Real Life Experiences

Real Life Stories highlights the experiences of operators and civilians who have had to use the skills they've learnt in self defence or combat.

If you have had to defend yourself as a civilian or in the execution of your duties as a service person, then don't hesitate to forward your story. These stories will not include the identities of any of the subjects involved, but will detail the situation and means used to overcome it.

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I have practised and instructed multiple attackers self defence for many years and have used it on the job when required with good results. One such occasion was when I was working crowd control in a garden bar and five fairly solid university student patrons that had had enough liquor to want to fight objected to being told to behave and confronted me.

They lost the advantage from the outset when they could not get behind me and when I actually attacked them before they could over whelm me. My Todd Systems multiple attacker training paid off and worked a treat and I dropped the first of my assailants in an instant and kept moving and picking them off. They were confused from the outset and within seconds were my victims.

End result three down and one ran away while the other tried to get over the fence but not before I made him mine as well. I attacked my attackers and knew what to do from the outset, and got the desired result.


I was once present when this TKD trained player was showing off in front of me by starting a fight with a small chubby guy who was not aware of whom his aggressor was. Mr TKD done some flying jump kick at his victim who reacted amazingly fast jumping out of the way and knocking his attacker out of the air with head strike that made him land on his head on the foot path unconscious.


This is a real life experience I will never forget as a fight fan. I went to a fight night and the card was made up of Vale Tudo and full contact karate. This included a world title fight in Vale Tudo. I had been to many kickboxing, boxing and wrestling comps before as well as Vale Tudo.

Well I have never been so bloody bored as with this so called full contact karate. It was slow had no punches to the head and the kicks were a lot less than the usual Thai kicks to say the least. There were stops to tidy the karate uniform that just made it even less realistic and the crowd who had been getting stuck into the beers were less than PC towards the competitors with some pretty harsh comments and boos.

Unfortunately the female competitors were given a rollicking from the crowd and some of the comments were very cruel. The pre-fight description of this full contact code was less than real in my eyes and the hundreds of others that couldn’t believe this would be on the undercard of a real fight spectacle.

I would never want to sit through such a non-event again and prefer to watch the more realistic codes any day as most of the spectators must do also going by the sledging being dished out.


Outside a pub I once listened to this ex champion amateur boxer mouth off about black fighters in a stupid and racist manner. The next thing that happened is that he made the same comments to a fellow with brown skin and who was rightfully not amused. This fellow head butted our former boxing champion and followed up with a knee in the crotch that decked the racist. It was a good end to a bad situation and only goes to show the old street fighter is a good match for anyone.


Even from ten years ago I can recall a situation where on at the door of a nite club some gang members were threatening the one male and one female on security there. The male was standing his ground and looked big and strong and the female was very slightly built but appeared even more focused than her male partner. Without a whisper this little lady took out the biggest gang member's lower leg in an instant and that was just for starters.

She was so skilled and did not show any signs of fear or concern about the situation she was in. It didn’t take much of an imagination to conclude she was one of Tank's trainees and when I asked her how long she had trained with Tank she said ten years.

Article written by Fight Times Editor