is defined as obtaining your objective. Your objective is to beat my butt. Mine is to possess an unbeaten butt. My parameters for victory are met by simply not being there.
There are unvoiced assumptions in much of the preceding dialogue. One is a duel mentality, i.e, I'm going to face him man to man and destroy him by virtue of my superior martial skills. Bull puckey! I'm more interested in
martial ways that will allow me to attain victory even though I am weaker, outnumbered, sick, and simply not as good at martial arts techniques as my opponent. Sun Tzu points the way to fulfill this goal. That is the beef I have with NHB type contests. Not that I can't eye gouge, nut bite, etc. But that the format does not allow the use of strategy. The last thing I'm looking for in a fight is a level playing field. It's going to be as unfair a fight as I can make it.
In other words, if the baddest guy who ever lived mastered the ultimate fighting art for one on one unarmed, and drools at the thought of pounding on me...my response will be to get a couple of buddies with our handguns and tell him,"hey, dude, let's get it on!"
I've been in about thirty fights and serious confrontations. I'm 27-3. In two of the three losses I was on the ground, concussed and semi-conscious before I knew I was in a fight. In the other loss I was fighting a guy when an onlooker gave me a haymaker from behind and then attacked my original opponent-me? I was on the ground semi-conscious and concussed...again. I pay a serious amount of attention to my six today. Four of the 27 wins were against mulitple opponents. 3 were with four and 1 was with eight. One of the four opponents episodes was suddenly stopped when I picked up an entrenchment tool and smiled as I asked,"Who dies first?" The possible consequences of the fight had escalated beyond the scope of their intention. They didn't want to fight as badly as they thought they did. The eight was a special case-they were unarmed and I had a big stick and darkness. Defense via pre-emptive strike. I not only won...I was not touched. The other two four on one cases did not use any special martial art techniques. I simply grabbed the most enthusiastic attacker with left hand while applying haymaker strikes with my right fist. (The haymaker is a very effective strike if you have a grip on your opponent or if striking from behind against an unknowing opponent.) After about two strikes, the guy was easy to jerk around so I used him as a shield to thwart the efforts of his buddies. After about four or five strikes I let go of him and grabbed the next most enthusiastic and continued the drill. In both cases, when I released victim #2, the third and fourth opponents decided to quit the field. Multiple attackers are really not very dangerous unless they have trained in group attacks together. Luckily, none of the groups I have faced had done so.
I never forget that my true opponent is the mind, spirit, will, heart, (call it what you will) of my opponent. I have had people decide that maybe they didn't want to fight after all simply because I was calmly agreeable to fighting. No trying to leave, trying to reason, trying to weasel out, just a quiet "Let's do it." Especially when you do it against a group, calm acceptance worries them.
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Byron Quick
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