I want to start this essay with a quote from a US Marine. Marine 1st Sgt Jim Reifinger: "if you ever find yourself in a fair fight, it's because your tactics suck."

Then I want to add a little something of my own. When fighting for your life, if you are not ready to kill, you are not ready to fight.

I also want to add that, when you are fighting for your life, it is mortal combat and you only get to lose once.

Another good fighting law is expect the worst and pray for the best. That way you only get good surprises and not bad surprises, which will kill you.

There is a little bit more I want to teach you before I teach you about fighting bad guys with your wife or girl friend and fighting two or more people because you are going to use this stuff in fighting two or more people.

In fighting static or stand still fighting where you are going to toe the line and trade blows, sometimes the lesser fighters in the group you are facing will try to move to your side or behind you to take you down with a cheap shot while the leader is talking. Take two steps back to put him back in front of you, point to him without looking away from the others, and say, "Stay in front of me!" This lets him know that you know what he is up to.

If he tries it again and gets to your side, he will be in a perfect position for a sucker punch so, without looking at him before you punch him, put him down and take two or three steps back to increase the distance between you and the rest as you turn back ready to block and punch the others. You may have just started the fight and will need the distance to buy the time to react to their attack and, again, good boxing technique will save your butt. If you surprise them well enough and your sucker punch is good enough so that you put him down and out of the fight, they may not jump you because you caught them flat footed and just earned their respect with street smarts and good punching but always be ready to fight. You are showing street smarts and they respect that out of necessity.

While they are talking in static position, watch their eyes and expressions. A trick commonly used is to try to "look someone off" by glancing behind them to get them to look so you can sucker punch them when they look to see what you were looking at. If there is no change in facial expressions, it is probably a look off; if their facial expressions show increased confidence, one of them probably just walked up behind you to take you down with a cheap shot and you take two steps back while turning very quickly to one side to look, while keeping them and the potential person behind you in sight at the same time, and possibly block and punch; if their facial expressions change to a decrease in confidence or start showing concerning, it may be someone to help you, take two steps back and to one side to quickly turn to look while still ready to block and punch.

When you make any move to the side or back, you always want to take two to three steps back to increase the distance because distance is time and you will be increasing your time to react to an attack plus you throw their aim off by moving further back so they have to adjust, which requires time.

Just remember that whatever they can do to you, if you know how, you can do to them.

If you want to successfully look them off to sucker punch them, when you very briefly glance behind them, make a small smile but not too big because you don't want to appear too obvious. It is only natural that they will think someone just walked up behind them, the game has changed, and they will want to look to make sure. When they look, start punching people but know that, if they are smart enough and have enough experience, only the guys in the back will look and let the leader know. It is called team work. Remember that when I teach you how to fight bad guys with your girl friend or wife.

Remember that these are street people and they also have street smarts so you have to outsmart them and do it quickly, which is why it is important for you to learn street smarts before you meet them in a fight situation. Contrary to everything you have been taught by the x-spurts, they are not stupid.

Knives

You need to know that, when in a knife fight, you will get cut but also know that better than 90% of the people who get cut or stabbed don't die and, of the less than 10% who do die, better than 90% of them will live long enough to kill you, which is why you always finish the fight. History is filled with people who were killed with spears, swords, and other cutting weapons and still managed to kill their killer.

You also need to know that killing or even wounding someone with a knife is a very messy business. When you cut someone, you will get sprayed with hot blood, 98.2 degrees F, which will tend to cause you to blink or hesitate and could get you killed. You have to focus on wining the fight and ignore everything else including any pain.

Knife fighting is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like you see on TV or out of Hollywood.

The primary target in a knife fight is the other person's wrists and the palms of their hands.

Why?

Because the tendons that pull the fingers down so you can make a fist, grab, or hold a weapon run along the inside of your wrists and through the palms of the hands. If you cut those tendons, they won't be able to make a fist, grab you, or hold a weapon and you disarm them. The only thing they may still be able to use as weapons are the heals of their hands.

