Home Forums Krav Maga Worldwide Forums Student Lounge Street Fighter means No Skill

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  • #30351
    jjk
    Member

    Do not take this personally if you consider yourself a street fighter, because I love the video game, and I’d love to be corrected about this:

    The term “street fighter” is just a buzzword that people use when someone actually has no skill, once-so-ever. Unless you’re A BOUNCER, then how often do you really get into a fight and how much do you really learn from these fights?

    Let’s say that you fight once a month? That’d be 12 fights a year, which let’s say you win half of. That means every 4 weeks you’re beat up, and every 8 weeks you’re REALLY beat up. 12 fights a year seems like a lot. Do you know anybody who is like that? They must be in out of the hospital a lot.

    Now let’s think about how much you really learn from these fights. If you were in class, and and the only thing you ever did was have some drunk guy rush you (probably while you were drunk) or have his friends rush you, would you really learn that much? It’s not like afterwards everyone stands around and says what you did right and what you did wrong. It’s not like you have a fighter’s understanding of how the body works. And it’s not like you’re explicitly training your body and conditioning. Let’s say you get hit with a baseball bat in every fight. How many fights would it take you to find out a good defense from a baseball bat? I dunno…. 10? I have no idea. But without feedback channels it really can’t be that great.

    So it would SEEM that the frequency and caliber of training doesn’t hold much water to almost any martial art out there. The only thing that a street fighter has is balls. The balls to fight over and over again, while not learning anything, and probably for no real good reason.

    #57622
    giant-killer
    Member

    Hmmm, interesting question.

    In terms of actual skill, I suppose you would learn some things from the experience of actual fights. However, if you are someone who tends to get into fights, I would suppose you would also spend time learning either an actual martial art, or just hang with your buddies and try things out, because you are obviously going to need those skills.

    Reminds me of that one guy in another fighting class (not the NTC), who kept getting into trouble. Not a gang member or anything, but just got into fights. He’d been stabbed in the heart and lived to tell about it… One day he came in to class, with lots of red spots on his legs and we chatted with him, then someone said “What’s that on your legs?” and he said, in the most casual voice, “Oh, that, you know, I was climbing up a building, trying to get in and crashed through a window.” We kind of looked at him, thinking WTF?, but he said it was okay, because a “bad guy lived there”.

    Anyway, I guess there’s a guy you could classify as a street fighter, but he was also taking fighting classes and trained on his own to hone his skills, which would then serve him well in whatever street fight he was involved in.

    So, I suppose street fighters don’t just learn from the street, but also from their own training and combined with the real life experience that they have it can make them dangerous.

    _________________
    Giantkiller

    #57625
    jjk
    Member

    Could be, my above post was mostly for people who just are classified as “street fighters”, but I see what your saying. However, I think martial arts tend to teach people NOT to fight. Either through philosophy, or through the weeding out or calming of those types of attitudes.

    #57627
    giant-killer
    Member

    Probably, but maybe not everyone adheres to that philosophy outside of school. Or could be that a street fighter does not go to an official school, but just watches fight videos and trains with his buddies, maybe even stages some impromptu MMA fights in a backyard somewhere, gaining some experience that way.

    _________________
    Giantkiller

    #57629
    vwr32
    Member
    quote jjk:

    The only thing that a street fighter has is balls.

    I think each situation has to be evaluated before making such a blanket statement. In each fight, you don’t know what he has (skills or weapons) until one of you becomes a victor, and the other the victim.

    And I think u’re underestimating “experience”.

    Just my .02 🙂

    #57632
    jjk
    Member
    quote vwr32:

    And I think u’re underestimating “experience”.

    Just my .02 🙂

    Okay, yes. This is what I want to know… why? I don’t think “street fighting” experience, counts for diddly squat. The encounters are too short, too infrequent, and too varied to produce any kind of learning.

    Except of course, growing some balls.

    Oh, and I am just talking about people who call themselves street fighters, and kind of scoff at dojo training. I’m quite sure that someone who trains, and then is forced to use his techniques in the street gains a valuable edge. But I’m interested in people who don’t train at all.

    #57642
    vwr32
    Member
    quote jjk:

    Okay, yes. This is what I want to know… why? I don’t think “street fighting” experience, counts for diddly squat. The encounters are too short, too infrequent, and too varied to produce any kind of learning.

    Except of course, growing some balls.

    Oh, and I am just talking about people who call themselves street fighters, and kind of scoff at dojo training. I’m quite sure that someone who trains, and then is forced to use his techniques in the street gains a valuable edge. But I’m interested in people who don’t train at all.

    That’s the second reference to balls you’ve made in the same thread… we should have some limits imposed lol.

    I really don’t know how to address it. I’m not a “street fighter”, but have been in my fair share of bar fights. If everything else is equal, I can’t help but feel my experience counts for something. There are people out there that have never been in a fight, never taken a punch. Are you saying someone who trades bareknuckle blows on a regular basis is someone to take lightly? As lightly as someone who has never fought or trained?

