Students of fighting are so lucky to be living in the age of Youtube.

They have a great resource in the filmed street fights.  We can learn so much watching actual fights.

One of the things we can get is a valuable training direction and an understanding of what a real fight involves.  It helps you answer the question: could I handle this?

So I want to post some of the fights I find and discuss them.

Here is an example – take a look and then we will do a breakdown:

OK. So we have two fairly big guys going toe to toe. The security guard is clearly the “winner,” although he didn’t finish his opponent. He pushes the action aggressively, chaining attacks to the head, puts the other guy completely on the defensive, with no time to breathe or think or respond strategically.

How would you beat that security guard?

First lets take a look at what the other guy is doing wrong. He is not focused. He has his head down, he’s swinging wild, and he’s constantly breaking at the waist and leaning at weird angles, compromising his structure and his ability to hit back with any power.

The security guard is very focused and has his eyes on the prize (the head), and controls the action. The other guy … well, he can clearly soak up a decent amount of damage and still talk a lot of smack. He’s got that going for him.

How would we beat the guard?

This is the cool thing about Wing Chun – you always go back to the principles for your answers (although its all highly hypothetical until you put in a ton of work).  You might beat him by following the principles.

The guard is basically using some Muay Thai or MMA-style Muay Thai/Boxing combination. People ask me, how do you handle a wrestler who shoots at your legs?  The WC principles say, hit them in the head.   How do you handle a high-kicking Tae Kwan Do guy?  Hit them in the head.

Do not box a boxer or wrestle a wrestler. You have to trust in your system.  But he’s really pouring it on, he’s fast!  It doesn’t matter. You have trust your system, or train in something else! You need to do what you were trained to do.

Wing Chun would say, the way to beat that security guard would be to step inside that attack. You would need to attack his attack. Chase the center.  Use two handed actions.  Defend and hit simultaneously. Pour it on in a furious blast.  Wing Chun gets it over fast!

Jam your elbows in there. Use your structure to hit with power.  Follow the hands back home. The security guard is making that “easy” because he is continuously hitting and drawing the hand back.  Take position, get into his space, drive him back.

The “other guy” is practically holding his hands over his head as the guard rains blows on him, then occasionally rallying with a few swings. He needs to turn the tables on the security guard, throwing clean structured shots at his head, putting him on the defensive, putting him off balance.

But the fight also shows, you can’t know how much abuse someone can take.  You may need to hit someone quite a few times.  You also may need to get a little more vicious if the fight continues.  You should only be fighting if your safety and survival or the safety and survival of your loved ones is at stake!  Wing Chun is like a knife or a gun, only to be used when deadly force is required and ethically justified.  And get out of there!

Some of those new to training (and even some of the seniors with no fighting experience) you may be thinking “I could never beat that guy!”

Use him as an avatar – a goal and a training direction.  Convince yourself that you could step up and handle him, at least long enough to get out the situation alive.  Train toward being able to step up to that guy and deal with those techniques he’s using, that level of force.

This is real world fighting.