How to defend against 10 bikers with knives, bats, chains and guns?
“There I was, in the middle of my first black belt test at the tender age of 22, ready to begin the random assault drill. I was surrounded, attackers with knives, bats, clubs and guns, but I was ready. I had I was training for years. The sensei panel was watching me, Ross, Cestari, Blandino, Betts, they were all there and I was ready. One by one they attacked and I dispatched them clean and quickly. The knife was easily removed; the bat was a mother son game. They were treated as fast as they arrived without any problem. I AM INVINCIBLE!!!”
Flash forward to my real life. While visiting a friend in college, we went out at night. Well, one thing leads to another, as often happens: who touched whose girlfriend or who spilled whose beer, it didn’t really matter. Before I knew it, I saw that my friend was punched and was on his feet. I immediately tried to get to him as fast as I could to offer some retribution, but before I knew it he hit me on the back of the head with something hard. As I turned in the direction of the attack I came face to face with two or three very angry frat boys.
The rest is hard to remember, lots of shoving, shoving and occasionally hitting someone that wasn’t me and being for someone or something that wasn’t. It wasn’t pretty, it was frustrating. There was no time to freak out, adrenaline was rushing through me. After a short time (which felt like an eternity) a little voice appeared in my head and said: You are locked in here and you need to get out.
When we finally pushed through the door, the entire frat house (about 60 men) seemed to converge on us. Trash cans and beer bottles were thrown at us from the second floor and all I wanted to do was make sure my friends were okay. Finally, after what seemed like forever (which was only about 10 minutes), we made it out of there. Beaten, cut and bruised, but alive. I was in great shape and you could say I gave more than I received, but this was crazy. They were college kids, future accountants, lawyers, executives, and doctors using bottles, pool cues, trash cans, and everything else that wasn’t nailed down to beat us to the best of their ability. They were as bad and as dangerous as any criminal you could ever meet.
Where did all my training go? What happened to all the good throws and takedowns? Why was it so difficult to make a good shot? I know my martial arts training helped me survive, but I didn’t “feel” practicing.” I felt a little cheated, but instead of blaming my training, I looked for a real solution and a plausible answer.
Unfortunately, this is not an exclusive event and I have had the same results. The only question came to my mind: What am I doing wrong in my martial arts training?
One of the deadliest problems with martial arts and self defense is the magic pill notion that it will be able to protect you and your loved ones against multiple vicious attacks, regardless of who and how many. And you will be able to do this without a scratch or even a blemish. This is something we all want to believe. Who doesn’t want to know with 100% certainty that they will be able to fight back and protect their loved ones from harm? You spend countless dollars and countless hours training, watching videos, going to seminars hoping to come back with the answer.
Experts don’t help simply because they don’t know or don’t care. They may intend to gamble, but because they are ex-military, police, special ops, that doesn’t mean they’ve ever been in a fight or been taught the correct and most realistic way to defend themselves. They learned from martial artists who are in the same boat, just guessing what you can do.
So what about dealing with multiple bullies? First, you should always assume that they are there. Whether you’re in an alley, a bar, or on patrol, you’re at a severe disadvantage if your assailant chooses the time and place of the assault. If you are a law enforcement officer, you are in his neighborhood or at his house. Many domestic arguments were interrupted by the policeman doing his job, only to be attacked by the beaten wife in the process. So you should always assume the worst tactically and train accordingly.
You should know that standing up and fighting with more than one person puts you at a huge disadvantage. Keep a couple of key points in mind, if you can escape, great. Put as much distance as possible between you and them. You just fight what’s in front of you and keep going. When you train, practice to take ground. This will keep your main target off balance and moving targets will always be harder to hit. Always take ground.
If you train the right kind of hand-to-hand combat techniques, the weapons won’t matter, always attack. Being hit, stabbed, or shot when you’re attacking is much different than being hit, stabbed, or shot while you’re being killed. You will get injured, the goal is to minimize your injury and maximize theirs. You’ll get hurt, you’ll toughen up, and you’ll get over it.
Some simple rules to remember:
Always assume that there is more than one aggressor
Treat each attacker as an armed attacker
Resolve the fact that you will feel pain and be injured.
Always keep moving and gaining ground, this will keep your attackers off balance, create openings to escape and make it harder to hit you.
You can only “fight” one person at a time – deal with what’s in front of you.
Attack first when possible
Weapons increase your effectiveness.
There is no such thing as a “magic pill”, anyone that tells you that you can stand up and fight multiple attackers. Yes, we still practice the Random Assault Drill, but it is emphasized that its purpose is not to get you up and fighting, but to disorient and tire you out so that we can recreate some of the frustration of a real fight. Exercise teaches you not to think, but to react and move. This is the core of real self defense.