How to win a bar fight?

[Wondering Beard]

Y'all are crazy. I've headbutted one person in my life and it's a good thing we were messing around because I had to stand still and wait for the world to stop spinning. No way I'd do it out on da skreetz. The few fights I've been in (and won) either ended with a single haymaker or I was able to let them tire themselves out then have my turn. I have ZERO fighting skills. My strategy is to be tougher than him and wait for him to get tired of bashing my face in. I really really wanna take some jujitsu one day.

It looks like the part of your forehead you hit with was just above the eyebrows.

[okie john]

http://fearlessmen.com/how-to-win-a-bar-fight/

Interesting quote: "Absolutely don’t introduce a weapon unless you’re outgunned and outnumbered."
Most of this seems like good advice, except maybe the quote from above.
Cody

Let's keep in mind that we're talking about an article from a site that helps people become better men. And that the first headline you get under the Grow tab is "Easy All Natural Solutions to Common Skin Care Issues for Men".

Probably not the best place to get advice about any aspect of a bar fight.


Okie John

[NickA]

It's all in making contact at the hairline.

Where it is now, or where it was 10 years ago? 😀

[Byron]

Y'all are crazy. I've headbutted one person in my life and it's a good thing we were messing around because I had to stand still and wait for the world to stop spinning.

Technique makes a massive difference.

If you ask the average [untrained] person to deliver a head butt, they will use their neck to pull their head back and whip it forward. Bad idea! Bad for the neck, bad for the brain, prone to break your own nose... and not very powerful. This is really just bumping heads with someone and hoping you fare slightly better.

There are numerous ways to use the head butt more safely and far more effectively. One nasty example, if it comes across OK in text...

- Grab opponent to stabilize them (for example, a Muay Thai style neck grab)
- Drop your weight for a rapid level change (imagine trying to lift both of your feet off the ground at the same time and gravity pulling you down into a squatting position)
- Now pull his neck/face down with your arms while explosively driving upward with your legs
- Your head should remain level, facing forward, neck locked so that as you explode upwards, the front/top of your skull (hairline, as misanthropist aptly describes it) drives into his chin/face.

While using your head as a weapon always carries risk, you're far less likely to concuss yourself with this method. You're using your strongest muscles to propel your body mass into your opponent's face, with a robust section of your skull as the striking surface.

It's also something that can be done in very tight space with far less warning than a haymaker or other traditional "bar brawl" move.

That's not to say you need to go and practice head butting: just that a properly delivered head butt is far more devastating than the average person realizes.

[orionz06]

Lol, Krav Muh Derp.


Sent from my Nokia 3310 using an owl

[NEPAKevin]

Probably not the best place to get advice about any aspect of a bar fight.


Okie John

The only best place to get advice about any aspect of a bar fight. May he rest peacefully.



ETA: IIRC, video is probably NSFW

[Hatchetman]

Technique makes a massive difference.

If you ask the average [untrained] person to deliver a head butt, they will use their neck to pull their head back and whip it forward. Bad idea! Bad for the neck, bad for the brain, prone to break your own nose... and not very powerful. This is really just bumping heads with someone and hoping you fare slightly better.

There are numerous ways to use the head butt more safely and far more effectively. One nasty example, if it comes across OK in text...

- Grab opponent to stabilize them (for example, a Muay Thai style neck grab)
- Drop your weight for a rapid level change (imagine trying to lift both of your feet off the ground at the same time and gravity pulling you down into a squatting position)
- Now pull his neck/face down with your arms while explosively driving upward with your legs
- Your head should remain level, facing forward, neck locked so that as you explode upwards, the front/top of your skull (hairline, as misanthropist aptly describes it) drives into his chin/face.

While using your head as a weapon always carries risk, you're far less likely to concuss yourself with this method. You're using your strongest muscles to propel your body mass into your opponent's face, with a robust section of your skull as the striking surface.

It's also something that can be done in very tight space with far less warning than a haymaker or other traditional "bar brawl" move.

That's not to say you need to go and practice head butting: just that a properly delivered head butt is far more devastating than the average person realizes.

Yeah, that's a scary good/devastating one. I'm tall--6'6"--and the prevailing wisdom back in the day was that tall people couldn't headbutt. I beg to differ.

Back then I used to play a lot of sandlot football and "spearing," now illegal, was one of my favorite techniques. A spear is basically a headbutt to the center of mass, usually off a sprint. One of my idols, #46 Doug Plank, was a spear master:



Wasn't hard to convert spear mechanics into headbutts. Note a couple of Planks hits show him using the side of his head for his spear. That was my favorite technique: some drunk reaching in on me, I'd straight arm him back, he'd clutch and try pull me in, at which point I'd pull him in while planting the lead side of my head above the temple into the center of his face.

Please note: back in those days there were few blood borne pathogens that couldn't be handled by a dose of penicillin. Well executed headbutts leave those on the receiving end bloody, and could scuff you up, too (another reason to use the side of your head: so a wound doesn't drip into your eyes). As others have pointed out, hanging out places where there is a high likelihood of unfriendly contact is silly, and techniques where your blood could mix with some unknown dirtbag's are sillier still. As such I'd be wary of executing a headbutt, regardless of their efficacy.

[Kyle Reese]

I didn't read the linked article, and perhaps I'm a pussy, but I win bar fights by not getting into bar fights.

There is that. It's also easy to win a bar fight by not going to bars.

[cclaxton]

Cody,

From what I gather, you're a pretty good shooter, right? I would imagine disciplined practice was the main driver of your success. You could talk grip, trigger press, sight alignment, caliber, gun types, etc until you're blue in the face, but it wouldn't fill a thimble of your success bucket as compared to the amount of time you spent 'just doing it'.

I know you've been studying KM and that's not my bag, so that's on you, but here's my 3 cents:

1) Just like pistol work, there is no magic to learning self-defense.
2) Just like pistol work, hard work beats chasing a fad. KM, IMO, the way most people sell/teach it, is just that. It's an add on for many places to 'sell' the unsuspecting new guy. No offense, but that's how I see it. I think it was Cecil or someone else on TPI that said KM is no good without already having a delivery system like BJJ, boxing, wrestling and maybe even TMA.
3) I'm a TMA guy and that takes a lot of flack from certain folks and I'm okay with that. Because just like I'm the guy who only owns one pistol platform (5 years+), I not only know what I can do, but I know what I can't do.

I think if you apply the above 3 principals to your self-defense study, you'd be a leg up. What I would do at 41 years old and spending my whole life studying martial arts should not be what you do.

Make sense?

The KM I belong to also does BJJ. I will be joining the BJJ group once I get to my next level in KM. The guys who teach are the real deal, most active duty LE/Mil: http://kravmaganova.com/Instructors#.VkZwFHarTcv
I think I am in the right place.
I do think there are some KM clubs that don't have the same support by LE/Mil.
Cody

[MVS]

After actually reading the article, it isn't all that bad considering the target audience. Yes he does over emphasis the effectiveness of pain "compliance". What is wrong with recommending eye gouges? Craig Douglass does. As long as we realize that isn't the total answer. His elbows high advice sounds very similar to CM which Cecil at least used to be involved in I believe. The groin thing, well ya. It is not really a serious fighting article I don't think but more of an attitude thing. People who have a lot of experience or training in this area of course are going to have a lot to add or take away, but most people haven't been in a fight since high school if even then. Even though we all think we are the toughest guy in the room. Perhaps those are the people he is addressing.