Interestingly, it is normal human behavior for people to try to defend themselves against a knife with the palms of their hands, which is the worst thing you can do in a knife fight. If you do that to me, I am going to say, "Thank you" while I cut your tendons and disarm you and then I will gut you by cutting across your abs so you can't kick me. After that, I can safely walk away from you because you can't hold a weapon, make a fist, grab me, or run after me.

Don't believe me?

Put your hands on your stomach to feel the movement of your abs and raise your legs to kick. You have to use your stomach muscles to brace your pelvis to kick. Without those abs, you are not going to kick me.

You have to know that, in a knife fight, if you can reach them, they can reach you and, if you can disarm them, they can disarm you. The last thing you want to do in a knife fight is to get those tendons cut because your fight is over and you are at the mercy of the bad guys.

How do you defend yourself against a knife?

With the back of your hand and not the palm because, even if they cut the tendons in the back of your hand or arm, you will still be able to fight because you will still be able to make a fist, grab, and hold a weapon. Plus the main arteries and veins to the hands run through the inside of your wrists and not on the outside so your potential for bleeding out will be much smaller, almost impossible.

I am always looking for ways or "tricks" to improve my fighting and was concerned about trying to "tag" someone with a knife and them cutting the tendons in my forearm, disarming me, because, if I can reach them, they can reach me. Then I found a really good YouTube site teaching European Medieval and Renaissance martial arts and they have a thing called sword and buckler fighting, which I found I can modify for knife fighting. The site is Schola Gladiatoria. The owner is Matt Easton who has a history degree, works for the British police writing reports for crimes, studies and teaches Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA).

What you can do is use the back of your defensive hand as a buckler to protect the wrist of your knife hand while attacking their wrist with your knife so that your wrist is protected. Look up his videos on sword and buckler and see the techniques they used hundreds of years ago to solve that problem.

In knife fighting, what you want to do is focus on cutting muscles and tendons. You don't want to get your knife stuck in bone or other tissue, especially if you are fighting two or more people. If you do, try to twist and cut with the knife at the same time to break it free.

Another good target is the tendon at the base of their bicep.

If you bend your elbow to about 90% and feel for a large tendon on the inside of the elbow, you will find a large tendon right at the base of your bicep. If you cut that, they can't lift their forearm to cut you.

Also, if you cut the tendons just above their armpit in an upward or downward manner, it will decrease their strength for lifting their upper arm towards you to attack but not completely disable the arm because the deltoid muscles can still lift the humorous in that direction and it will also cut a main artery in their shoulder, which can cause them to bleed out or at least pass out from blood loss.

I already told you about gutting them by cutting horizontally across the abs to keep them from being able to kick or run after you.

You can also cut horizontally across their forehead to cause them to bleed down into their eyes to obstruct their vision. If you can get to the eyes, which he will try to guard, cut through them and the fight will be over. Just know that you can blind him without being able to cut through the eyes.

I have heard people talk about cutting across their thighs, especially since there is a main artery which runs through the inside of the thigh but there is a wee bit of a problem with that, if they still have a knife. You see, to reach that low on their body, you have to lean in a little exposing your throat to being slit UNLESS they have raised their leg to kick or knee you or they have been disarmed and you are trying to put one or both of their legs out of action so you can just walk away. Usually, their stomach is about the lowest it is reasonably safe to attack, if they still have a knife.

Can you attack their legs with your feet?

Yes, but be careful that his counter won't be to cut your legs so you can't stand and keep your kicks below the knees so he can't cut your legs.

There are only a few quick kills in knife fighting, contrary to what TV and Hollywood show.

If you stab your knife into their neck just below and behind the ear, it will quickly kill or incapacitate them by severing the spinal cord and, if you stab them between the eyes or on the inside of one eye and towards the center, it will quickly kill or incapacitate them BUT your knife will almost certainly get stuck in the bones with either of those cuts, disarming you, so, if you are fighting two or more people, that is not such a great idea.

The best and safest quick kill in knife fighting is to slit their throat and punch them in the face really hard; it will break their neck, killing them instantly and they will drop like a rock.

Why?

