Can u learn to fight / defend yourself from home?

[finnegan]

To the OP : NO. Any online program offering to make you a killer at home is a lie.

To Path: holy crap that line was the funniest thing ive read this week. Bravo sir.

[speedy]

Wondered where this thread went! Yeah i understand what you guys are saying, but i've boxed before as well as kickboxed, have decent technique and know how to punch, I'm literally just talking in terms of potential street confrontations...

So did a lot of other people till they sparred with someone TRAINED and then they got a reality check. However, I don't know you past this forum and what you say may be true. But if I played the odds you probably aren't as good as you think. But in the end none of us will know that and that can easily be tested in a sparring session.

I can't tell you how many people I seen walk into a kickboxing gym as well as a boxing gym and let us know they have experience they know how to punch and then after 1 sparring session most of the time we never see them again. Get the point?

Dude, the answer is no.

I find it hard to believe that if someone dedicated 20 minutes a day to slip bag training, shadow boxing and other at-home boxing drills, they would have no advantage over someone who doesn't train to fight.

You are ASSUMING you are doing it correctly. The only way to be sure is being trained by someone that knows their shit. But if you continue to argue with us, clearly you are someone that just wants to read what you want to read and then get all up in arms when we give you the brutal truth. Good luck!

[pathfighter]

Shia, remember who you are training to fight on the street. They will often be younger, stronger, more athletic, have less to lose. They may be insane or on drugs. Almost certainly they will be vicious animals, the like of which you don't normally encounter in everyday life. They move, they have weapons, they're unpredictable, they hit, bite, gouge. They attack in groups. They take you by surprise. They won't hesitate to drive a thumb into your brain, or to crack your skull open on the sidewalk. They won't stop when you get knocked down. They're trying to kill you, eat you.

Good luck with your shadow boxing.

[speedy]

[finnegan]

Obviously I know the best thing would be to join a boxing club again, but thats not an option, at least not until September time. Im not interested in becoming a war machine, but just perhaps giving myself the upper hand (regardless of how slight) when it comes to defending myself if needs be

What are the circumstances preventing you from going to a boxing gym ?

Theres been alot of controversy in bjj community over promoting people just via online. Its horrible. Show me an online belt guy that has won anything. You need to feel the other fighter. I have never boxed but its the same thing. We can drill or hit speed bag or heavy bag but even in your post you question hitting the heavy bag.

I dont know the totality of your circumstances but please dont take offense it sounds as though you are overestimating your abilities. Thats why we need sparring, rolling partners. Especially ones that are better than us. They keep us right size.

As for the 5lbs to knock someone out I have never heard that. Sure maybe Im the guy that it takes 5lbs or less to knock out or maybe you meet the guy where it takes 5 guys hitting him to knock him out.

[Canis Caelorum]

Also, I'd like to just add that the idea that "thugs" or those involved in criminal lifestyles are always going to be untrained is a fallacy. A lot of those guys do go out and train in various MAs etc. and their skills are arguably made more formidable by the applicatory environments in which they use them; they're not all like that, but I know quite a few guys who are. Then again, if you're in a situation where they're looking to do you a mischief you fucked up a long time ago...

Personally I think the majority of "self defense" situations that the average man is likely to encounter, is from drunk young men in the bar; your greatest weapon of defense is situational awareness and common sense in this case.

For what you are wanting to gain/obtain you will need to go and train in a gym with people. If you then decide to supplement this training with some video stuff, then that is a different story. Freddie Roach's videos are quite good and not overcomplicated, good supplementally IMHO. A video isn't going to give you critical feedback, make live adjustments to your stance/movement/balance/angles and so on. A video can only show things from a 2 dimensional angle, whereas IRL you are dealing with a 3 dimensional dynamic sphere of bodyspace.

You mention you've boxed and kickboxed before, how long did you do either one for and were you competing frequently or just training casually?

