Multiple Attackers

I think you are far mor likely to get jumped by multiple attackers than you are by a single opponant. I know tons of people who have been jumped by a group of 3 to 5 guys. I feel quite confident that I could defend myself from multiple attackers. I have practiced it so I am less likely to be confused with something unexpected or to make a well known mistake like try to hold my ground. In the end you just have to land one finnishing blow on each attacker. If you can quickly flow from one to the other with barrages of 6-7 attacks to meaningful targets then you are doing well. If one of them takes you to the ground and you still land those strikes and know how to return to a mobile position quickly or funnel from the ground then you are also prepared. To only train for 1 on 1 is to promise you will be out of your element when you do get attacked by 2 or more. Of course I am not expecting 5 black belts to attack me. I am assuming they are your regular UFC watching adrenaline pumped bully type. If you think it is impossible then it just means you have no faith in your own ability to defend in such a cicumstance. What you know about the skill of anyone on this forum is very very little.

To all, As I have said, I prefer not to practice multiples. None the less, there are those who see it differently. Here is an interesting account of the “Cat’s” life. This link tells the story of Gogen Yamaguchi. About 2/3sd of the way down, there is a tale of fighting multiple opponents. "With my guns empty, I resorted to Goju school of karate for my defence. I adjusted myself with breathing and was ready to fight.” It continues on for several more paragraphs about how he fought multiples. The link http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Dtimes/Pages/articlej.htm To muddy the waters even more, From the “Defendu” website we have an account of Royce Gracie. He is defeating 2 L.A. County sheriffs at once. And there is an account of a suspect “virtually destroying two Texas State Troopers”. The link http://www.defendu.com/multiple_attackers.htm Then there are those who practice Kyokushinkai Karate. These guys practice multi opponent sparring, as well. They will sometimes practice fighting 100 opponents in a row. The link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyokushinkai Regards, MrE2Me2

Mr E2Me2, How are ya my freind? I see you have started this thread and am really interested in hearing what everyone has to say. Of course anything I say on this topic is strictly my opinion. I do train for multiple opponent attacks. My oldest son, 13 years old, and his buddy were recently confronted by a group of boys who wanted their pocket money ( my son said he had none,although he did,and they beleived him. and it may be that he emitted some ray of confidence, due to the fact that he has been training since he was 3, his friend however got totally panicked and of course the boys homed in on him and took his money). My sons biggest fear though, which deterred him from fighting???? What if they had a knife.. in todays day in age , or at least where I live, knife attacks are becoming all to familiar. As are 3, 4 and five on 1 attacks. Combine a multiple opponent attack with a knife or a bat and you are in trouble. Does a person who is well trained have a way better chance at survival then a person who is not trained? absolutley. However i always tell my students, unless you are absolutely sure your life is in danger. dont add fuel to a multiple attack scenario. i think the fact that my son was given a realistic idea of what can happen, saved him from getting beaten. An older brother of a freind of my sons, was stabbed to death 2 years ago at a bus stop. I unfortunatly have a neice who is mixed up with the wrong people(she is 17) and the people she is mixed with carry guns. Her ex boy freind had a kevlar vest he would wear sometimes. I am afraid the world we all grew up in has changed. It is no longer a kind world. There is guns, knives, gangs and crystal meth ( the most addictive drug we have ever seen). Giving students, especially young people, ( and by young I mean from age 6 to about 28 years old) the idea that it would be easy or even intelligently possible to fight multiple opponents has the potential to be fatal. As I have said training for the scenario, in a realistic fasion, explaining to students that what they are learning is theory only, not a science ,is probably a good mandate. Providing they are told about the real, and very likely life threatening dangers involved. As for the theory of dropping these guys with one blow, and if you are taken to the ground by multiple opponents, just to use strikes then remanouver yourself back into a good strategic position. Its a nice theory, but it is not realistic. Not by your average person. And many people training martial arts, even black belts are not superhuman. I think there are to many people wearing black belts that have this false sense that becasue they have a black belt they are now invincible. Having said all that, the scenario about a Master fighting all out and deafeating 5 black belts during a demonstration is the one that really gets me. I cant beleive anyone would think this real. Really, I mean if this is true. Why would a real Master want to beat the tar out of five of his black belts during a public demonstration. What the heck is this "Master" trying to prove. So if he did not beat them up, what ?? He did it without hurting them, he controlled five trained black belts into submission , in 20 seconds??I mean come on...... Even the people on this forum that seem to think that not only is fighting multiple opponents relatively easy, they seem to think they could do it( which maybe they can, I know a few tough black belts: Master Ed, Master Gil, who in my mind are very realistic about this sort of stuff). These people on this forum even have stated that they think they are capable of doing it but with crushing force , 1 shot lethal blows. Not fighting five full power black belts and not hurting them. That idea is so insane i cant even explain how it sounds. Thats my stand on the latest topic, In short I say this Train for multiple attacks, IN A REALISTIC FASION,, because they are becoming all to common. Absolutlely. ( but pray it never happens.) Is it possible for a Trained Black belt to beat multiple untrained opponents on the street. possible: yes, encouraged: no Did a "Master" really beat five trained black belts attacking him with full power at a public demonstration and noone got hurt. NO Would a crowd of uninformed, people ewe and ahhh about it. sure. Do I find it sad that a "master" would have his students beleive that it was real. yes If this event did indeed happen , and a "master" did beat up five of his own students, do I find this to be a pathetic display of how a teacher should really treat his students. yes shawn

