Fighting It seems there is an increased interest in learning about fighting on the street. I base that on the number of emails we get on the subject. Street fighting for the purpose of learning how to pick fights or to gang fight is not our interest. So when I get these type of emails I never even respond. Some, however, are really interested in self defense or responding to a street attack or fight. There is a big difference. This website is dedicated to self defense and opposed to street fighting. Learning fighting techniques for the street can be a diverse issue. Winning on the Street is an interesting example. The ads for that product either get rave reviews or hate letters. Most of these come from martial artists who believe their martial arts techniques will always work in a street confrontation. Most of us have heard of black belts fighting someone on the street and getting their butt kicked. This is sometimes due to their false security that their dojo fighting techniques will really work in real self defense. Most martial artists are not familiar with adrenal stress conditioning. They have never trained under duress so when a real fighting situation occurs they are shocked to find they cannot access their multi-step, fine motor coordination techniques. Most traditional arts train with what I call the "dojo" mentality. Their self defense training is static. The "uke" or attacker rarely does more than take a swing or grab the defender. There is usually no movement and the reactions that take place when various strikes are applied in real life, are ignored. Most traditional training is totally technique based. Good self defense training is a combination of technique training and scenario based training. The military, the police and even fire departments train using scenario based training. This is the only way to experience anything close to real fighting.

Shihan Michael Pace

For more information about realistic self defense, visit www.easy-self-defense.com.