I have been promising to teach you how to fight two or more people at one time so here it is but realize I still have much more to teach you about street fighting. There will be more essays and I am just covering basics.

If you have not read all of the first five Street essays, go back and read them before you continue.

But first, I have to teach you the offense and defense of sucker punches because 1) the sucker punch is the most common punch used by thugs, usually as hay makers, and 2) they are a great weapon to use against two or more thugs.

What is a sucker punch?

A sucker punch is a sudden, very quick, and very powerful punch meant to catch the opponent by surprise to quickly knock them out.

The two most common sucker punches are:

1) Turn your head and body sideways to the person you are confronting while talking to someone behind you like you are turning back to look at the person you are talking to and, when you get turned sideways, SUDDENLY come back at the person you are confronting with a very hard hit to the head using you entire body to throw the punch.

2) Turn your body sideways to the person you are confronting as if you are turning to walk away from them and SUDDENLY come back at the person you were confronting with a very hard hit to the head using your entire body to throw the punch.

The reason they are turning their shoulders and body sideways to you is to get their entire body into the punch to make it more powerful and to catch you by surprise by making you think they are doing something other than preparing to hit you. Any time anyone turns their shoulders to where they are sideways to you, expect a sucker punch, be prepared to block it, and be prepared to counter it with a right cross.

Also know there are quite a few people who can throw a solid sucker punch with their shoulders square to you so you need to expect any and every move by any thug confronting you to be a sucker punch because all bad guys love throwing sucker punches. If the person laughs, sneezes, or coughs, be ready to block a punch and hit him. If he does a little dance or jig or any movement to put on a show, act cute, or make people laugh, expect a sucker punch.

The person was just confronting you, they are not suddenly going to change to be friendly or funny except to throw you off guard.

When confronting bad guys, ALWAYS expect a sucker punch because it is better to be prepared and not have to defend yourself than to not be prepared and wake up dead or in a hospital.

On the street, ANY MOVEMENT can be a sucker punch.

Also, you can set someone up for a sucker punch by using psychology and street will do this. If you start talking to someone, they have to shift their attention from fighting to what you are saying so that, if you attack them in mid sentence, they will have to shift their mind back to fighting, which will normally take from one to three seconds buying you from one to three seconds free fight time and this includes everyone you are confronting. If you are confronting two or more bad guys, all of their minds will be caught listening to your comments and you will get that free fight time against all of them, which may be enough time to deck them all.

If you ask them a question, their minds will have to shift their focus from fighting to answering the question and, if you hit them before they can finish answering the question, especially within the first one or two words out of their mouth, their brain will have to shift back to fighting, which can buy you from one to three seconds free fight time and that includes the entire group.

If you ask them a really stupid question like, "Did you see Donald Duck go by here?", their brains will all become confused with them wondering, "What is this guy talking about?", which can buy you more than 5 seconds free fight time before any of them can start defending themselves. As soon as you see the look of confusion on their faces, you start hitting people.

Another great trick is to ask if they saw a really famous person you say you just saw in the area, which will cause them to starting looking around for that person because they will want o see them. This can buy you 5 seconds or more free fight time so you start punching them as soon as they start looking around.

If someone gets to your side or behind you, they have already put themselves into a position to where all you have to do is a sudden, quick, and powerful turn into them to sucker punch them, which will take them all by surprise giving you free fight time.

If you get surrounded, the best way to get out is sucker punch the person directly behind you and quickly exit through the hole he leaves putting all of them on the same side of you. The person directly behind you is the last person they expect you to hit and the one who will be most likely to have lowered his defenses.

Remember what I taught you about chaos?

Create the chaos, own the chaos, and be the chaos.

How do you counter a sucker punch?

1) Expect it; always expect it no matter what else happens.

2) Block the punch while hitting them in the head as hard as you can; their head will be moving towards your fist with your fist moving towards their head and they will probably go down.

This essay on fighting two or more people at one time will probably have to be in two or more parts because there is a lot to teach.

There are two very important street laws you have to live by when fighting two or more people or they will kill you.

