Myths of Combat

I'm not going to attempt to cover all the myths of fighting...there's just way too many but one I can put to rest today is the old "If you're fighting a gang all you have to do is challenge the leader to a one on one fight and he'll accept, otherwise his gang members will assume he's gutless."

Whoever first wrote this gibberish has obviously never had a gang fight in his life. The above would work if the guy leading the gang had any honor, or if they gave you time to talk, or if they cared what you had to say. Unfortunately they have no honor and they don't care one iota about you...all you are to them is some temporary amusement or a food source.

Another myth that goes hand in hand with this one is that if you drop the biggest guy the others will run away. No, they will stomp the crap out of you because you just hurt one of their mates. I have stopped some fights with a technically perfect first technique that has dropped someone so hard the others have taken pause but, they weren't hard core gang bangers inured to violence of frightening degrees.

Now, hitting the biggest one will certainly eliminate one of the biggest threats but it will not scare others away just as challenging their non-existent honor will not work either.

In future entries I'll cover some strategies that have proven effective but for right now let's eliminate advice that just plain doesn't work.

Nick