[EXPLAINED] Best Self-Defense For Street Fights

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While most people enjoy going out and having a good time, you’ll always find those who like to cause trouble.

Knowing how to protect yourself in dangerous situations is important.

In this article, we’ll be discussing the best self-defense for street fights.

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Techniques To Defend Yourself For Street Fights

Forget trying to defend yourself with fancy kicks and punches, self-defense starts long before that.

Use these skills for defending yourself on the street:

1. Situational Awareness
2. Distance Control and Strike Defense
3. Fight Stance
4. Breaking Grips
5. Using Grips

Let’s take a closer look at these skills and see why they’re so important.

Situational Awareness

There will always be people on the streets looking to take advantage of you.

When you’re not aware of what’s happening around you, that’s when you’ll most likely fall victim to an attacker.

This technique is the first and most important technique you need to know.

Being vigilant and aware of your surroundings is a very crucial aspect of self-defense.

When you’re aware of the risks around you, you can stay away from danger and prepare yourself to run or fight if necessary.

How To Be Aware In The Streets

Situational awareness starts with knowing where you are and who’s around you.

Here’s 5 methods to increase your awareness when you’re walking around:

1. Stay off your phone. Texting, scrolling social media, or doing anything on your phone while walking makes you vulnerable and an easy target.
2. Always trust your gut. If you feel that a situation isn’t right, rather avoid it.
3. Show confidence when walking. People who are confident seem less vulnerable.
4. Be alert. Make a mental note of the people around you, and be aware of anyone suspicious.
5. Use the buddy system. When possible, try to walk with people you know to reduce your vulnerability as a solo person.

Most importantly, use your common sense.

If someone seems dangerous, stay away from them.

Distance Control and Strike Defense

Strike defense and distance control work together when you want to defend yourself.

Distancing yourself from bad situations is the best thing you can do. It will protect you from any type of strike.

It’ll help you to avoid getting hurt or worse.

You’ll only use strike defense when you can’t get away from your attacker.

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How To Keep Your Distance and Defend Strikes

Keeping your distance from an attacker isn’t always easy.

Especially if you’re surrounded by more than one attacker.

Here are 5 ways to keep your distance:

1. The first thing you would want to do is stay as far away from an aggressive person as possible. As they come towards you, walk or run in the opposite direction to safety.
2. If you can, lock yourself in your car or somewhere safe until help arrives.
3. If you can outrun your attacker and you can’t find somewhere safe – Then keep them as far away from you as their longest weapon, so legs length or more.
4. If you can find something like a chair, you can keep it between you and the attacker to keep your distance.
5. If you don’t have an object to shield yourself, then always keep your arms up to block strikes or bump the attacker away.

If you can’t keep your distance and the attacker gets too close, then you must get as close to the attacker’s body as possible.

This reduces the power of their strikes because they can’t get a full swing.

Make sure to cover your head to defend yourself from strikes as you quickly approach your attacker.

When you’ve got a good grip around their waist, try to grapple them to the ground and gain control.

Strike defense and distance control aren’t the easiest to do, but practice makes perfect.

Fight Stance

Fight stance will only be important when you can’t flee the situation and you have to fight yourself out of it.

It’s important to know how to stand and where to keep your arms so that you’re protected from strikes.

Your fight stance will put you in the best position to defend yourself.

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What Is the Best Fight Stance?

There are many ways you can stand to be ready for a fight, but in a street fight, you need to expect the worst.

Your stance will need to make it easy for you to defend yourself and to get in and out of the situation as fast as possible.

What you need in a good stance:

1. Balance
2. Protection

Let’s take a look at these two aspects in more detail.

Balance

The very first thing you need to pay attention to is your balance. You don’t want to be off balance in a fight.

1. Keep your head up to keep your opponent in sight.
2. Your feet must be shoulder-width apart with one foot in front of the other one.
3. Normally your strongest leg (the one you’d kick a ball with) will be at the back.
4. Stand on the balls of your feet, don’t stand flat-footed. You must be able to move fast.
5. Keep your knees slightly bent to make it easier to keep your balance.

You don’t want to fall over in a fight as you’re trying to evade strikes and throw offensive techniques of your own – so balance is key.

Protection

It’s important to protect vulnerable parts such as your face, ribs, and your liver.

1. Keep your chin down and tucked to avoid being knocked out
2. Keep your hands up to protect your face
3. Keep your elbows tucked in so that your ribs and liver are protected

Having a fully protective stance in any fight is difficult because you can protect one or two vulnerable parts, but not all at once.

So that’s why moving around and making yourself a moving target will make it difficult for your attacker to land strikes.

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Breaking Grips

A very common thing many attackers will do is if they can’t land punches and kicks they will try to grab hold of you.

You don’t want to let your attacker limit your movement at all, so never let them get grips on you.

Fortunately, there are methods you can use to break free from grips.

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How To Break Grips

The most common grips will be on your clothing or your throat.

There are a few ways to defend yourself in these situations:

1. Keep moving and make it difficult for the attacker to get a proper grip on you.
2. If your attacker grips you by the clothes or by the arm, you would want to use one or both of your hands to break the grip as quickly as possible before they get settled.
3. If you grab break free, grab their fingers (one or more) and bend them open. You might need to break their fingers if necessary.
4. If your attacker is trying to throw you around, try getting your own grips on them to keep your balance and attempt a trip to get them to the ground so you can get away.

Breaking grips is all about attacking the weakest part of the grip and always fighting back.

Fighting back when you are in a grip will make it ten times more difficult for your attacker to secure their grips on you.

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Using Submissions

Using submissions to defeat your opponent is probably the best way to win the fight when you’re close to them.

There are many submissions you can use in a fight, but let’s look at the most useful and easiest ones to use.

Easiest Submissions When Standing

The benefit of keeping a street fight standing is not getting stomped, kicked, or having to fight on the hard ground.

Here are the easiest submissions to use when standing:

1. Standing Guillotine Choke
2. Standing Arm Triangle Choke
3. Standing Rear-Naked Choke

These are the easiest and most effective submissions to use on the streets.

They keep you safe while controlling the situation.

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Easiest Submissions For The Ground

Most fights end up on the ground, so it’s important to have a few submissions up your sleeve when you end up there.

Here’s a list of the easiest submissions to use on the ground:

1. Armbar
2. Rear-Naked Choke
3. Kimura
4. Arm Triangle

These are the most effective submissions to use if the fight goes to the ground.

Conclusion

These basics will help you stay safe in a street fight, but there’s more to it.

If you want to learn self-defense at home, here’s our system.

If you don’t want to be an easy target for attackers then start learning self-defense today.

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