Because the muscles in the front of the neck make it more difficult to suddenly push their head back far enough and fast enough to break their neck because those muscles are pulling the head forward, protecting the neck. If you slit those muscles and you feel bone with the blade of the knife, they won't have anything left to prevent you from breaking their neck with a hard hit to the face, causing instant death.

Know that, after you slit their throat, they can still kill you for almost a minute. A good, hard punch to the face will end that.

Clubs

There are several clubs worth mentioning here. One is the baseball bat, which is a very good weapon for street fight and the other is a walking can.

When I was a kid, the baseball bat was a very popular weapon because, if you know how to use it right, it is very versatile and effective, especially against knives.

The bat has four important parts in street fighting. The very top of the bat is called the cap, the larger striking part of the bat is called the barrel, the slender grasping part is called the handle, and the small protrusion at the bottom is called the knob and is a very important part of the bat for fighting.

The worst thing you can do and easiest to defend against is grab the handle close to the knob and swing the bat. That is because the majority of the weight will be furthest from your hand causing the bat to be relatively slow moving and not very agile. All you have to do to defend against the bat being used in this manner is step inside the barrel, grab the bat by the handle, take it away from the incompetent user, and beat them with their own bat. Plus you need the bat to move quickly when fighting against a knife because a knife is a very light and fast weapon.

The best way to use a baseball bat is to "choke up" on it to where you are holding it close to the barrel putting the majority of the weight closer to your hand. This will cause the bat to move much faster and make it a more agile weapon, which will make it more difficult to defend against. This also permits you to use both ends of the bat for blocking and striking, especially against knives. It also permits "slipping the bat", which I will explain later and is very deadly.

You have to know that, even choked up, a baseball bat can break and crush bones and, therefore, can kill. You can very quickly and easily do massive amounts of damage with a properly used baseball bat, especially by slipping the bat.

The primary targets for using a baseball bat are the hands, wrists, and forearms to disable and disarm the person, especially against knives. If used properly, it is an extremely good weapon against knives.

For example, with the bat choked up, you can deflect an attack by a knife with the handle and then a quick roll or flick of the wrist will permit you to quickly strike the back of the knife hand to knock the knife from their hand and/or disable the hand by breaking the hand, wrist, and/or forearm bones.

Learn to roll of flick your wrists with a choked bat and the bat will dance in your hands. You will be able to effectively strike a number of targets within just a few seconds by rolling or flicking your wrists.

For example, you can jab or thrust them in the face with the knob and, just by rolling your wrist, you can instantly strike them on the top or side of the head with the barrel in almost one move or a quick one-two punch.

Yes, you can use the knob and cap for thrusting, especially when slipping the bat, and your primary targets for thrusting are the head, throat, chest, abs, groin, shoulder joints, and hip joints.

The secondary targets for a baseball bat are mostly attacked by slipping the bat and include destroying the elbow, breaking the head off of the humorous and femur by striking those bones just below the head from the outside, blowing out knees by striking them from either side, destroying the person's face, crushing the skull, and generally breaking or crushing any other bones in the body.

So, how do you slip the bat?

You start from the choke up position, then swing or thrust with the weapon and, just before it would make contact, you ease your grip so the momentum will cause the bat to slide or slip in your hand until you catch it by the knob. If done right, in an instant, this suddenly extends the reach of the bat and accelerates the barrel so it will cause significantly more damage.

You have to understand that, when fighting a person with a choked up bat, they have a normal tendency to judge the distance you can reach based on the reach of the bat when it is choked up. As soon as you see they have adapted to that reach and are trying to fight just outside of that reach, the next swing or thrust you make, you slip the bat causing the bat to reach much further, which will throw off their depth perception, taking them by surprise, and causing significant damage in one quick strike. Slipping the bat is very effective and deadly.

You have to know that, to prevent them from easily grabbing the bat, after it has been slipped, you must reverse the slip just as soon as you feel contact with the barrel against their body because, with the bat fully extended, it will now move much slower and be easier to grab. You simply reverse the slip by pulling back on the knob and easing your grip to permit the bat to slip back in your hand until it is choked up again. Within an instant, you are ready to keep fighting.