Well said Sifu shawn! About 30 years ago, when I was a teenager, I was at a beach party. A typical beach party, lots of booze and illicit drugs and a whole lot of stupid teenagers. Four older guys, in their 20's show up, they are all wearing their jackets with some karate insignia on it and they start pushing people around, testing their skill I guess. Well some of my friends and myself decide that we're not going to be someones punching bag, so we picked up empty beer bottles, rocks and probably a few full beers and just start throwing them at these clowns. I don't know if they were black belts but they sure ran for thier lives and they didn't come back. I guess they didn't train enough for that scenario :-)

People are braver in groups, yes even stupid people, they feel more secure with others around them. You can also think of all the stupid things you've done with your friends that you would never have done on your own. Without getting too deep into the mob mentality, it is partly for this reason you are likely to have an "incident" against a group than against a single person. People do things in a group they would never do as an individual. All you have to do is read the paper. Yes you can try and run as someone pointed out. I would hope that would be your choice against a single attacker too. The problem is it more difficult to run from a group than from a single attacker. Some people here are ridiculing multiple opponent training. Could be you discount it because you don't train it, and not because you don't see it's value. If you choose not to train multiple attackers I think your missing valuable skills. Yes one-on-one training is good but there are dynamics unique to multiple attacker situations that you need to be familiar with. I'm not saying you should expect to be able to win in an overmatched situation but your chances of surviving increase dramatically.

after re-reading some of these posts I think the issue maybe in what the goal of multiple opponent training is. It's not how to defeat 5 guys in a fight, that's just ridiculous. The goal is to escape, to get out alive as it were. You can't just say well I'd run, it's not that simple.

