THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AND Look, when your life is on the line, you probably just want to make
Look, when your life is on the line, you probably just want to make sure that you get
What I’m saying here is you
have to win, and that means
if you have to fight for your
life, you should cheat!
WHY THEY ARE IMPORTANT
The first thing that we need to talk about are the rules of engagement for self-defense.
These are the rules of engagement that I think everybody needs to follow when they’re
faced with some sort of violent encounter on the street. I have arranged these in order
of importance.
The first rule of engagement is very simple, run! Run away if you are faced with some
sort of dangerous encounter. You should avoid fighting if at all possible. You don’t want
self-defense to kind of devolve into the sort of dueling where someone insults you and
wants you to step outside or where some guy cuts you off in traffic and you willingly get
out of your car at the stoplight to jump into the fight. All of this stuff is a bad idea and
it’s a bad idea for two reasons.
Number one, it’s a bad idea legally speaking. There are legal reasons why you don’t want
to willfully engage in a fight when you don’t have to. Now, I’m not an attorney, but I have
read a lot of things written by attorneys and you lose a lot of legal claims to legitimate
self-defense when you do things like this. When you willingly engage in a fight you give
up a lot of your legal claims to self-defense. So, avoid fighting for legal reasons.
The second reason why you should try to run away first is for safety reasons. Remember:
if you choose to fight you might not win. It might be more than you bargained for. Even
if you are a tough guy, you may be thinking it’s going to be some kind of fist fight, or
some sort of bare hand fight and the next thing you know, he pulls a knife or he pulls a
gun. You can very easily bite off more than you can chew, no matter how tough you are!
You think it’s just some kind of physical encounter when really it might be a whole lot
more than that. So, please, try to avoid confrontation first and foremost. This is the first
rule of engagement. You have to try to run away if possible.
But of course, you can’t always do that, right? You can’t always run away. Maybe you’re
blocked in somehow. Maybe you’re injured. Maybe you have your family and kids with
you and you can’t run away. That means you are going to have to physically engage the
opponent in some sort of way.
And that brings us to the second rule of engagement, which is to get a weapon or at
least some kind of backup. This is very important. Again, I’m not an attorney here so I
can’t tell you when you should pull a weapon out or when you should have someone
come and help you. You’re going to have to consult the law in your area and you’re
going to have to consider when you should do this, ethically speaking. But if your life is
threatened, you probably shouldn’t worry about fighting fair.
What I’m saying here is you have to win, and that means if you have to fight for your life,
you should cheat! I really do mean that. Do whatever it takes to win. What I mean here is
that if the moral and legal circumstances call for it, find some way to get the upper hand
and get it fast. Get a friend or someone else to back you up or find some kind of weapon,
either a real weapon if one is available, or an improvised weapon. Maybe you break off a
car antenna, maybe you can take a soda bottle, stuff it in a sock and swing that around
like a mace, or throw hot coffee in the attacker’s face or maybe throw dirt or gravel into
the eyes of your assailant, find a hammer or whatever--get something like that.
2 3
home safely. And again, this is not some kind of fair fight or a duel where you get the
luxury of agreeing to a hand-to-hand fight with fixed rules and a referee. You shouldn’t
be fighting with that idea in mind. It’s not an organized martial arts or boxing fight. We
are talking about a street assault. In this kind of situation you have to win by cheating
because on the street there are no rules, there are no weight classes and there is no ref-
eree, you have to try to get the advantage any way you can.
But again, of course, you can’t always do that either. Sometimes there is no weapon
lying around. Maybe there’s no one around to help you either.
This brings us to the third rule of engagement. The third rule of engagement is to fight
with your bare hands. After all, this is all you’ve got. Now hopefully you have prepared
for this and this is the level, of course, that we’re going to talk about here in this book.
So there you are -, you’re all by yourself and somebody is really trying to hurt you. You
don’t have a weapon. You don’t have any help, it’s just you and the bad guy. You have to
fight with your bare hands. What should you do in this situation?
Well, of course, there’s a whole lot here we could talk about. We can talk about all the
different kind of martial arts moves and all of that, but as I said, we’re going to simplify
things. We’re going to talk about the simple ways to win a street fight for just the aver-
age person. And I think there are seven essential moves that everyone needs to know
for this sort of empty hand self-defense. These seven moves are the bare-bone essen-
tials you need to have to have in your toolbox and they are the things that every good
person needs to know about self-defense.
Let’s go on to discuss each one of these seven moves.
