Does martial arts training really matter in a life-or-death situation?

longbaugh http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/23216#370566 "You can't be waiting for the chance to pull off a particular move you learned" This is a really salient point, which can be distilled down to: "A little martial arts knowledge is a dangerous thing - to the wielder".

Years of martial arts. In a conflict you have the fight or flight response. If it's "fight" at least you won't freeze. Mostly where it works out, however, is that the sort of people who're looking to victimize you are, as predators, going to pick out the people they're pretty sure they can take easily. The confidence one gets from MA appears to make one a less likely target for such predators. If it does get fuzzy, however, at least you'll be able to keep your wits about you. There's a lot to be said for that.

I recently asked a friend of mine who has spent a good portion of his life in the armed forces a casual question about martial arts and I found a few things that he said to be very interesting and a bit surprising. I'll try and quote him as best as I can remember. "I once fought a black belt. He had a hell of a kick, and it looked really nice as he delivered it, but I won the fight. Martial arts are just that, an art." (In response to a question I asked about a particular martial art (perhaps Wing Chun?) and its usefulness in fighting two or three opponents) "If you're in a life or death fight against three people, you're probably dead. Your best bet is to kill or seriously injure the first person as fast as you can, to discourage the others."

My Aikido instructor always said `In a fight, the first rule is RUN. If they catch you, use what you know' A good friend of mine who has studied martial arts for many years (and is a Karate instructor / student with the Gracies) has been in a couple of situations. The first, three against him, the technique was to kick the first guy in the crotch and throw him into the others before running, the second involved restraining a guy who was laying into a security guard. Neither of these are similar to a martial arts fight as often seen on TV, but the training enabled him to act appropriately.

Took Tae Kwon Do for a few years. Never, to my amazement, have been in anything worse than a few shoves. However, knowing that I could, if push came to shove, do some serious damage quickly to someone has given me the confidence to control some heated confrontations peacefully. Simple rule for punching, btw: Don't swing. Push straight out. Your energy is much more efficiently focused.

+1 for Krav, at the school I've been going to the first thing they teach is the "Nike defense". And the second thing they teach is to be as vicious as possible towards the agressor to disable them long enough to use the Nike defense. And the training to become moderatlely proficient is not out of the reach of anyone.

My sifu, an ex-cop, always taught us to run like hell from any weapon confrontation. In almost all circumstances you are better off. Even with a gun pointed at you, run. It is very hard to hit a running person with a handgun, especially if the gun-wielder does not practice or is holding the gun "thug-style". That said, my training saved me twice, both times because I learned break-falls very well in my Kung-fu classes. I never knew I was going to have to do break-falls on people's windshields, but I'm glad I did. Gymnastics would have been another path to that end.

I broke my toe sparring and decided that if I continued It'd be a lot harder to play the guitar with jammed fingers and sprained parts so I quit. I kinda miss it, 15 years later.

In a knife fight, the winner is the one who ends up in the hospital. Think well on this, young grasshopper. Kick, don't punch. Kick them in the knees, kick the knee like you're trying to break down a dead-bolted door - *as hard as you can*, with your entire weight behind it. A couple of the previous commenters have it: the only thing that'll help you in a life-or-death situation is recognizing that and immediately changing your behavior to fit that new reality. You have to immediately enter an all-or-nothing, him-or-me, do-or-die mode where the norms of civilized society no longer apply and 100% of your bodily resources are available to you. Your best bet may be striking once and then running at top speed. It may be beating down the opponent and then stomping him on the ground until he stops moving. It may be just very calmly handing over your wallet and avoiding eye contact. Whatever it is, do it and do it without hesitation. I was a U.S. Marine undergoing some training on an Army base. One evening walking back to the Marine barracks, a group of Army guys called me over - "Hey buddy, come here and check this out". My spidey-sense started tingling, but I walked nearer to them anyway. They spread out and attacked me. I was in the best physical shape of my life, fresh from bootcamp which includes unarmed combat training. No weapons were visible. About 6 of them. Deserted field on an Army base, near midnight. I ran through the nearest guy and ran like my ass was on fire for the Marine barracks (which I knew had someone on duty 24 hours). As I passed him I hit him with my elbow and I got hit in the ear and side. I have no idea whether they followed me or not, I ran like I was trying out for the Olympics. Had I chosen otherwise, I might be here today, but it might be minus a bunch of my teeth or some other parts of my body which I value. Or, hey, I might not be here. My ear swelled up real nice for a few days. In my experience martial arts training makes people stupid. You won't win against a weapon if you don't have one. You won't win against multiple opponents. "Wrestling" indicates that neither of you are really trying to hurt the other one - if you were "wrestling" for real, you'd put your thumb in the other guy's eye socket and insert it up to the base of your thumb.