Interestingly, I found that in European Medieval martial arts, they use the same technique for a "hand-and-a-half" sword with a slightly longer than normal handle for which they would grip the handle next to the guard, strike with the sword, slipping the handle so they catch the pommel just before impact to increase the speed and striking force of the blade an instant before contact and throw off the depth perception of the opponent.

Of course, if you carry a baseball bat everywhere you go, the cops might get just a wee bit suspicious unless you also carry a glove, which can be used like a buckler for blocking knives and other weapons. (You might want to see those videos for sword and buckler fighting.) A baseball glove used with a bat makes for a very effective fighting system and the cops will rarely bother you, plus it is easy to defend in court.

Hey, try walking around town with a Kung Fu bo staff and see how long it takes for the cops to start bugging you every time they see you. They are going to want to know why you are always carrying something that is obviously nothing but a weapon.

Another good weapon that no one will question is the walking cane. There are two basic types of canes. The poor man's cane has a curved "crook" on the holding end and the rich man's cane has some kind of fancy knob on the holding end. You need to use the two different types of canes differently.

You need to understand that using a cane, especially for an elderly person, it automatically brands you as an "easy target" and will encourage bad guys to attack you. Therefore, if you have to use a cane to assist you in walking or standing, it is a very good idea to learn to properly use it as a weapon and an even better idea to make it into a better weapon, both of which are easily justifiable in a court by even the worst of attorneys.

You use a cane very similar to how you would use a baseball bat by slightly choking up on it to make it a faster and more nimble weapon. With the poor man's cane, you only want to choke up about 8 to 10 inches from the crook and, for the rich man's cane, you want to reverse your grip so you will be holding it about 8 to 10 inches from the bottom so you can use the knob and heavier holding end for striking. With the poor man's cane, you can slip the cane so you grab it by the crook for striking just like with the baseball bat and you can use the crook to grab with, such as grabbing them behind the knee and pulling them off balance.

The primary and secondary targets are similar to those for the baseball bat but you probably won't be able to cause significant damage to large bones like the humorous and femur, but directly striking those joints can cause enough injury to slow them down and want to hear mommy calling.

How do you make a cane a more effective weapon?

You either make or get a custom made cane. For the poor man's cane, you get a good piece of hardwood like ash or oak, get it lathed to a nice fit in your hand, get the bottom lathed on the inside with a small hole to put a small lead weight in to increase striking and thrusting potential, with a metal cap over that to strengthen the wood so it won't crack, and a very small rubber cap on that for grip so it won't slide on the ground while walking, and get the holding end bent into a nice 4 inch crook. The hardwood will make it stronger than the usual pine and less likely to break while giving more weight for impacting.

For the rich man's cane, you put the lead weight in the holding or striking end and not in the bottom.

For the lead weight, you can poor a small 3 inch slug or pack the hole with bird shot from a shotgun shell. You don't want the hole to be very wide because it will weaken the wood and 3 inches will increase the weight enough for effective striking, especially with the increased weight of the hardwood over the usual lighter pine. You don't want it to be so heavy it slows the weapon down much, especially against a knife.

What you just did was turn you walking cane into a light weight mace or war hammer, which is an effective weapon and can even be used against knives quite well. You need to know that having a concealed sword in a cane is usually illegal but weighting a cane for better balance and walking is not.

You might want to study some Asian stick fighting martial arts.

An advantage the poor man's cane has is you can hook the crook over an arm or belt to hold the cane and free up both hands will doing things with your hands like shopping or eating.

Guns

Something you need to know about guns is, unlike the way Hollywood and TV show it, better than 80% of the people who are shot don't die. If a person is shot through the heart by a 38 revolver with the barrel of the weapon pressed against the sternum, it takes 50 to 60 seconds to finish dying, during about the first 20 to 30 seconds of which, some people can still kill you so you must finish the fight even though you may have mortally wounded the person. If they keep fighting, you keep killing.

Again, the only quick kill for killing a human is to shoot them in a particular part of the brain. From the front, you have to aim at what they call "the T", which is two lines on the front of the face. The top line of the T is a line from the middle of one eye to the middle of the other eye. The leg of the T is down the nose. This will destroy the brain stem.

