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Every month in my travels and correspondences I come across various myths and beliefs concerning every facet of real world self defense. These range from ordinary common sense questions to way out and even bizarre ideas about what happens in real life encounters. With so many varying and often contradictory opinions I have chosen to devote a monthly column to the subject. Addressing these ideas, whether correct or incorrect is paramount in teaching self-defense. They often dictate taking action that may or may not be effective. Worse case scenario these ideas get people killed. As I sit here writing, a recent issue of Black Belt rests on my desk. Known and respected for objectively covering the world of Martial Arts, Black Belt diligently reports on a wide range of styles and subjects. One of the articles is on a 2 day Real Life Self Defense "Battle School." I have no doubt as to the reputation or skill of the gentleman teaching this program, nor in its ability to adequately train effective self defense for the street. But one line in particular catches my eye; "The average street fight lasts an average of 3 minutes, so students must develop their cardio-respiratory and muscular endurance." This is a great subject to launch my Myths column. In truth physical conditioning, although helpful, is not at all a major factor in people’s ability to defend themselves. I also have to question the statement that a real fight actually does last 3 minutes. In my dozens of personal fights, and the many dozens more I have witnessed, only one lasted as long as 3 minutes. That was a gang attack where myself and a fellow Recon Marine were set on by a group of 5-6 "fellow" marines. It took place at a small outdoor restaurant in the middle of a large field. We were eating a sandwich and having a beer when I was cold cocked from behind. The ensuing fight lasted probably a few minutes (though it seemed like hours!) and believe it or not no one was hurt very badly. In my experience this altercation lasted ridiculously long. Virtually all of my other fights were over after the first few blows were thrown. Real situations simply do not go on for very long before one person is hurt or loses heart and gives up. Long fights typically are the realm of movies or the ring. NOT in the real world. I have had somewhere around 30,000 fights in the Bulletman suit. The suit allows me to cheat like crazy and take multiple shots that are harder than ones I have successfully used in real fights, and yet I kept on fighting. We want our students to go into oxygen debt so they can experience how adrenaline keeps you going when the mind is screaming to quit. A brutally long fight where we fight back hard and sustain up to a dozen solid knockout blows can last as long as 45 seconds. By the end, the student and Bulletman collapse in absolute exhaustion (although we make our students get up and move to safety). Physical conditioning helps. But I have seen many a pencil pushing out of shape office worker use adrenaline to crank up and knock silly, bigger stronger opponents. I have seen short timid women go Mama Bear on guys twice her weight and size. I have seen the proverbial "sand kicked in his face" skinny weakling go medieval on a big macho good ole boy and knock him out cold. The ability to use the emotional and bio chemical effects of stress and fear as power far override physical strength or lack there of. So why did my gang attack go on for so long? First off I don’t really know how long the fight lasted. The adrenal fear rush distorts accurate sense of time. It could have been 1 ½ minutes or could have been as long as 3. Truth is I really don’t know. And neither do most people who get in fights. The part of the brain that continues to function under duress is not capable of reading time. Therefore I would submit that many fighters and victims think their fights went much longer than they actually did. We show our students the video of their fights against the Bulletmen. Without fail, they say that the fight seemed much longer than it actually was on the video. Another factor in a fight going long is simply that the combatants don’t know how to fight. The marines that attacked my buddy and I had enough time to kill us if they had any fighting sense. Though he and I were both trained Martial Artists and special forces Marines, we had never taken any adrenal stress response training. We did the most common thing, freeze and flail. At one point I did break through the paralysis but that will be the subject of a future column. My point here is that if a fight goes on for very long it is because the people in it are not connecting good solid blows. Real fights are wild and crazy and people get hurt. Typically one or two good shots is going to at least take the fight out of someone. And typically it’s the person who gets the first good strike in that prevails. Adrenal Stress response Training is really very simple. We teach folks how to break the freezing effects of adrenaline and fear by focusing all that power into simple strikes to vulnerable areas on an attacker. Just as a person can be quickly conditioned to freeze for many years by an unsuccessful defense, we can train a person to use the adrenal fear state as their greatest ally in just 4 ½ hours of training. So go ahead and hit the gym if you wish. But don’t forget to drink that can of whoop ass if there is no time for a FAST Defense class!
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