Copyright Antonio Graceffo 2004
Each martial art has a certain, unique rhythm, which derives from the style and the rules of competition. A boxing match sounds like pity-pat, pity-pat, pity-pat, as the fighters circle, and throw jabs, feeling each other out. A Tae Kwan Do match would sound more like a machine gun, rata-tat-tat, rata-tat-tat, as the competitors try to throw the greatest number of high kick possible, in the time allowed. Judo has the slow scrapping of feet, followed by the rustling of fabric, climaxing with the THUD! of a body hitting canvas. Muay Thai has the slap, slap, slap, of shins landing countless kicks on the thighs.
But a self defense situation, a street fight, or a no holds barred fight is nothing like this. When there are no rules, no judges, and no time limits, you must force yourself to break the habits of your specific style, and fight to win.
Every martial art has moves which, are taught in the dojo, but which are not permitted in competition. As a result, any Karate practitioner probably knows the feeling of throwing a kick at an opponent. But how many of them have ever done a double-palm strike to an opponent's ears? The same Tae Kwan Do kick, which, thrown high, will break a board, could, if thrown low, break a knee. But who has actually done it? Boxers all know that when they duck a punch, they can come up with the back of their head, and nail the opponent in the face. Kung Fu practitioners are familiar with finger spear techniques, where by the hand penetrates the opponent's abdomen, and rips out the internal organs. In doing a search of the archives of every American newspaper, I was unable to uncover even a single incidence of anyone actually doing this.
Martial artists who cross train believe that they are breaking free of the prejudices instilled in them by practicing a single art. Boxers learn to kick. Tae Kwan Do practitioners learn to throw.and so on. But in the end, their minds and their fighting are still bound by rules. Ask a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner if it is possible to choke out an opponent, standing, or to do a submission on a standing opponent, and he will show you a million ways to do it. And yet, in competition, the BJJ practitioner will always take his opponent to the ground.
Fighting without gloves is in itself a skill. And, like any other skill, it has to be learned and practiced. After years of competitive boxing, kickboxing, and kung fu, my first bare knuckles fight nearly went awry. I thought I could come out, jab, jab, move, circle, jab, and feel my opponent out, and go for a knockout in the third round.
Two seconds into the first round a bare-fist hit me under the left eye. Nothing ever felt as bad as that bare fist. I actually saw an explosion behind my eye. I felt the skin open up, allowing blood to leak out.
I had to back pedal, and regain my composure. I had no idea how to proceed. In boxing, you have huge gloves on your hands, making it almost impossible for an opponent to land punches. The opponent has huge gloves on his hands, making it nearly impossible for him to cut you. A boxer isused to going out, and swapping punches, taking a few, to give a few, for several rounds, until someone gets tired. But, this strategy wasn't going to work in bare knuckles. You couldn't take too many of those bare handed punches.
Frightened of getting hit even once more, I moved in, and tried to end it quickly. I threw a six-punch combination, and won by a knock out.
The fight had lasted twenty-two seconds. And there were a total of nine punches thrown. I had won, but my body was wrecked, like nothing that had ever happened to me before. I decided that fighting without gloves, whether it be in the streets, in self defense, or in NHB, was a new skill, which twenty years of ring experience hadn't taught me.
The next day, I analyzed the fight, to see if there were any immediate lessons that I could learn. The first thing that jumped out at me was. Street fights and self-defense situations don't have rounds. You don't need to pace yourself. Our fight had only lasted twenty-two seconds. I don't care how out of shape you are, you won't run out of gas in 22 seconds. When the fight starts, you just give it everything you have. Expend your energy like a meteor. Hit your opponent with explosive force, until he goes down.
In practicing for this type of situation, it would be good to do sprint drills on a heavy bag. See how many kicks and punches you could throw in thirty seconds. Use a ring timer, and do thirty seconds on, thirty seconds off, for ten minutes. You can also practice in the ring. Have your opponent put on full body armor. Do your thirty-second sprint drills, hitting your opponent as he moves and blocks. To get the feeling of being on the receiving end of this type of a volley, switch roles. Ten minutes on the bag, ten minutes striking an opponent, ten minutes of being struck, that is thirty minutes of high level cardio work. And, better than running, you are not just improving your wind, you are practicing the strikes that may win you the fight, or save your life.