1) Never let any of your attackers get to the side or behind you because they will ALWAYS take you down with a cheap shot. Always try to keep all of them in front of you between 2 and 10 o'clock.

2) Try to control the fight so you don't have to fight more than one person at one time. You will have to fight more fights, but you don't want to have to fight more than one at a time. Remember that it is very difficult to block four fists with two fists.

But, remember that, when you are controlling the fight so you only have to fight them one at a time, you MUST win ALL of your fights and you only get to lose one fight, which is why I first taught you how to learn to win all of your fights against one person and put them out of the fight quickly. It won't do you any good to control the fight so you only have to fight one person if you are going to lose the first fight. There is a method to the way I teach.

If you are with a friend and a group of bad guys start to attack you, "back it up" so that you and your friend are fighting with your backs touching so no one can get behind either of you and take you down with a cheap shot. If your friend gets dropped, you have to fight away from him to draw them away from him by using individual tactics.

If you put your back to a wall as a last resort, it prevents anyone from getting behind you but they can still get beside you and you give up all mobility. It should only be done as a last resort.

Better or next to last resort is to back into a corner, which keeps them in front of you and decreases the number of people who can attack you buy 50% but also requires you to give up mobility.

If at all possible, it is best to maintain your mobility and keep moving, which is why crawling around on the ground with one of them is really bad and will probably get you killed.

You have two basic ways to fight a group, pending its size and circumstances. You can fight maintaining mobility and maneuvering or fight a small group of up to about half a dozen people static. In this essay, I will discuss the basics for fighting a group using mobility and maneuvering.

For fighting larger groups or to fight with maneuvering and mobility because you don't think you can take them all down with one quick sucker punch series, you want to fight very similar to how the US infantry fights a tactical withdrawal or fights a rear guard.

Let's say you are in an open area with no obstructions, you want to be continuously backing up with glances behind you to make sure you don't trip on anything and don't back into anything. At the same time, you want to be maneuvering left and right to keep one of them between you and the rest of them so you don't have to fight more than one at a time, which requires you to increase or decrease your rate of backing up to keep one person between you and the rest.

If done right, what will happen is this: the bad guys will tend to sting out with the most aggressive coming at you fastest, working their way ahead of the others to get you. You keep backing up to prevent the bad guys from bunching up and give the more aggressive bad guys room to get between you and the others and then you maneuver to keep the most aggressive one between you and the others and, as soon as he is clearly between you and the others, you sucker punch him by suddenly reversing direction into him to quickly punch him and put him down.

You keep doing that until you can create a chance to escape, the rest get tired of getting punched out, or the cops get there to save you. You control the fight so you don't have to fight more than one bad guy at a time but you have to win all of the fights.

Let's say you get attacked in a parking lot, you use the parked cars to help you control the fight by quickly backing between the cars to keep them strung out behind you and throwing sucker punches to put them down whenever possible.

You can't stop and defend your position because they will quickly flank you so you will be fighting on both sides plus they will climb over the cars, which will mean you are surrounded and in an indefensible position. Therefore, you must keep moving backwards to keep them strung and in front of you.

Ever read in the news about gangs fighting in a parking lot or used car lot?

They are using the parked cars to give themselves a tactical advantage to win the fight or get away from a fight that didn't go their way.

Another technique is to back through a narrow doorway to force them to fight you one at a time but, be aware of other entrances into the room like windows and doors because the bad guys will try to use them to flank you and get behind you.

Hint, wide doorways like at Walmart don't work too well because too many of them can come through at the same time. It has to be a narrow doorway only one person can pass through at a time, though a wide doorway can be better than nothing to at least help string them out as you keep moving backwards.

In some cases, where they can't flank you, you can defend the doorway and, as the bodies stack up, it will become increasingly difficult to get to you so they will be more inclined to quit, especially because it is very difficult to throw hay makers in a narrow doorway.

But, where they can flank you through other entrances into the room, you MUST keep moving and maneuvering only stopping long enough to quickly take someone down; you just use the doorway to help string them out and keep moving.

