Fight two armed men and at best you’re going to have some pretty big medical bills. Because he had run away, he didn’t even get scratched. I’m certain that anyone who understands the street would advise nothing but running in that situation. Putting distance between yourself and a dangerous situation keeps you safe and ensures you’re able to spend your time on the fun things in life. So for your sparring to be street smart, you need to practice running away.
Fleeing is more than just running
Fleeing a fight is not as straight forward as just turning tail and running. If there is a sufficient gap between you and any would be assailant, you can do just that (again, this emphasizes the importance of awareness). However, if the assailant is close enough to strike you, or the situation has degenerated into a fight, you need confusion and distance. If you don’t have confusion and distance when you begin running, you will be giving the opponent your back. Bad things can occur when you do that.
If you have managed to incapacitate the opponent, even for a moment, then in that moment of confusion and disorientation you should flee. Because the opponent won’t be able to immediately react, you have the chance to generate sufficient distance to allow a successful escape. When a gap appears in the street, your self-protection training should have conditioned you to make it bigger. Much bigger! You should not be thinking of closing the gap and continuing the fight.
A great way to practice fleeing in training is to make part of your dojo a “safe zone.” Your aim is to reach this safe zone while your partner (or partners) prevents you from doing so. The full range of martial techniques are allowed, but if a gap is created (they rarely appear on their own) the aim is to extend it and make it to the safe zone.
Another good way to practice escaping is to have two people at either end of the dojo, while the person practicing fleeing is in the middle. The middle person will run towards the first person and they start sparring (using both grappling and striking). As soon as the fighting begins, the person who started in the middle must break contact and create a gap. He then runs to the other end and repeats the process. This drill is a great way to develop the skills needed to create a gap, and engrain the habit of running when you have the opportunity. It’s also one fantastic workout.
Running away is the smart and practical thing to do whenever possible. Hence, you need to ensure fleeing is included in your sparring.
Don’t limit the techniques or ranges
In a real situation, anything goes and hence you need to ensure your street sparring isn’t limited. If your background is in a striking system, ensure that you bring grappling into your sparring. Likewise, if your background is in grappling, ensure that you bring striking into your sparring. The more wide-ranging you make your sparring the more realistic it will be.
Allow banned techniques
You also need to ensure that you include the techniques not allowed by the rules. In combat sports, there are two groups of techniques that will be banned. First, there are those banned in the name of the purity of the sport, i.e. boxing is about punching so anything that can stifle the exchange of punches is prohibited. All combat sports have similar restrictions in order to maintain the purity of the sport and give the spectators what they want to see. Secondly, there are the techniques that are banned in the name of safety, such as low blows. All of these banned techniques are allowed in a street situation.
Modifying dangerous techniques
A real fight has no rules, and hence you need to ensure you ignore the rule book of your art when you structure your street sparring. It’s pretty easy to ignore the purity-based restrictions, but great care needs to be taken when ignoring the safety-based ones. In some instances you can substitute dangerous techniques for less dangerous alternatives. For example, if your partner secures a grip on the knot in your belt, it’s a safe assumption he could also have attacked your groin in the same fashion. Likewise, putting the thumb on your partner’s forehead above the eyebrows can be used as a substitute for eye gouges.
Substitutions like these ensure that you develop the skills to use and defend against such attacks. The flaw in this training is that if you’re not mindful of the intent of the substitution, you may find yourself using the substitution in the street at a time when you should be using the real technique. As I said at the very start, always be aware of the flaws of any drill. Because the alternative is to omit the techniques completely, I feel substitution is the best way forwards.
In addition to substitution, you can also reduce the intensity of certain techniques to ensure safety. For example, if you nip your partner with your teeth, he can be sure he would be missing flesh if the fight was for real. It is important that your sparring is closely supervised by a suitably experienced and qualified person when bringing potentially dangerous techniques such as biting and gouging into your sparring. The person supervising the sparring will be able to advise you on substitution, omission and intensity.
By not limiting the techniques or ranges of your sparring, you ensure that “blind spots” don’t develop and that your sparring has relevance to a real fight.
Emphasize simplicity & high-percentage skills
It is vitally important in the street to keep things very simple. The simpler a technique is, the more likely it is to succeed. The more complex a technique is, the more likely it is to fail.
However, it doesn’t always work that way in a dojo or competitive bout between two martial artists. In that environment, using complex and sophisticated methods can catch your opponent off guard. The simple methods will be more easily recognized and countered so it can be advantageous to use methods that are “off radar.” In almost all combat sports, much of what was winning fights a few years ago is now obsolete because it is easily recognized and hence easily countered. Competitors need to enhance, disguise, and evolve their techniques if they are to keep winning. Complex and indirect can work fine in the dojo or in sport. The complex and indirect won’t fare well in the street, however.
Advanced isn’t always better
When sparring for the street, be sure to stick to the basics. Many martial artists inadvertently associate the term “advanced” with “better.” That is not how it works in the street. There is the basic stuff that works; and the advanced stuff that doesn’t work. There are no such things as “advanced self-protection” or “advanced street fighting.” When sparring for the street, keep everything simple and avoid any temptation to get clever.
Use fight-stopping techniques
It is also important to emphasize techniques that will have the greatest effect. A head shot will have a greater effect than a strike to the body. A strangle will finish the fight, but a joint lock might not (you can’t fight when you are unconscious, but you can fight with a broken joint). Methods such as body shots and joint locks still have a role to play, but priority should always be given to the techniques that will end the fight the quickest.
For street sparring, stick to techniques that are simple, have the best chance of working, and are likely to have the greatest effect.
Vary the numbers (real fights aren’t always one on one)
This is a big one. Dojo and competitive sparring is almost always one on one. Street situations aren’t like that. They can be one on one but they can also be loads of other things. It’s therefore very beneficial to mix up the numbers when sparring for the street.
Techniques such as this can work really well in the dojo or competitive arena where the