A boxer throws jabs, to wear a man down, or feel him out. He often doesn't even want to hit his opponent with the jab. He just wants to keep the man tied up, and take him out of his game plan. A kicker will do the same, faking low, then striking high, or leading with a weak kick, to make an opening, then following up with punches. But, this strategy should not be applied to a bare knuckles situation. In bare knuckles, there is no jab. Every punch and every kick should be thrown with the intent of winning the fight.
There are no judges in a street situation. And there is no second place trophy. Street fights are not won on points. Every technique should be aimed at the knock out.
Muay Thai and San Da (Chinese kickboxing) both allow kicks below the waste. But even practitioners of these arts don't practice kicking the groin or the side of the knee. Karate and Tae Kwan Do students all seem to know that it only takes nine pounds of pressure to break the knee. But no one practices this technique. Try hanging the bag low, and simulating striking the side of the knee. Some martial arts styles teach that the kick should come down on the side of the knee, striking with the bottom or edge of the foot. If you are already proficient at this type of kick, often called a shovel kick, then this is what you should practice. But, if you are proficient at the roundhouse, this would be the best kick to use. But, just because you are good at throwing a roundhouse high doesn't mean that you can throw one low. You will need to practice, over and over again, every day.
The groin kick is an obvious self-defense technique, but like any other technique it has to be practiced. Most self-defense teachers will tell students that they could use a front snap kick to the groin. The problem with this approach is that the opponent has to be standing with his legs far enough apart for the defender's foot to come up the middle, between his legs. This is often hard to do in practice. The push kick from Muay Thai, a straight kick with the impact on the ball of the foot, would be a much better groin strike. Muay Thai practitioners are already adept at throwing this strike below the naval. So, for them to bring the point of impact a few inches lower is no problem.
The way to practice the groin strike is to hang a tire or similar object from the ceiling, at groin height. Use the tire like a speed bag, kicking it as many times as possible, alternating feet. Again, you can practice this technique on your training partner, if he puts on body armor. Even with protection, DON'T KICK HIM IN THE GROIN!!! Practice kicking him just above the groin. Most likely, in the confusion of a fight, even if you forget to bring your foot down a few inches, you will wind up hitting the groin.
When a man is hit in the groin, his face comes forward and his hands come down. You should practice combinations to capitalize on this. Throw a groin kick, followed by a head but or punch to the face, or a hook to the side of the head. If you are confident in your high kicks you can kick the side of the head or do the same, explosive, push kick to the nose. Again, you can practice this on the bag or on your training partner. And, switch off, so you will know these techniques from the receiving end.
In boxing and kickboxing you can duck and cover. Your gloves will protect you from your opponent's blows. But in a no gloves situation, most of those punches will find their way through your defense. Almost every punch landed with a bare fist is going to draw blood. If you do manage to stop those punches, you will be stopping them with your own bare flesh, causing you injury. The best defense in a street situation is avoidance. If you move out of the way, you can't get hurt. And, of course, avoiding violence all together is always the best policy.
In regular boxing, not only do the gloves keep you from getting cut, when you get hit, they also protect the puncher's hands from breaking. Without gloves on, you could loose by landing a punch wrong, and injuring your hand. When you loose on the street, you could wind up dead.
On the street, and in NHB situations, an opponent can grab you. In NHB, if you are a grappling specialist, this may even be what you want to happen. If you are primarily a striker you will want to stay far enough away from an opponent to avoid being grabbed or taken down. You will want to stay at the absolute limit of your striking distance. Tae Kwan Do practitioners tend to fight from this distance as a rule. Boxers and Karate practitioners don't. To find your maximum range, you will want to mark off paces from the bag, and see how far out you can stand, and still strike effectively. You will want to use every inch of extension, both from your limbs and your spine, and get as much distance as possible. Even against another striker this could be a good technique, because he wouldn't expect an attack to come from so far out.
As for your punches, you will want to modify them for no gloves situations. Learn to use long hooks and leaping punches, which can be thrown from much further out than traditional eight inch hooks. From that far out, you should be able to throw a long hook at the side of an opponent's rib cage. This will knock the air out of him faster than a blow to the belly, and will keep you out of harms way of both punches and grapples.
Even if you are a competent grappler, you may want to consider not grappling in a street-fighting situation. You definitely don't want to go to the ground, on the street. If there are multiple attackers you would risk being stomped.
A full-contact martial arts background, or a good basis in boxing or Muay Thai would certainly be assets in learning practical street techniques. But fighting on the street and fighting in the ring are two different games. If you want to learn to defend yourself or to fight in no gloves competitions, seek out an instructor, who specializes in these type of techniques, and let him help you to modify your sport-style for real combat.
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