Exploration of Modern Street Fighting Female vs. Female (Unarmed) December 21, 2014
The familiar phrase; “Act like a lady” is heard in most homes throughout the world but what happens when “ladies” don’t behave in a civilized manner? There is a clear degradation of common civility in American culture that pervades every socioeconomic class and ethnic group. The current social climate is yielding a generation of young women who are more physically aggressive and prone to violence than in past generations. In previous generations women were expected to conform to socially accepted behaviors that required subservience to men and restricted them to specific gender roles but the modern era has opened most occupations to women and relaxed these gender specific norms to the benefit of women economically and socially but has also drawn them into the predominantly male competitive environment. The result is a more economically and socially independent woman but one who also feels less pressure to conform to societal rules therefore more historically male aggressive behavior like fighting is becoming more prevalent.
In the sporting world, states and municipalities have gone to great lengths to ensure that sporting events like wrestling, boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts are fairly conducted. Participants must be of equal weight, same gender, and pass strict medical examinations to ensure that neither side has an unfair advantage. Head butts, biting; knees to downed opponents and blows to the back of the head have all been made illegal because of their absolute effectiveness but outright disdain among fans. What happens when unsupervised and untrained people fail to reach an agreement with words and decided to resort to the violence of our ancestors?
In this study, we set out to explore the real physical actions that occur between common women when an organic fight occurs. In order to further study the specific subject of “fair fights”, we decided to use a medium that has never been available before to study the sequence of events that leads to a physical fight and the results. In prior years, martial arts students learned about physical conflict from first hand experiences of their teachers and second or third hand accounts retold from others. The deficiency in these accounts is that they are subject to interpretation and omission. A picture is truly worth a thousand words and a video is worth a million so we went to YouTube to study modern conflicts in real time.
In order to specifically study the individual one-on-one conflicts, we set parameters to reduce the fights to a specifically measurable set of standards. Below are the parameters used to narrow fights to a specific type for detailed study;
1. Twenty common fighting occurrences were observed in each of thirty fights. 2. All fights were one-on-one between female combatants between the ages of 13-50. 3. All fights were observed from prefight posturing to separation of the fighters. 4. No weapons were involved. 5. Only fights between untrained participants were used in the study. 6. No obvious alcohol or drug impairment was discernible. 7. No fighter was cornered or placed in a must fight position. 8. Both fighters were of similar size. (Within 25-50bs.) 9. The shortest fight lasted 19 seconds and the longest lasted 116 seconds. 10. All national and ethnic groups were included. 11. Weather conditions and surfaces did not play a role in the selection. The individual fights were then observed and timed. A comparison of the outcomes of each fight is included for further review in Table 1.
Observations 1. All fights could have been avoided with a simple exit (walk away). 2. Women don’t close in within striking range as often as men but rather stand-off at five to ten feet before engaging. 3. The aggressor “won” about fifty percent of the fights. 4. The larger fighter won about sixty percent of the fights even if she did not initiate. 5. None of the fights ended in a first punch knockout (KO) because women seldom stand close enough to use a “sucker punch” and they lacked power and accuracy to achieve a knockout when they did attempt it. 6. Sixty percent of fights began with a rush toward each other instead of a fighting stance. 7. Thirty percent of fights began with a hair pull. 8. Seventy-three percent of fights involved a hair pull that took one fighter to the ground. 9. Less than ten percent of fights involved effective kicks, knees or punching combinations but were effective when used. 10. Ninety-three percent of fights involved clinches or mutual hair pulling. 11. Conditioning played a deciding role in twenty percent of fights. 12. Eighty percent of fights involved both fighters on the ground. 13. One-Hundred percent of fights where a top mount was achieved ended in victory for top fighter. Eighty percent of fighters were able to eventually top-mount and defeat opponents. 14. The use of hair to throw or pull the opponent to the ground was the most effective takedown and usually signaled the turning point of the fight for the person pulled down because it made accurate punching and top-mounting easier for the standing fighter.
Conclusions
In the study of self-defense, the evidence clearly suggests that training women for self-defense in the same way we train men is not providing them with complete training. For women, there needs to be an extra or supplemental series of skills developed to meet the need for defense against hair pulling because it is such a prevalent difference in the way they fight. What we clearly learned is that men have predominantly been training men to deal with male conflict and trying to teach women the same skills under the assumption that both genders fight the same way. This assumption is wrong.