STRONG PUNCHING SKILLS ESSENTIAL
RULE
1 #
Essential move number one is that you need to have to have strong punching skills. Now,
of course, technically “punching skills” isn’t really just one move by itself, it’s actually a whole
category of moves, but they are all important. I put this one first because it’s the most simple
and natural way human beings fight. Human beings are just “natural born hitters”. We don’t
kick too well naturally, but human beings by nature do tend to ball up their fists and start
swinging when they are faced with a threat. That’s just what we do by instinct, so this is a
very natural means of defending ourselves. The idea here is that we want to take that nat-
ural inclination and develop it. We want to make it stronger and better because throwing a
punch is probably going to be your intuitive starting point in self-defense anyway.
Now, technically, what I’m talking about here are the various punches you see taught in box-
ing. Boxers tend to have far better punches than any other type of martial artist. The science
of boxing has really mastered the art of punching because that’s what they focus on. So, for
our simplified self-defense purposes, you can forget any other sort of karate punch, chop, or
any strike like that from the Asian martial arts. The punches you see in boxing are the most
effective types of punches there are.
However, being a strong puncher is not as easy as you might think. There’s a lot to good
punching skill. Just balling up your fist any old way and swinging isn’t very good. There
is actually a science to having good punching skills. There is a method to it and this
is something you can learn and get better at. So, there’s a lot to think about and train
when you want to throw a good punch.
ESSENTIAL THE ELBOW STRIKE
MOVE
3
# The third essential move that you need to know for a street fight is the elbow strike.
Now, there are a lot of different ways to throw the elbow, but one of the benefits of the
elbow strike, is that it’s just very effective. This is a very effective way to fight in close.
The elbow strike is a very powerful move. It can be thrown in close range where, again,
like I said a while ago a lot of fights end. A lot of fights end up in this locked up, chest
to chest, standing clench situation. This is where you can feel the elbow there in close.
Unlike a fist, the elbow is a large bone. Remember that I said earlier that the fist can
break easily on the human head. Well, the elbow doesn’t have all of those small bones
in it like the fist does, so the elbow is like a big, natural club. Therefore, it doesn’t break
as easily as a fist does. You can throw those elbows hard and not worry about so much
breaking your elbow bone.
Now, you may, of course, get some bruising or something like that later on, but I’ve
never see anyone break their elbow on someone’s head. So, you can “go to town” with
throwing your elbows and not worry so much about hurting yourself.
Now, just like with any other martial arts move, we can talk about the different tech-
niques that are involved with throwing the elbow. First, you don’t want to have your
arm stiff. A stiff arm doesn’t move fast and a slow moving elbow doesn’t hurt anybody.
There are also different kinds of elbows. First there is the horizontal elbow. To do this
technique, imagine standing in a boxing stance, and taking either your right elbow or
your left elbow and snapping it around horizontally. That’s one way to do it. We call
that one the horizontal elbow for obvious reasons. Then there is the down elbow. This
is when you bring your elbow down at a downward angle (like the first line of an “X”
in front of you. There is also the uppercut elbow where the trajectory comes up from
lower to higher into the person’s face. And there is also the spike elbow, which is really
dangerous. To throw the spike elbow, imagine reaching your left hand out and pulling
someone’s head down and taking your right arm raising it high and driving your elbow
straight down, like on the back of their head. This spiking elbow drives straight down on
the back of the person’s head or neck.
And all of these elbows are great techniques for self-defense. The reason why is because
the elbow is both a cutting weapon and a knockout weapon. The elbow is known as a
cutting weapon because when you drag your elbow across someone’s, say forehead,
you have that sharp bone being drug across the thin skin that’s stretched across the op-
ponent’s forehead. That thin skin cuts very easily. That’s why in Thai boxing, we see a lot
of cuts that result from an elbow. And that’s why the elbow cuts so easily, because you
are dragging that sharp bone across that skin across that face, whether it’s across the
top of the eye or the cheekbone or whatever. So, the elbow has a reputation for being a
powerful cutting weapon.
But, the elbow is also powerful enough to be a good knockout weapon. The power in the
elbow comes from a rapid twisting of the hips (and it’s this same torqueing of the hips
that accounts for power in kicks and punches too). Because of the power generated by an
elbow, there are a lot of people who have been knocked out by a good elbow strike.
So, as with any martial arts move, when it comes to having a good elbow strike, there is a
lot of technique that is involved. In order to have a good elbow strike, you have to learn
6 7
how to throw it loosely so the arm snaps quickly. You also have to snap your whole body
so that you can generate power. It takes a lot of proper body mechanics, instructions
and training to perform a good elbow strike and, again, if you want more on that, you
can check out my video course that shows you all these elbow strikes in detail.