Let's say you are jumped in a big store like Walmart. You can fight a rear guard moving backwards and, if they still start to group up on you, quickly back up through an aisle that will force them to string out knowing some will try to flank you by using other aisles so you MUST back through very quickly only taking time to quickly put people down by sucker punching them.

Let's say you are shopping in Walmart and in an aisle when two to four bad guys start towards you to fight you. You drive your grocery cart towards the lead guy like you are going to ram him.

What is he going to do?

He is going to lean forward, grab the cart, and have a pushing war with you while his friends come around the cart to attack you from the sides.

What do you do?

The thing he least expects you to do to create the element of surprise. Just before he can grab the cart with him leaning forward off balanced and arms stretched out towards you, you quickly turn the cart sideways to block most of the aisle creating a choke point that only one person can get through at a time. If any of them try to move the cart, their hands will be on the cart making it easy for you to punch them in the head putting them out of the fight.

Now, you just turned your cart, the lead guy is off balance leaning forward with his arms extended and what do you do?

You quickly grab one his extended arms before he can regain his balance, blow out his elbow, step in and blow out a knee with your foot, punch him in the face, and shove his body into the guy behind him to block that guy out while taking down the guy who will try to come around the other side of the aisle.

When you cripple or kill one person, you can shove their body into one person to briefly block them out of the fight while fighting someone else.

Let's say you are in the open and for simplicity's sake we will say you are fighting two bad guys. If there is a tree, you try to maneuver so the tree comes between you and one of the two bad guys. One of the two bad guys is caught so that he has to either take the time to move around the tree, briefly putting him out of the fight, or he has to move around the other bad guy, briefly taking him out of the fight. In either case, you quickly move to take down the one remaining bad guy in the fight so you can fight the other bad guy who may decide to stay behind the tree so you can't get him.

You can use the corner of the building or any object the same way and will probably have to improvise as you fight, which requires you to keep thinking.

Let's say you do one or more of these moves and they remain relatively bunched up so you can't really fight them.

What do you do?

You do the fake and run. You fake like you are going to hit the closest one to you with a right cross so that you plant your left foot towards them and transfer your body weight onto that foot. As soon as your weight is on your left foot, you push back away from them while turning to run.

What will happen?

When you fake the hit, they will plant their feet to take the fight, not expecting you to run. When you suddenly turn to run, they will be caught flat footed because you will have created the element of surprise, they have to shift their brains from fight to flight, get their feet moving, and chase you. It will buy you from one to three seconds lead time.

When you are running, you have to know that one of more of them will likely be able to outrun you, none of them will run at the same speed, they will get strung out single file, and you need to keep an eye over your shoulder. What you will be looking for is 1) are they chasing, 2) are they strung out, and 3) are they catching you.

If they don't chase or you are outrunning them, you can just run away and hopefully they won't mess with you in the future but not too likely. If one is catching you or they are chasing you and you want to end it there so you slow down to let the leader catch you, you wait until the first one is about 5 to 8 feet behind you, plant your right foot, turn back towards, him, and punch him hard in the face, throat, or chest.

What will happen?

He will be taken by surprise...again. He won't be able to get stopped in time to put up a fight and, if you hit him in the head or throat, it will either knock him out or kill him by breaking his neck and putting him out of the fight. If they try to run into you to tackle you, side step away from them and deflect them so they don't take you down and you should learn that from any good wrestling martial art. If one or two of the others are close enough behind the first guy they can't stop before getting to you, you may be able to put two or three of them out of the fight before the rest can catch up and begin to bunch up on you.

When it seems appropriate, fake a hit and run again repeating the above instructions. You shouldn't have to fake and run more than two or three times before they realize, "this isn't working well, I don't want to be next, and I think I hear mommy calling." You always want to cause as many bad guys as possible hear mommy calling as soon as possible to end the fight as soon as possible. You want to make them not want to fight you.

My next Street essay will be about static fighting a group of up to half a dozen people at one time and the different methods you can use.

See, you can fight more than one person at a time and win. You just have to know how or have the "Street Smarts" and the martial arts don't teach that.

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....