Our findings: 1. All fights involved two willing participants with an ability to walk away. 2. Women don’t invade one another’s personal space nearly as often as men but rather stand back at five to ten foot distance until they decide to engage. 3. The aggressor loses as often as she wins. 4. The larger fighter wins a slight majority of the time. 5. The fighter who gains a grip on the hair and controls the hair wins a majority of fights. 6. Knockouts and solidly landed punches from standing positions were rare because women did not possess the strength to knock one another out when they made contact and the fighter with the hair control usually pulled the opponents head down to a waist high position which negated their own ability to land punches to the face and jaw area required to achieve a knockout. 7. The victors rarely showed mercy or any willingness to cease their attack once they gained an advantage. 8. Strikes to the back of downed or injured opponents were commonplace. 9. An overwhelming majority of fights ended with both fighters on the ground largely due to the fact that one fighter pulled the other down to the ground and was then pulled down by her own hair as she attempted to finish the downed fighter or they both lost balance and ended up on the ground by mutual hair pulling. 10. Even the fighters who were clearly better strikers opted to use the hair to gain control of the opponent in order to shorten the fight and reduce damage to themselves. 11. There was little or no biting or scratching used as effective techniques in female fights.
Summary
Training women for self-defense has historically assumed that they would use the skills against male attackers which is acceptable but incomplete. This study reveals something that the male oriented martial arts teaching world has largely ignored. The use of hair pulling as a method of gaining control of a woman in conflict is a much more likely problem for women than previously expected. Not only do women use hair pulling to control each other but adding the availability of it for men increases the likelihood of it for women substantially. A woman’s hair can place her at a great disadvantage in both same gender and inter-gender conflicts. This is clearly not new information but it is also not being taught at any substantial level in self-defense schools with regard to its probability of occurrence. If all women had short hair then the results of this study would probably more closely resemble the results of the male study but short hair is not the norm for women. Further, in the MMA world, female MMA fighters have learned how important head control is and do not want to escheat it to opponents so they either cut the hair short or braid it closely to the head. There is also an accepted assumption that women scratch and bite during fights but this study shows no empirical support for these techniques in the twenty fights observed. This would lead to the question of how often and how effective eye-gouging, scratching and biting would be in self-defense for anything other than a distraction since women do not use it against one another in fights. We theorize that women use biting and scratching more as a defensive measure when cornered or as a means of escape rather than attack.
What we learned: 1. Avoid physical confrontations when possible. 2. Walking away is a readily available opportunity in most cases. 3. Maintain your personal space out to five feet when being confronted. 4. Do not hesitate to raise your hands at least chest high when your personal space is encroached to prevent or deflect incoming punches and hair pulling. 5. If you must engage someone, do not stop when the person is felled, strike until they submit or stop resisting you. 6. Basic ground fighting skills are invaluable when you are in actual fighting situations. 7. Women need to learn to combat the hair pulling that occurs in almost all female fights. 8. Conditioning plays at least a cursory role in the outcome of female fights despite their brief nature. 9. Female fights lasted slightly longer than male fights because there were no knockouts so the fights went to the ground more often and lasted longer requiring better endurance.
Recommendations 1. Women should be given more training in dealing with hair pulling. a. Defense against the initial grab and unbalancing. b. Defense against the takedown after being pulled to the ground. c. Defense against the use of the hair to control the head from the back position. 2. Women need to be better trained at regaining control of their balance when hair is pulled. Women need be more skilled at using 3. Uppercut punches and knees against the hair pulling which will be used against male and female fighters. 4. Women need to have more basic skills in grappling to reverse being top-mounted and to maintain top-mount when they achieve it. 5. Women need new training methods that help simulate the effects of having their hair and subsequently their head and field of vision controlled while fighting. a. Train more using Muy Tai clinches to simulate head control. b. Use a towel in an inverted “U” around the neck of top-mounted fighter to simulate having the hands free but the head controlled. c. Use a towel under one are and around opposite shoulder to simulate being pulled forward to the ground and escaping. d. Develop techniques specifically for use against having the head pulled forward and controlled like Muy Tai clinch, uppercuts and knee strikes to the face.
W. Shane Francis Program Director Pensacola Martial Arts.
Exploration of Modern Street Fighting Male vs. Male (Unarmed) November 27, 2014
Americans love freedom and equality. Maybe that’s why we are so enamored with the idea of two clinched-jawed gentlemen solving a vigorous disagreement with the time honored exchange of fisticuffs known as a “fair fight”. Apparently winning the fight validates the victors’ argument but it seems to be an exercise in futility because the vanquished fighter rarely accepts the defeat and changes his opinion. What exactly constitutes a “fair fight”? Does it still exist among the common man of today or was it always a romanticized cinematic ideal?
In the sporting world, states and municipalities have gone to great lengths to ensure that sporting events like wrestling, boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts are fairly conducted. Participants must be of equal weight, same gender, and pass strict medical examinations to ensure that neither side has an unfair advantage. Head butts, biting; knees to downed opponents and blows to the back of the head have all been made illegal because of their absolute effectiveness but outright disdain among fans. What happens when unsupervised and untrained people fail to reach an agreement with words and decided to resort to the violence of our ancestors?