You say "making sure my punches/hand eye coordination/footwork and headmovement are still up to scratch if I ever find myself in a situation where I have to defend myself." The most efficient way to do this is going to be live sparring IMHO. And as you've mentioned it's been confrontations with drunk/disorderly types I'd highly recommend doing some stuff to develop the "top 2 inches" for this kind of thing as well. If you can lay hands on it, Rory Miller wrote a book called Meditations on Violence which has some really good concepts for handling some of these kind of situations using deescalation techniques; for me my personal "lines of defense" would go like this (progressing to the next one only if the previous one has failed):
Avoidance (ie. situational awareness etc., I can see/tell it's a bad environment, some of the guys are getting too drunk and agitated, Spidey senses are tingling, whatever so I move on to another bar or call it a night or do whatever to remove myself from the potential negative situation before it's even begun. Why spoil a good time on someone else's bullshit?)
Verbal/non-confrontational deescalation (ie. I didn't leave when I should've, or things escalated too quickly to do so, situation sprung up unexpectedly or whatever, so now I start employing some of the aforementioned stuff from Miller's book. Things like identifying the situation are very important - is this guy just posturing or looking for self-validation? A lot of drunk young men are just doing that, Miller refers to it as the "monkey dance". You can sidestep it some of the time, like a guy teeing off with "what are you looking at?" Miller suggests responding with something to defuse things such as "Oh your shirt, man, I used to have one just like it... My ex gave me that shirt... Man I hated that chick.." which can take the situation in another direction. Remaining calm and acting slightly bored with the situation as well (Miller calls this the "big dog strategy" or something along those lines) can help a lot for me when combined with targeted deescalation verbals.
Physical deescalation He's laid hands on me, or is about to. It's out of my hands now, there is going to be an altercation. I do my utmost to quickly restrain him using grappling and then start verbally attempting to deescalate while keeping him secure. Wrapping him up and saying "come on bro, I don't wanna fight you. Just chill out and I'll let you up, we'll get another beer. No drama". If it comes down to this, this has worked a LOT for me; if he's there with some buddies and you're worried about them turning on you sometimes it can help (in my experience) to immediately turn to them once you tangled him up and start saying shit like "bro, can you help me calm your mate down? Think he's just a bit too wasted, you wanna give me a hand and we'll get him up" or something like that. If you can get it in, it often defuses the other guys as you're being completely non-aggressive and showing that you're not looking to hurt their friend or fight him at all.
Neutralization All of the above didn't work, or the situation skipped right past them all. Choke him out. Or, in your case, drop him. Either way, it's not really until this stage that you even need to fight IMHO. I still prefer to use grappling at this point because if somebody calls the cops and the other dude's face looks like a stepped on tin of tomato paste I'm probably going up on charges. However if the cops are called and everyone around says all I did was try avoid the fight, and then when he wouldn't let up I held him down and then he stopped fighting (bystanders usually don't realize you choked him out unless it's a really overt choke), I'm probably not even going to be bothered by them beyond a couple questions; you can even often "deescalate" this hassle with comments like "Yeah, I think he just had a little too much, I'm sure he's a good guy, I'm not looking to press charges or anything" etc.

Of course, situations vary and it's never always like that but it's kind of a conceptual guideline for dealing with aggressive drunk dudes that has worked well for me more often than not. So being that that was a large part of your concern, I thought I'd mention it. Needless to say, it's a very condensed and concise version of the steps, there's a lot more to any of them than I can explain in a forum post, application IRL is varied and different every time and nothing in life is a step-by-step, and nothing works 100% of the time so YMMV. Hell, even my mileage has varied. But most of the time it's worked for me. If you like the sound of it though, or are interested, I'd suggest reading Miller's book if you can, and/or just thinking about the concepts and principles involved in what I've written up there, and how you can adapt them to suit yourself, your strengths and personality. Make your own steps.

And out of everything I've said here, the number one most important thing I think I need to mention is: Nothing works 100% of the time, and I have taken plenty of lumps. I'm not Superman or Robocop, I don't win every bar fight, shit doesn't always go my way. But in my experience using this kind of stuff exponentially increases the odds in my favor of it going my way.

All the best with your training, anyway.

[Canis Caelorum]

Theres been alot of controversy in bjj community over promoting people just via online. Its horrible. Show me an online belt guy that has won anything.

The online 10thP guys... they can't belt up unless they can show competition wins...

Just being cheeky, ha ha.

I agree with your point completely.

[tatertot]

Hi guys, I have a question for those of you experienced in boxing / fighting.


I recently watched the movie 'The Hurricane' with Denzel Washington and the scene below (plus hearing that one only needs 5lb of force to knock someone out) got me thinking about whether it is possible to 'turn yourself into a weapon' from the comfort of your own home with little to no equipment?

The scene in question

[youtube]9DjcKEwWIpY[/youtube]




If it only takes 5lb of force to knock someone out, it makes me think heavy bag work isn't necessary to be able to do damage - more important would be hand eye coordination and technique/knowing how to throw a punch correctly, I would have thought.

I used to box for two years and developed decent technique, footwork and a basic knowledge of how to punch that has never left me, so I was wondering if it would be possible to hone, improve and become more efficient in boxing/defending myself with only things such as shadow boxing and a make-shift slip bag (I have actually hung a yoyo from my ceiling and use it to duck and dive, bob and weave as well as throw punches and combinations - sounds silly but works well).

So whats your guys opinions on this?

Obviously I know the best thing would be to join a boxing club again, but thats not an option, at least not until September time. Im not interested in becoming a war machine, but just perhaps giving myself the upper hand (regardless of how slight) when it comes to defending myself if needs be

This is just my opinion, but no.

Any type of combat skills are perishable. If you don't constantly work to better them, you will lose them. It is also very hard to replicate the stress of a fight by yourself. Possessing all the knowledge in the world on how to punch (using your example) means nothing if you piss down your leg the second someone else is throwing punches back at you.

No amount of shadow boxing etc I have ever done has come close to having a live sparring partner, and also a trainer/coach to help you along.

[Faust]

Shia, remember who you are training to fight on the street. They will often be younger, stronger, more athletic, have less to lose. They may be insane or on drugs. Almost certainly they will be vicious animals, the like of which you don't normally encounter in everyday life. They move, they have weapons, they're unpredictable, they hit, bite, gouge. They attack in groups. They take you by surprise. They won't hesitate to drive a thumb into your brain, or to crack your skull open on the sidewalk. They won't stop when you get knocked down. They're trying to kill you, eat you.

Good luck with your shadow boxing.

This is one of the best posts I ever read on these boards.