The Fight Before the Fight

(from a recent post on Facebook by Mr. Sascha Williams)

I created a new post on this subject for clarification, as this is an important aspect of street readiness.

The statement of this post is very accurate, although typically misunderstood. And it is based on concepts contained in Ed Parker's Kenpo.

But it's not magic, or chi, or anything supernatural at all.

The tactics, prior to actual contact with an opponent are, however, crucial in nullifying the opponent's tools. In virtually every street fight, there's a "fight before the fight", but only experienced fighters are good at this. Most others fight more or less blindly.

We can observe some of this in point fighting. As a matter of fact, it is one of the best reasons to engage in point fighting as preparation for real fighting. The best point fighters are masters at making their opponent miss. A bad one, in contrast, will run into strikes, while desperately focusing on his/her own attack.

A good point fighter will rarely agree with the opponent's timing of engagement. What I mean by that is that a good fighter will not let their opponent determine WHEN the two of them will meet in fighting range.

A good fighter knows how to never be at the receiving end of the attacker's best entry technique. If your opponent suddenly charges forward with his best attack, that is often (but not always) the WORST moment to counter. It's a much better strategy to thwart the opponent's efforts by changing position, or creating distance, or keeping the attacker in check.

In comparison, most less experienced fighters will attempt to "match" the opponent's timing and strike back at the exact same moment that he approaches.

For anyone who has seen Frank Trejo's famous scene at the IKCs, where he simply shuffles back to avoid a kicking attack, but then quickly shuffles forward with his punch, that video demonstrates my point perfectly.

Frank won that exchange long before he punched. He set a trap for his opponent by shuffling back. That caused the opponent to: 1. Abandon his present attack, and 2. Wrongly believe that he must first advance further forward before being able to strike again.

In other words, the attacker is walking into a simple trap. Frank "convinced" him that the moment that the two would meet would be later than first anticipated, and further back in the ring than the opponent thought.

But in reality, that was a deception. (Mr. Parker labeled this a "depth deception", as there are also width and height deceptions.) So the factor that made Frank's tactic superior to his opponent's tactic, was 100% PRIOR to touching his opponent.

I have been in many street fights, but also a lot of point fights. And while most other aspects of point fighting are not nearly as practical for actual street defense, this particular one nevertheless is.

In a street situation, the major difference being that a trap can be set differently, often achievable by controlling angles and positional checking, rather than only controlling distance and timing.

For example, if an inexperienced attacker gets "in your face",( close enough to see his cavities), and remains unprotected, with his chest puffed out, and if he does that while allowing us to get into a "hidden" fighting stance (stepping one foot back, bringing one hand high, so basically a fighting stance that doesn't actually look like a fighting stance, but yet provides us the protection and readiness of a fighting stance), well, then we are now in a much better position than him, and it let's us know that he is probably not aware of his vulnerability (if he's still standing too close, with his chest puffed out, and totally unprotected, since an experienced fighter is very unlikely to take that risk.)

So just by repositioning ourselves and observing our opponent's ability to identify the danger he is now in, we then get the information we need to more accurately estimate our chances of success.

No touching yet, but the jockeying for position made us a winner of the "fight before the fight", and increased our chances of victory dramatically.