    I agree there are those people who consider themselves “street fighters” who don’t deserve the title. You usually see them at parties, out of shape and talking smack. True, they skoff at people who train at schools or dojos. But there are also people in dojos who skoff at street fighters. Someone with lots of ring experience might not do so well on the street. Someone with lots of street expierence would be toast in the ring. I just think it’s wise to recognize when you’re not on your home field.

    #57647
    ryan
    Member

    I suppose it depends on your definition of a street fighter, as well as what the “end game” is. In general, and in all walks of life, I’ll take the person whe has “been there, done that”. There is no replacement for empirical research.

    #57667
    jjk
    Member
    quote vwr32:

    There are people out there that have never been in a fight, never taken a punch. Are you saying someone who trades bareknuckle blows on a regular basis is someone to take lightly? As lightly as someone who has never fought or trained?

    That’s a good point. But what qualifies as a regular basis? Let’s assign some numbers to this (even though they’re arbitrary). I’d say that there’s no difference between someone who doesn’t train and has gotten in two or three fights VS someone who doesn’t train and has gotten in zero fights.

    #57668
    jjk
    Member
    quote Ryan:

    There is no replacement for empirical research.

    Right, but fighting dudes outside a bar twice a year (what I think most “street fighters” do) isn’t empirical, nor is it research.

    #57676
    ohskigod
    Member

    there are people who live the street life that are no strangers to physical conflict. of course, some are more skilled than others. Make no mistake though, someone who gets into fights alot, win or lose, can give them an “I dont give a crap” approach to a fight that you will want to be wary of. I’m not saying it makes them better or worse fighters per say.

    one can argue that you gain more experience losing a fight than if you win it, of course, in the street, losing a fight can mean not surviving it too. This is why i avoid physical confrontation as much as I can, since there is too much of an unknown factor in this day and age.

    #57681
    kmsf
    Member

    A good fighter stacks the deck before hand to assure a win.

    #57705
    vwr32
    Member
    quote jjk:

    That’s a good point. But what qualifies as a regular basis? Let’s assign some numbers to this (even though they’re arbitrary). I’d say that there’s no difference between someone who doesn’t train and has gotten in two or three fights VS someone who doesn’t train and has gotten in zero fights.

    I don’t consider 2 or 3 fights to be “regular basis” as you first described. Your initial post sort of set a definition of a street fighter as someone who fights once a month.

    Let’s say you’re on a reality show where you get to build a team of “street fighters” from a select group of people. You are only picking names off a piece of paper, so you don’t get to go with apparent athleticism, weight, or height. You know only what you’ve brought up here:

    1. None of them have any formal training.
    2. You know how many fights each person has been in.

    Are you saying you’d pick the guy with no fights just as confidently as you would someone with 2 or more?

    Does the same logic apply equally across the board? We’re talking skill here, and that’s not unique to fighting. So someone who has never driven a car is just as good as someone who drives once in a while? Someone who has played football 3 times is just as clueless as someone who has never played? You’re about to go into open heart surgery and you have the choice of one doctor who has never done it, and one that has done it 3 times…. experience means nothing at all to you? I’m not saying two or three fights constitutes enough experience to define someone as a streetfighter, but the lessons they learn aren’t just garbage imo.

    You said they just fight over and over without learning anything. To play devils advocate, true streetfighters are probably just as convinced that pads don’t strike back and there aren’t any rules to save you in the street. There’s only one way to find out and I’ll bet neither group would voluntarily give up their home field advantage.

    And is there some reason behind making this whole comparison? Do you get heat from your peers who don’t train? You obviously enjoy training or you wouldn’t do it, so what difference does it make what someone else thinks? Just curious.

    #57736
    jjk
    Member

    Okay, someone with 2 or 3 scuffles would be slightly better than someone who has say… been in 1. But I think you agree (as would be the case with driving, or football, or maybe even surgery) that the experience gained would be minimal at best. Also those other activities you mentioned are often followed by detailed analysis and critical thinking. I’m willing to venture that most people who call themselves “street fighters” don’t think about it afterwards like a rookie QB would after his first match.

    Now here’s the rub. I don’t think ANYBODY gets in 12 fights a year. Or at least, most so called “street fighters” DON’T actually fight at all, or that often. So I don’t think street fighters exist. I think it’s a word people use to sound tough. That is unless, you’re a bouncer, or a cop, or some such, in which case I think you’d label yourself as such first.

    I brought up this topic because my girlfriend lives in a rough part of her town, and her brother is a bad egg, you see. She does Krav as well. Her brother though, recently got in a fight, wouldn’t give the details, except that he got a black eye and the other guy “got it worse”. Somehow while talking with my girlfriend about this, she mentioned he gets in fights all the time and he’s a “street fighter”. So when I pressed her, she said he got in maybe 4 or 5 fights in his life time. I said I’ve caught a fish 4 or 5 times in my life but that doesn’t make me a fisherman.

    #57742
    giant-killer
    Member

    I could imagine that there are guys who get into fights more often than maybe once or twice a year. Gang members maybe? Sometimes they beat you up just for initiation. Sure, if a guy got into maybe three fights in his life and that’s all the experience he has it may not be that much, but still better than nothing. But true “street fighters” I would assume would have more fights than that. They may be out looking for trouble and if you’re out looking for it trouble may not be too hard to find.

    _________________
    Giantkiller

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