Writing About Fighting: Hand To Hand Combat: Part Three
Hello friends, welcome to my third installment of my blog series covering some lesser known facts about fighting for all my creative friends who either want to write or film good fight scenes…So without further ado, let’s dive right in.
1. High kicks are high risk high reward.
You’ll see it all the time in films and TV shows, a person does a spinning heel kick to the face, or a tornado kick that’s an immediate KO. These actually sometimes do happen in fights and they actually can be stunning knock-outs, the problem with them though, is three-fold. First is that they are very difficult to pull off. You probably won’t be able to pull them off in a fight unless you train for years in an art that specializes in these kicks. Second is that with every high kick in every fight is that they are always high risk. You’re putting yourself off balance and opening yourself up for sweeps and throws every time you kick high. The third problem is that they require a lot of energy. The more you throw, the quicker you tire, simple as that, and with these strikes, you expend more energy than most traditional strikes.
2. Beginners throw haymakers, fighters throw straights.
This is a simple point. Pretty much every beginner who’s never fought or never trained will rely on large looping punches. These blows, called haymakers by fighters, are extremely powerful and are natural gross motor movements for your body so even someone who’s never clinched a fist can throw one with ease. The opposite side of this is that if someone throws a straight punch (the Jab and Cross) it’s usually an indicator that they’ve had at least some training. Though often not as powerful as the looping haymakers, straights are fantastic punches, because the shortest distance in a fight is a straight line.
3. Anything can be a weapon.
This is really as simple as that first line. You can make anything into a weapon with a little imagination. Jackie Chan is probably the master of this, but though he uses it to comedic effect in his movies, this is something that could seriously save your life. A scarf can become a tool to keep distance and in the hands of a skilled user, can be a tool for choking and throws. A sock with a rock in it is an excellent improvised weapon. A purse can be used to beat someone over the head, or as a shield against a knife attack. Paper tightly rolled up, especially a magazine, can be as hard as a wooden club. So remember, when you need to defend yourself, everything is a weapon.
4. Knives.
Contrary to what you see in a lot of films, most knife fights aren’t beautiful kata filled affairs. They are dirty, ugly, and filled with a lot of crazy stabbing, and unless you are a soldier or have trained for years, you’re going to get cut, most likely deeply and badly. If you can run, always run when facing a knife. That being said, as with most everything in fighting, a professional will usually actually fair better against another professional with a knife than an amateur, because the professional moves in patterns that others can recognize. Newbies fight messy and often that messiness will take out lower to lower mid level fighters.
5. Kicking the nuts won’t always win you the fight.
A VERY common mistake that you’ll see everywhere, from movies, to self defense classes, to every single thing in between is that you kick a man in his genitals and he’s out, he’ll stop fighting and you can run away and be safe. That simply isn’t true though. It’s true that shots to the genitals hurt, they hurt a LOT, but they aren’t always fight enders. Just as often as not in a fight, the man will simple push past the pain, or simply not feel it and continue attacking. When the adrenaline is pumping the brain actually sometimes delays the pain and it can take up to nearly ten seconds for the brain to even comprehend that the genitals have been hit. I know this one from personal experience after having been kicked there by someone twice my size, but still I had him thrown on the cement before I felt even the slightest hint of pain. So, though the genitals are a real and effective target, don’t ever expect that to win you the fight.
Anyway, that’s all for now. If you have any questions or want to know more details, feel free to comment and I’ll address them in further posts. Be blessed y’all!
-M. Anthony Harris