No Rules in a Streetfight

“There are no rules in a streetfight.” How many times have we all heard that statement, usually spoke with a fair amount of bravado and self-righteousness. But, is it true?

Are there really no rules when it comes to street fighting? -Let’s look at a couple of hypothetical situations and see:

First, let’s imagine a scene where an attacker picks a fight with you at a party; After making several threats, he shoves you and then starts to throw a punch.

As a trained martial artist, you quickly move in, throw several elbow strikes to his head, initiate a take-down, break his arm, and place your attacker in a choke hold until he passes out.

Someone calls the police and when they arrive, instead of congratulating you on your skills, they begin to arrest you.

Although you plead, “self-defense,” the officer informs you that you used excessive force while protecting yourself.

As he’s placing you in handcuffs, you remind him that “There’s no rules in a streetfight.”

“Tell it to the judge,” he says as he escorts you into his squad car.

Okay, maybe the Law look at things differently than the rest of us. What if we leave the courts out of it and consider an ‘honor’ fight, where nobody calls the police.

Imagine that your trying to impress a woman at a bar when some jerk begins insulting her and calling her terrible names. To defend her dignity, you challenge her offender to a fight. Both of you agree to “step outside.”

A crowd surrounds both of you as you square off. As your opponent moves in to punch, you quickly reach down between his legs and grab his groin.

Your opponent crumbles to the ground, unable to continue.
You’ve won the fight! Right?

No. You’re shocked to learn that everyone, (including that beauty you were trying to impress,) thinks that you've cheated.

“Wait,” you tell them, “There’s no rules in street fighting.”

Apparently, there are.

While most people wouldn’t begrudge a groin strike against a 300lbs Linebacker who jumps you in a dark alley, it’s still considered unfair and out-of-bounds to grab below the belt in a consensual fight.

The truth is, there are rules to a streetfight.

There are always legal, moral, and social consequences for fighting.

I mention this because I feel it’s important to consider these consequences when training.

As famed kick boxer, Benny Urquidez often states, “The way you train, is the way you’ll react.”

If all of the techniques that I practice end up with my opponent breaking a bone, receiving a concussion, or being choked unconscious; then regardless of how weakly I’m initially attacked, I will likely always cause a serious injury to my attacker. -It’s all I know how to do.

Even if my attacker comes at me with non-lethal force, my training may cause me to respond in an inappropriate manner and result in regrettable consequences.

Take the following video clip as an example. The self-defense techniques presented come from Bas Rutten’s Lethal Street Fighting DVD.

Now, before you see this clip, let me say that I love, love Bas’s stuff.

He’s one of my favorite martial artists and no one does a better showing how combat arts can be applied to actual self-defense. He has also written Bas Rutten’s Big Book of Combat (vol 1 & 2), one of the best catalogues of martial techniques available.

This is an edited, 6 minute, clip of a 105 minute DVD, highlighting many of the more brutal techniques demonstrated. (Also, Bas has a rather warped sense of humor that certainly comes out when he’s demonstrating his techniques.)

Don’t misjudge Bas based only on this clip.

However, unless it’s truly a life or death situation, you should use extreme discretion before attempting any of these techniques for self-defense. Use them at your own risk.



While many of his techniques are fascinating to watch and could be useful under the right circumstances, they fail to demonstrate the type of restraint needed in most self-defense encounters.

Statistically, your chances of facing a knife attack are rather slim when compared to your chances of getting into a shoving match with some drunk in a bar. However, if you respond to both attacks the same way, your going to get into trouble.

It’s a mistake to make the assumption that there are ‘no rules’ in a streetfight and our training must reflect that understanding.

The basis of our self-defense techniques should always include strategies to evade, escape, and control an attacker. We should strive to use the least amount of force necessary to achieve these objectives.

Techniques that cause serious injury should only be used in critical situations and as a last resort.

If we train ourselves to escape or control an attacker during practice, we can always increase the amount of force used in an actual confrontation. Our reactions will be more in line with societies’ legal and moral expectations.

But if our daily training only revolves around lethal force, we'll have trouble reducing our attack in the course of a stressful encounter. This could cause us to ‘strike first,’ without really considering the consequences of our actions.

The first step in developing a self-defense strategy is to realize that there are rules to street fighting. Our job is to understand how to use those rules to our advantage and how to best protect ourselves without violating them.

I hope you find this post useful in your own practice.

Train safe, train hard;

Respectfully,

Rick


(Author's note: Although I've used Bas Rutten's clip as an example here, readers should know that Rutten teaches many, many non-lethal techniques. Regardless of how he's portrayed in the clip, he actually seems to be a pretty nice guy and would only use those techniques if threatened with serious harm.)

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