From the back of the head, which is very difficult to defend in court except when trying to save another person's life, you shoot them at the base of the skull to destroy the brain stem.

From the side of the head, you aim just behind and at the bottom of the ear to destroy the brain stem.

The best way to quickly kill a person with your hands, a knife, a gun, or any other weapon is to destroy the brain stem. With any other damage to the human body, they can still kill you, even if it is eventually a mortal wound. That is why you have to finish the fight.

Remember that the human body still functions the same regardless of which weapons you are using.

I bet you are getting the picture by now, aren't you?

My grandfather was a county sheriff when they rode horses and he carried a Colt 45 revolver on his right hip, which he taught me to shoot as a kid. A number of people told me he had quite a few gun fights and, since he was still alive, I figured he probably won them all so, when he taught me how to gun fight, I listened very closely.

He taught me that, in a gun fight, better than 90% of the time, the first guy to shoot will miss because he rushed his shot. In 1992 the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed this by stating that better than 80% of the people shot in gang shootings are innocent bystanders because the gang bangers miss better than 90% of the time. At about the same time, an LA cop friend told me that in the 6 months prior to our discussion, there had been 250 cop related shootings in LA, 150 bad guys were killed, and no cops were wounded or killed because the bad guys are usually really bad shots. Also remember the US Marine who charged the gunman in a university who already had his gun drawn from about 30 feet, got shot 7 times and is still alive.

Therefore, my grandfather taught me that, in a gun fight, it is better to take a split second longer "to get your shot" so you don't miss because "all you are doing when you shoot at someone and miss is give them another chance to kill you."

So, practice, practice, practice, then keep your head knowing he will probably rush his shot and miss you and, if he does hit you, you probably won't die, and get your shot so he won't get a second chance to kill you. If you are more than 10 feet away, your first shot or two should be to the chest to knock them off balance and slow them down with the next shot to the T in the face. At 10 feet or less you can place your first two or three shots at the T.

The trouble in using a hand gun is that it only takes a little bend in the wrist to throw your shot way off.

If you really want to get good with a handgun, hunt jack rabbits and cotton tails with a handgun. Most people use shotguns but that is too easy. It will teach you to suddenly, without any warning, draw your gun and get your shot at something much smaller and faster moving than a human. Also practice shooting at soda cans, which are about the size of the human heart or the T on the face, at 100 feet. Anyone can hit a still silhouette target at 30 feet when you have all day and only shooting when you are ready. Guess what, the bad guys are not going to wait until you are ready.

You have to know that, once you run out of bullets, all you have is a funny looking club so it is a good idea to hit what you shoot at.

When you are defending against a gun and you don't have gun, you have to get close enough to use your hands to kill him. You don't have any other options than to just let him shoot you.

Sounds kind of scary, doesn't it?

But remember the 21 foot rule which says that, if you attack him inside 21 feet, he probably won't get a shot off unless he has his gun drawn and even then the LAPD says he will probably miss and then, if he does hit you, most likely you won't die, and, you do die, you will probably live long enough to break his neck with your hands and his chances of dying when you break his neck with your hands are 100%.

So, if you rush a gunman from about 20 to 30 feet and he already has his gun drawn, you probably have about a 5% to 10% chance of dying and, if you get your hands on his neck and break it, he has a 100% chance of dying, who is the more dangerous person in that fight?

Those are pretty good odds but, if you just cower so he can take his time to kill you, you are probably going to die anyway and those are terrible odds. You actually have a better chance by rushing the guy, especially if he stops to reload the weapon. Now, if you get two or more deadly people rushing the gunman from different directions, the one who is most likely to die is the gunman. Those are fantastic odds.

Why would you not rush him and just let him shoot you?

Remember that most bad guys are bad shots. They are not exactly the highly trained Delta Force, you know.

If nothing else, use some street smarts and look the guy away. When he turns to look at what you looked at and gave a little smile about, he will also naturally move his weapon at least a little in the same direction, you know, away from you, and you attack so that, when he looks back, the last thing he will see before you break his neck, is you grinning at him. Always use street smarts with any weapon because you use everything you can to stay alive and your best weapon is your brain.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

You better....