Sifu Shawn, you misunderstood me about the multiple attacker scenario (or maybe I wasn't very clear). Let me try again. The 5-on-1 fight was done at the 2005 Christmas Demo in Edmonton. The instruction to the attackers was literally "go full speed and power with whatever attacks you want, and don't hold back". I can promise you the fight was in no way scripted or pre-choreographed. The attackers did go very hard (nothing like the pathetic attacks in the links to multiple attacker videos which MrE2Me2 posted), but there was still just enough control maintained to avoid serious injury. The level of contact would have been enough to badly hurt most people, but all the individuals involved were very tough senior PHS members. At the end of the fight all the attackers were down, not because they physically couldn't get up, but because they knew that they wouldn't have been able to, had the defender actually followed through on all the strikes he landed on them. In a real fight, the attackers would probably go slightly harder, but not as hard as if there was just 1 attacker (because of the very real possibility of hitting their buddies). On the other hand, the defender would also go harder because he wouldn't care about hurting the attackers. In a real fight the attackers would be less predictable because they are not the defender's students, and could potentially gain a significant advantage by coordinating their attack plan in advance. On the other hand, most street attackers would be much less skilled and conditioned, and would not know the defender's strengths and weaknesses like his students do. Although the demo was not totally realistic, it was as close as you can get to it without causing real injury (as it is, there were a fair number of bruises and 1 person was slightly limping from a foot check). As I posted earlier, the instructor in question has, on more than one occasion, successfully defended himself against multiple opponents on the street (although I'm not sure how well trained they were). Sifu Shawn, you thought that either: (a) The defender somehow physically defeated all the attackers without hurting them (e.g. with submissions) - which you thought was unrealistic (and therefore staged). I completely agree with you, and luckily that didn't happen. Or, (b) The defender defeated all the attackers by striking them so hard that they physically couldn't get up any more - which you thought was a very bad way to treat students. Once again, I completely agree with you there, and luckily that didn't happen either. Instead, what happened was: (c) The attackers were coming in for real, but stopped when they felt they had been sufficiently dealt with. The defender had enough control not to really hurt them, but he made enough contact to let them know that they would have been knocked out or otherwise disabled if he had done the same thing without holding back. Nobody was being fooled in any way, and nobody had the tar beat out of them. On the other hand, the speed, power, and apparent realism of the fight was extremely impressive. The instructor has repeated similar demos a number of times in class (although usually with just 3 attackers, and less intensity). The point is to teach students the concepts necessary for self defense against multiple attackers. Those who think they can always avoid such scenarios are very naive. Sometimes you have no choice but to fight. And if that happens, any training you get would be helpful and might just be enough to save your life. (Of course, everybody has different goals in their training, so if you don't practice a lot of multi-attacker stuff simply because you don't enjoy it as much, I certainly can't blame you.) On the other hand, I absolutely agree that fighting 5 people at once is a dumb thing to do if there is any way to avoid it. Sifu Shawn, you seemed to get the impression that the instructor was somehow promoting students to go out and seek confrontations against 5 people, telling them that it's easy, or encouraging them in some other way. That is simply not true. Nobody is more aware of the risks and dangers involved (especially if some of them have weapons), and the last thing the instructor wants to do is to develop false confidence in his students. However, if he's going to teach multi-attacker defences, he has to demonstrate that he can do them himself. He can't teach the principles involved without showing how they can be applied in practice. The students have to know that it's possible (with enough training), even against very skilled opponents (provided you're even more skilled than they are). But nobody is made to think that it's easy or recommended in any way. I believe you need a combination of hard and soft styles to be successful at defending yourself against multiple attackers. You need strikes in your style to be able to put people down. It's not enough to simply throw them, since they'll just keep coming back up again, and you can't submit or put a choke hold or arm bar on a bunch of people at once. On the other hand, just strikes are not enough either. To avoid dealing with everyone at once, you have to be very good at redirecting the attackers and throwing them into each other's way, which requires the soft side of the art. Only by combining the two can you hope to be successful, in my opinion. And even then it takes many years of training (and a certain amount of luck).

You must live in a war-zone Vortexx, as I have never been in a situation against multiple attackers, nor do I know anyone who has been! Naive, maybe or maybe you are naive to think that these demo's were realistic! I will concede one point, it is good to have an escape plan, much as it is good to have an escape plan if you wake up and discover your house is on fire. If you hesitate you may die! That's why these demo's are unrealistic, everyone involved knows that they will be going home, in a real scenario someone will probably die! The fear of death really makes the adrenaline pump, not only in the defender but in the attackers as well! I don't train that type of defense because as I have said before it's a waste of time, it's hard enough to fight one person. Some people are under the illusion that they can defeat someone with one blow, maybe, if you're wrong you're in a lot of trouble! Like a fire, a situation with multiple attackers can get deadly really fast!

