Dear Friend:
Let's continue on with the next two "D's" of personal combat -- here's #3.
So the point of “Disruption” is to make it clear to him that his plans of easy victory are nothing but a fantasy. You need to screw up his little plans, take away his options, and “convince” him as quickly as possible that this could end very badly for him. The faster you can get that through his head, shift HIS focus inward – and get him “back on his heels” -- the better off you’ll be.
Here’s a few ways to “disrupt” his plans.
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Surprise – The quickest and most effective
method to surprising your adversary is to initiate the
attack – ie “hit first”. As one world-class streetfighter
put it... “you need to demonstrate,
to your adversary, that you have a total disregard for
his well-being.” This is a nice way of saying that you
should try to hurt him. Why? Because the psychological
effect is to take the wind from his sails. To strip
away his will to fight, and get his “internal chatter”
going. Consider, for example, the football team who
has a “safety” scored against them.
It’s only TWO damn points for goodness sake – but the effect is devastating -- a complete morale buster... caught with your pants down in your own territory... tackled in your own end zone... utter humiliation and degradation. This is exactly the same effect you’re shooting for with surprise.
Yeah, I know that doesn’t sound “nice”, (and we covered this earlier), you MUST get over the idea that a real man “never hits first”... or that you should “never hit a guy with glasses”... or that you need to draw a line in the dirt with a stick... or some other nonsense that essentially gives your opponent an edge.
-
Close the distance-- If there’s no escape
and you’ve determined that a fight is imminent -- you
should move-in. If you’re opponent is armed with
a knife, you should RUN.
Studies show that fighting someone with a knife is a bad idea, no matter what your skill level. Anyway, in a hand-to-hand situation, “moving-in” is another very effective tool to convince him he’s made a terrible mistake and that the happy movie he envisioned is turning into a horror flick.
This is not some kind of bluff. By moving-in you’re about to “take the fight to him” and ready to inflict damage and pain. This is where the rubber meets the road and when target acquisition becomes critical. You MUST have a good idea of how and where you’ll strike him.
You do NOT want to close-in and then pause and do nothing. The result will likely be initial surprise and possibly some “back peddling” by your opponent, then (when he sees your essentially bluffing), a quick recovery and a counterattack. So don’t “fake”. You should move in with the 100% intention of attacking.
By closing the gap, you effectively neutralize the attacker’s two main weapons, the left and right haymaker. This is a major disruption to his strategy and he’s forced to stop and consider a new strategy. Meanwhile you’re busy attacking.
-
Forward pressure – I touched on this earlier,
but I want to explain this further... it’s important.
My research has PROVED that the guy who most often wins
is the fighter who uses whatever means possible to initiate
surprise, get his opponent back-peddling, then continues
forward pressure against his opponent. You do NOT want
to let up.
Keep yourself in a fluid state and fire continuous shots at open targets, never “letting up” your attack until he’s been removed as a threat or you’ve had the chance to escape effectively. Watching raw video of real streetfights has further proved this point and demonstrated a certain rhythm to it (it’s typically a wham, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam -- fight over). The incoming shots are like clockwork with little or no pause to “assess” the damage.
The two most critical elements for effective Destruction are, 1) target selection and, 2) how you’ll strike that target. The key is to attack the targets that’ll give you the most bang for the buck – ie targets that’ll produce instant results with high-damage potential.
What’s surprising is that even an unsuccessful attack on a high damage target so “disrupts” your opponent’s evil plans (spinning up his internal dialogue) that he’s suddenly putty in your hands.
For example, Fight-Fast instructor Tom Cruse points out that many times the “elbow snap” technique (designed to break your opponents elbow) does not always break the elbow. But the horrid reality that you attempted to bust his arm like a twig is so disturbing to your opponent that his “internal dialog” can turn him into that deer in the headlights. This can all but shut down his ability to vigorously fight back as he unconsciously switches to a more defensive mode.
This is the value of high-damage targets. If you succeed (break his elbow for example) in most cases the fight’s over (although I’ve seen determined fighters battle with a broken arm flopping in the wind, so don’t take that for granted). On the other hand if you don’t succeed, the “Surprise and Shock” value is high and triggers his internal dialogue. In that case you can take advantage of his hesitation and continue your forward pressure attack.
Now busting up people is serious business that involves one or more of the following: blood, hospitals, jails and morgues. So you must ask yourself a couple of questions. The first is:
“Am I willing to hurt this person?”
You’d better be damn sure that what you’re about to inflict on this guy will be justifiable in front of a judge.
Ask yourself this before any confrontation as pondering this question during a confrontation is bad idea. You need to be clear about what will trigger an all out attack from you and what you’ll simply walk away from.
Okay... assuming there’s a definite threat and you’ve answered the first question “yes” – you must act. So the second question is:
“What is my target?”
The next question is.
“What is my next target?”
And so on. Keep going until the threat has ended or you have the chance to get the hell outta there.
There's a lot more ground to cover -- so stay with me.
Til next time...
Bob Pierce
Head Honcho, TRS/FightFast
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