In this study, we set out to explore the real physical actions that occur between common men when an organic fight happens. In order to further study the specific subject of “fair fights”, we decided to use a medium that has never been available before to study the sequence of events that leads to a physical fight and the results. In prior years, martial arts students learned about physical conflict from first hand experiences of their teachers and second or third hand accounts retold from others. The deficiency in these accounts is that they are subject to interpretation and omission. A picture is truly worth a thousand words and a video is worth a million so we went to YouTube to study modern conflicts in real time.
In order to specifically study the individual one-on-one conflicts, we set parameters to reduce the fights to a specifically measurable set of standards. Below are the parameters used to narrow fights to a specific type for detailed study;
1. Twenty common fighting occurrences were observed in each of thirty fights. 2. All fights were one-on-one between male combatants between the ages of 13-50. 3. All fights were observed from prefight posturing to separation of the fighters. 4. No weapons were involved. 5. Only fights between untrained participants were used in the study. 6. No obvious alcohol or drug impairment was discernible. 7. No fighter was cornered or place in a must fight position. 8. Both fighters were of similar size. (within 50-75bs.) 9. The shortest fight lasted 2 seconds and the longest lasted 136 seconds. 10. All national and ethnic groups were included. 11. Weather conditions and surfaces did not play a role in the selection. 12. Fights where alcohol was noticeably affecting either person were excluded.
The individual fights were then observed and timed. A comparison of the outcomes of each fight is included for further review in Table 1.
Observations We have included a list of observations made from the data collected from the fights.
1. All fights could have been avoided with a simple exit (walk away). 2. Forty percent of participants were standing within three feet of one another with both parties having their hands down to the side or below the waist when the first blow was thrown. 3. The aggressor “won” about fifty percent of the fights. 4. The larger fighter won about sixty percent of the fights even if he did not start them. 5. Five fights ended in a first punch knockout (KO) when the hands were down to the side. 6. Four ended with a KO when the two fighters both started in a fighting stance. 7. Twenty one of thirty (70%) fights ended with the victor standing and the loser on the ground. 8. Nine of thirty (30%) fights ended with both fighters on the ground and one fighter punching down from a mounted position. 9. Due to the short duration of the fights, conditioning played little role in the outcome. 10. Kicks, knees and stomps were very effective but rarely used. Only three fights involved kicks knees or stomps but they ended all three. 11. Thirteen of thirty (43%) fights involved effective punch combinations. 12. “Sucker punches/haymakers” from inside three feet were highly effective and ended five of nine fights. 13. “Sucker punches/haymakers” from outside three feet were less accurate and often missed or did little damage to the victim. 14. Six of thirty fights involved tackles, throws or takedowns. None of these techniques ended the fight and only three of six effected the ultimate outcome. (Note: Some of the observed fights involved a throw that ended the fight but they were excluded from the study because there was outside intervention on the foot that precluded full study of the end of the fight.)
Conclusions Some of the most popular anecdotal theories about how fights start and end are not supported by these observations. They are either no longer the normal occurrences or were never accurately evidenced. The information included in this study is intended to shed light upon the true nature of unscripted and spontaneous conflict so that instructors can better understand and use this information to improve teaching methods for self-defense. The study is executed with sufficient specificity to allow it to be recreated and tested by other members of the martial arts teaching community. The findings will either validate or invalidate long held perceptions and opinions about the nature of self-defense.
Our findings:
1. All fights involved two willing participants with an ability to walk away. 2. Even knowing that emotions were high and personal space was invaded, participants failed to take the two most basic self- defense steps available. Create space and raise your hands. They regularly paid the price. 3. The aggressor loses as often as he wins. 4. The larger fighter wins a majority of the time. 5. Unskilled people who had their hands up and three to five feet of space were difficult to take down and defeat even against larger fighters. 6. One third of the fights ended with a single punch knockout, one third ended with a knock down and a follow on punch or kick from standing aggressor that ended the fight, and one third ended with the victor top mounted on the loser ending the fight with “ground and pound”. 7. The victors rarely showed mercy or any willingness to cease their attack once they gained an advantage. 8. Strikes to the back of downed and or injured opponents were commonplace. 9. All of the fights ended with the victor either standing over the loser or mounted atop them. No fighter won from the lower position.
Summary In the study of self defense, the evidence clearly supports avoidance, distance, a solid fighting stance, and the ability to maneuver on the ground as key factors.
What we learned:
1. Avoid physical confrontations when possible. 2. Walking away is a readily available opportunity in most cases. 3. Maintain your personal space out to five feet when being confronted. 4. Do not hesitate to raise your hands at least chest high when your personal space is encroached. 5. If you must engage someone, do not stop when the person is felled, strike until they submit or stop resisting you. 6. Basic ground fighting skills are invaluable when you are in actual fighting situation. (Nine out of nine fights that ended on the ground were ended by a top mount.) 7. The average fighter is highly inaccurate after the first punch is thrown.
W. Shane Francis Program Director, Pensacola Martial Arts.