It's been a while. Hi, Bullshido. I got into a situation not so long back which makes for the kind of story these boards seem to crave, and I thought of you.
So, about a month ago, I went out drinking with a judo buddy, briefly bumped into some old BJJ friends in a nightclub, watched a bad film at his and downed whisky until late, and headed home at 3 am. I was somewhat drunk, I'd been out of training for a few months with a dose of athlete's foot arriving soon after the university club I normally train at closed for the summer, and I was heading through the rougher parts of Edinburgh's centre (Lothian Road, for the interested).
Two guys, one small, one fairly large, came toward me down the pavement, and the smaller one quite purposefully bumped into me as he went past. He called out angrily after me as he walked away. I have a longstanding habit of keeping my lip buttoned on these occasions, but I broke it with some dubiously witty retort.
He and his friend turned around and came toward me. I could and should have bolted, but instead backed off with my hands up, saying something along the lines of "hey, hey, two on one is hardly fair". The bigger one went out into the road to flank me. For some reason at that point I was hoping they'd have the grace to tackle me one on one. Instead, the bigger guy moved in and threw a haymaker at me.
I tried to grab the bigger guy, but he danced back and the other one came in. It proved hard to get my hands on them while they were both throwing punches - the smaller guy yelped, "he's trying to grab us" - and I ended up throwing a few feeble untrained punches and kicks of my own. At the very beginning I didn't really feel particularly vicious toward them. I took a few knocks to the head, but most of them probably hurt their hands more than my skull. I punched the smaller guy on the nose, got a fat lip and a bloody nose myself. A bigger blow to the side of the head from the larger of the two sent me reeling and with one hand on the pavement. He decided to kick me....
whereupon I took his leg and dropped him neatly to the pavement. I wasn't thinking terribly straight at this point, but was functioning exactly as I'd been trained. It might have helped if I was a little more tachiwaza focused, because it would have been sensible to get up and throw the little guy, but instead I found myself on top of the bigger fellow going for an armbar. I was adrenaline dumping pretty hard and really wanted to break his arm.
I got kicked in the side of the head, hard enough to leave a bruise for a couple of weeks. It was probably a factor in my failure to finish the armbar, along with the drink and the time out of training, but it didn't leave me any less determined. The big guy threshed about awkwardly, got his arm half loose.
As what I was doing filtered through the smaller guy's skull, he drew back and started to bluster. "You shouldn't have started a fight with us", he said, "we're cagefighters". They seemed pretty untrained to me, but my snarled response was "You're not the only fucking cagefighter round here."
The smaller guy's manner changed completely. "We weren't looking for trouble," he protested. "You bumped into us. We don't want a fight." I was too tired and sore and angry to enjoy his backpeddling. Someone else arrived behind me, having run across the street. "Break it up, break it up!" he demanded. I got off the bigger guy, got to my feet, turned and walked up the street with my head high and a little blood dripping from my nose. "Are you all right?" a woman at the corner of the road asked me. "I'm fine," I muttered, went home, and found the massive amount of adrenaline in my system had banished any prospect of sleep until well past dawn.
The really curious thing, though, thinking back on it now, is that even though I'd come out of a two on one fight with very minor bruising and them backing off, I was at that point terribly, terribly disappointed that I hadn't broken the guy's arm. If I had, chances are high that there'd have been a legal clusterfuck and a lot of nuisance even if I came out justified, and I knew that; but I so wanted to put one or both of them in hospital for picking a fight and not fighting fair.
Anyway, some things I found interesting about the fight:
- it was completely avoidable had I just ignored them, or run for it
- which habit I fully plan to get back into, it seems a good habit all round
- BJJ was a factor in getting me out of trouble with the big guy...
- ...but got me back into trouble because my reflex was to armbar rather than get up
- while I didn't really want to hurt them at the outset, I was okay with throwing them into the pavement in a friendly judo way
- being beat on by two untrained drunks at once was less painful than one might think
So, about a month ago, I went out drinking with a judo buddy, briefly bumped into some old BJJ friends in a nightclub, watched a bad film at his and downed whisky until late, and headed home at 3 am. I was somewhat drunk, I'd been out of training for a few months with a dose of athlete's foot arriving soon after the university club I normally train at closed for the summer, and I was heading through the rougher parts of Edinburgh's centre (Lothian Road, for the interested).
Two guys, one small, one fairly large, came toward me down the pavement, and the smaller one quite purposefully bumped into me as he went past. He called out angrily after me as he walked away. I have a longstanding habit of keeping my lip buttoned on these occasions, but I broke it with some dubiously witty retort.
He and his friend turned around and came toward me. I could and should have bolted, but instead backed off with my hands up, saying something along the lines of "hey, hey, two on one is hardly fair". The bigger one went out into the road to flank me. For some reason at that point I was hoping they'd have the grace to tackle me one on one. Instead, the bigger guy moved in and threw a haymaker at me.
I tried to grab the bigger guy, but he danced back and the other one came in. It proved hard to get my hands on them while they were both throwing punches - the smaller guy yelped, "he's trying to grab us" - and I ended up throwing a few feeble untrained punches and kicks of my own. At the very beginning I didn't really feel particularly vicious toward them. I took a few knocks to the head, but most of them probably hurt their hands more than my skull. I punched the smaller guy on the nose, got a fat lip and a bloody nose myself. A bigger blow to the side of the head from the larger of the two sent me reeling and with one hand on the pavement. He decided to kick me....
whereupon I took his leg and dropped him neatly to the pavement. I wasn't thinking terribly straight at this point, but was functioning exactly as I'd been trained. It might have helped if I was a little more tachiwaza focused, because it would have been sensible to get up and throw the little guy, but instead I found myself on top of the bigger fellow going for an armbar. I was adrenaline dumping pretty hard and really wanted to break his arm.
I got kicked in the side of the head, hard enough to leave a bruise for a couple of weeks. It was probably a factor in my failure to finish the armbar, along with the drink and the time out of training, but it didn't leave me any less determined. The big guy threshed about awkwardly, got his arm half loose.
As what I was doing filtered through the smaller guy's skull, he drew back and started to bluster. "You shouldn't have started a fight with us", he said, "we're cagefighters". They seemed pretty untrained to me, but my snarled response was "You're not the only fucking cagefighter round here."
The smaller guy's manner changed completely. "We weren't looking for trouble," he protested. "You bumped into us. We don't want a fight." I was too tired and sore and angry to enjoy his backpeddling. Someone else arrived behind me, having run across the street. "Break it up, break it up!" he demanded. I got off the bigger guy, got to my feet, turned and walked up the street with my head high and a little blood dripping from my nose. "Are you all right?" a woman at the corner of the road asked me. "I'm fine," I muttered, went home, and found the massive amount of adrenaline in my system had banished any prospect of sleep until well past dawn.
The really curious thing, though, thinking back on it now, is that even though I'd come out of a two on one fight with very minor bruising and them backing off, I was at that point terribly, terribly disappointed that I hadn't broken the guy's arm. If I had, chances are high that there'd have been a legal clusterfuck and a lot of nuisance even if I came out justified, and I knew that; but I so wanted to put one or both of them in hospital for picking a fight and not fighting fair.
Anyway, some things I found interesting about the fight:
- it was completely avoidable had I just ignored them, or run for it
- which habit I fully plan to get back into, it seems a good habit all round
- BJJ was a factor in getting me out of trouble with the big guy...
- ...but got me back into trouble because my reflex was to armbar rather than get up
- while I didn't really want to hurt them at the outset, I was okay with throwing them into the pavement in a friendly judo way
- being beat on by two untrained drunks at once was less painful than one might think
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