THE HEAD-BUTT ESSENTIAL
MOVE
4
Essential move number four now is the head-butt. I know it may sound kind of funny to
talk about fighting with a head-butt, but the head-butt is a very powerful way to end
#
a fight. It’s a very powerful move when you know how to do it correctly. A good thing
about it is that it can be thrown at extremely close range. Obviously when someone
gets in your face, and you’re face-to-face like that, the head-butt is right there. It’s really
easy to land a head butt in that situation and it hits hard. I actually show some real life
footage of street fights where guys get knocked out cold from a head-butt thrown right
there in this sort of “face-to-face” encounter.
So, even though some people may laugh at the head-butt, don’t underestimate it. It
is an awesome weapon. The human head, like I said earlier, is like a big bowling ball.
Well, this is where you can take your big bowling ball and slam it into someone else’s
face. Burmese boxers do this all the time (Burmese boxing is an Asian kickboxing sport
that allows and encourages the head-butt) and you can see many knockouts from this
strike on YouTube.
To do a head-butt properly actually involves some technique. If you don’t do it correct-
ly, you can hurt yourself. One important key to remember is that your head has to be
lower than your opponent’s. If his head is lower than yours (imagine that)-- if you pull
his head down and your head is above his and then you try to slam your head into his,
you’re going to end up head-butting yourself! You’re going to be driving your own face
down onto the top of his head! So don’t make that mistake. The key point here is that
your head should be lower than his head. When your head is lower than his you can’t
hurt yourself like this. And the best way to do this is to grab him around the neck, lower
your head so that your head is lower than his, and then pull his head down and slam
your head forward all at the same time to create a sort of collision where the top of your
head goes into the front of his face. That’s the ideal type of impact. So remember, to
head-butt properly from a face to face situation, the top part of your head should col-
lide with the front of his face. Like all of these moves, a proper head-butt is not as easy
as one might think. There is a lot of technique involved with it. But still, it is a very good
self-defense move that can be used effectively at extremely close range.
THE GROIN KICK ESSENTIAL
MOVE
5
Essential move number five now is the all-time favorite fight stopper, the groin kick. The
good old-fashioned kick to the groin works like a charm. I’ve seen many fights won by
#
just one simple, swift kick to the groin. So this is an extremely effective move. It can be
delivered at long range, and long range is a good place to fight from. The reason why is
because when you’re up close, face-to-face, a bad guy can do a lot more to you. Imagine
being just so far away that you can kick him with your legs but he can’t reach you with
his punches. That’s what we’re talking about here. We call this in marital arts the kicking
range. Kicking range is where you’re so far way you can only kick and you can’t really do
much of anything else when it comes to empty hands.
So, I highly recommend
that you train the groin
And that’s one of the benefits here of the groin kick. It can be thrown at long range and
it can drop a guy fast. I don’t care how big or how trained the other guys is. In my video
kick in self-defense.… course I show several videos where professional UFC fighters, trained kick-boxers and
Every self-defense move
needs to be trained, not
so on get flat out dropped by one swift shot to the groin. And of course, when these
guys are competing like that they’re wearing groin cup, but still, one good shot directly
just thought about. to that spot will drop a man. It will drop a trained fighter. So, the point here is that you
know if it works on top-level fighters wearing a cup, it’s going to work on the bad guy
on the street too. So, I really do love the groin kick for self-defense.
One important thing to know however is that there are different kinds of groin kicks.
It’s not always as easy as you think. To be really good with this move, you have to have
proper technique and practice. And there are different ways of doing the groin kick.
First of all, you have what I call the standard textbook groin kick. This is where you use
your instep to strike with. Just kind of point your toes, and if you’ve got shoes on, you’re
going to kick the person’s groin by snapping your leg up from the knee and kind of con-
tacting his groin with the shoelace portion of your foot, the instep. That’s all it is. You’re
going to snap your leg up and kick him in the groin with your instep. That is what I call
the standard, textbook groin kick, and it works great.
Now this standard groin kick works, but sometimes it can be kind of hard to land it if the
opponent is not standing in the proper way. If he’s standing in front of you with his legs
spread apart, then yes it’s very easy to bring that leg straight up into his groin. But sup-
pose he turns sideways. If he turns sideways, you can’t really do that because the angle
won’t allow your kick to land.