Cam. Funny how you don't train multiple attacker situations, you have never been in that situation, nor do you know anyone who has been in that situation, yet you talk about it as though you are an authority on the subject. Trust me, multiple attacker training is vital if you want to teach your mind how to prepare for encounters of violence. Are you going to stand and spar two people at once the same way you typically spar? I can see why you think it's rediculous if that is how you see it. It takes different use of Kung Fu to deal with multiple attackers. I teach it to help students overcome "flinch reaction" which slows students down and puts them on the defensive. You simply cannot flinch when dealing with multiple attackers or you are done. In sparring students learn this very fast. It also gives them an idea of how to fight if they have to fight like this. I do demonstrations much like Swanstrom does and they see how I move, in so seeing they learn the way "they" have to move if they wish to be successful. Nobody is saying anyone should go look for a fight against multiple attackers. In fact the principle remains the same, nobody should go look for a fight with 1 attacker either. But if 3 guys do jump you some night, what will you do? Make it up on the spot? Your best? Sometimes doing your best is no substitute for doing what you are trained to do by people who know. And fyi, 1 strike can drop a person with ease. If you would care to stand in one place and have someone thwap you in the base of the skull with an elbow I promise you will change your opinion. UFC fighters or schoolyard bullies hitting each other in the cheekbones and ribs do not drop people in one shot. I have seen a UFC event stop for a few minutes when 1 fighter got hit in the groin and had to lay and roll around hugging his knees for awhile. A Demo is never realistic, it is just a demo. Training something is never completely realistic either. But you have to train it to develope any measure of skill at it. Feel free to dissagree. You are right it is like a fire. You can panic and get swept up in it out of control, or you can relax and do what is required to put out the fire the way you were trained to do it. There is no time to invent a fire extinguisher, create one THEN put out a fire. You have to have it and know how to use it. Kung Fu is no different.

North, there's a million ways what you say can work, there's also a million ways it can fail miserably! No, I am not an authority, are you! The style I now practise has an amazing array of block,trap strike, break and throw methods, a motion like Single Whip has dozens of apps, all of which can be done at blinding speed. Contrary to popular belief taijiquan can be plenty aggressive and plenty nasty and quite able to take out an attacker very quickly. Or 2 or 3, the thing is you have to be able to make it work! If you can't make it work, with consistancy, against one opponent what is the point of trying to make it work with 2 or more? What I should of said is to reserve multiple opponent training for black belt(or Higher), just like knife defense training and the like.

Vortexx, The difference between reality attack and fake attack is The attackers were coming in for real, but stopped sifu shawn

"The difference between reality attack and fake attack is..." Sifu shawn, by your argument, everything we train is fake. So why train? I never said that the demo was "real" fighting. I said it was "realistic". There's a difference. Consider these two scenarios: (a) You're sparring with someone. All of a sudden you lean forward and stretch out your arm to the maximum, just barely managing to touch his shoulder. At this point, he falls to the ground and acknowledges himself defeated. (b) You're sparring with someone. All of a sudden you power through his blocks, land several fast and powerful strikes which are in range, with perfect angle and position, aimed right at his head, groin, and solar plexus. Then you finish him off with a neck break as you throw him down. At this point he acknowledges himself defeated. What's the difference between the scenarios? The first one is fake. You were off balance and over-extended, thus having zero power, and going for a target which wouldn't do anything anyway. If you had repeated the exact same attack with the intention of hurting your opponent, you would still be physically incapable of causing him any harm whatsoever. Him falling down and acknowledging himself defeated at this point is completely fake. The second scenario is realistic. If you had repeated the exact same attack with the intention of hurting your opponent, he'd be dead. Period. The only reason he's not is because you chose to hold yourself back and stopped yourself from powering through after making contact. Acknowledging himself defeated at this point is completely realistic. Now, neither scenario is "real", but one is much more "realistic" than the other. Scenario (a) develops false-confidence and sets you up for failure, while (b) trains you properly and greatly increases your chances of success in a "real" situation. In my previous post I said that in the demo " stopped when they felt they had been sufficiently dealt with". This is scenario (b), and there's nothing "fake" about it. If they had got up and continued fighting as if nothing happened, that would be unrealistic (and eventually the defender might get annoyed and put them down for real :) ). Or course, if you could train in such a way that it would be completely real, that would be even better than simply training in a realistic fashion. But in that case you'd be seriously injuring other people and getting injured yourself, so your training wouldn't last very long.

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