In situations like this where you need a different kind of groin kick, what I call the tech-
nical groin kick. The technical groin kick is one that can come from multiple angles. The
idea here is that this is the kind of groin kick that can nail his groin from multiple angles,
no matter how he’s standing. Anyway he happens to stand and fight you (with the only
exception being if he is completely facing away from you – but nobody fights like that)
the technical groin kick can nail the target. So, no matter how the attacker stands, I can
still hit him with my technical groin kick. So either way you go, a groin kick will catch
him, and if you do catch him, there is a good chance that you will drop him.
So, I highly recommend that you train the groin kick in self-defense. But here’s the thing.
Notice I said train the groin kick. It’s not going to be enough for you to just “think” about
the groin kick. I see a lot of people who say, “If I am attacked I will just kick him in the
balls!” Sounds great, but the odds are that if you don’t train this kick, practice hitting
moving targets from different angles and things like that, you will not “kick him in the
balls”. You’ll probably miss, or slip, or something like that. Every self-defense move needs
to be trained, not just thought about.
As for myself, I teach several ways to train the groin kick in my streetfight video course,
and I train it all the time. One thing that I recommend is that you take some rags and
roll them up into a ball, like the size of a baseball, and then tape the ball with duct tape.
Now hang that ball with a thin rope down to groin level and practice kicking it. I have
this same setup in my garage and I use it all the time (I call it the “ball bag”). The goal
again, is not just to know about the groin kick but to be good at the groin kick. Aim at
being as adept at the groin kick as a boxer is with a jab. Throw a bunch of them and be
able to hit small moving targets at will. This is what it takes to have an effective groin
kick for self-defense.
8 9
THE MUAY THAI LOW KICK ESSENTIAL
MOVE
6
Moving on now to essential move number six, we have the Muay Thai Low Kick. Muay
Thai is a famous martial art. It’s a style of kickboxing that comes from Thailand, and
#
one of the things that Muay Thai fighters specialize in is the low kick. To get an image
of what this is, imagine swinging your right leg around so that your shin slams into the
side of his thigh. So, say you’re right leg swings across and your shin smashes into the
outside of his thigh. That’s basically the idea.
Sometimes people call it a “thigh kick”, because your shin is smashing into the meaty
side of the thigh. This is very effective.
I’ve won so many fights with just a low kick. This thing, when properly trained, hits like
a baseball bat. I can promise you the Muay Thai low kick hits extremely hard, and one
of the good things about it is most people have no clue on how to defend against this
kick. They just don’t know how to block it, so this is a very good self-defense move that
causes severe pain. It causes crippling pain.
I mentioned before about getting that nasty frog or “charlie horse” in your thigh. Well,
the pain caused by a low kick is a Charlie horse from hell. When you get hit with a
good low kick, the pain is so bad in your thigh, a lot of times you can’t even stand, let
alone fight. I remember being kicked by this kick in the ring once and not only did I
struggle as hard as I could to stay up (with my leg quivering) but the pain was so bad
that it actually made me nauseous.
To give you another example of how powerful this kick can be, there have been many
examples in kickboxing where fighters have broken their femur, the femur bone!
That’s that big bone, in the upper leg and it’s the largest bone in the human body. And
anybody who’s in the medical profession will tell you, you don’t see broken femurs
too much except in cases like car wrecks, or when like a guy’s on a motorcycle and has
had a wreck. That’s when you get broken femurs. So anytime you have a broken femur,
somebody’s been hit, and they’ve been hit hard. But we do see these broken femurs
in kickboxing. It does happen.
And I think another good thing about this Muay Thai low kick is that it’s relatively
easy to learn. Not only is it powerful, not only is it the case that most people don’t
know how to block it, but it’s pretty easy to learn too. There is some technique to it,
of course, but it’s not that hard to learn how to throw, at least, a functional kick that
gets the job done. You can have it down to a functional level, in a relatively short time
when you know how to do things properly.
To do this technique, get in a stance with your left leg in front. Now you are going
to low kick with your right (rear) leg. What you want to do is to swing your right leg
around horizontally so you’re your shin drives into the side of his thigh. Also when you
kick, make sure you turn your whole body into the kick and pivot on the supporting
leg so that you “turn” into it and get all of your weight behind it. Let the kicking hand
(in this case the right arm) swing back for counterbalance but keep the other hand
(in this case the left) up by your face for protection. That’s how this kick is done and
it’s worth some practice because once you get this kick down, it is a very good tool to
have in your self-defense arsenal.
Fightin’ Strong Video | 4007 Bellaire Blvd. ii | Houston, TX 77306 | www.FightinStrong.com