Self-Defense Lessons from a Street Fight

mbryers · September 16, 2009, 9:00pm

                <p><h3>A Story&hellip;</h3>

Let me start of with a story that inspired this post. It’s a story that I recall often because of the eventual outcome as well as some valuables lessons learned.

I worked at a night club for a about 9 years. At the time of this story I was working a variety of jobs: bartending / working security / managing the downstairs bar and had been there about 2-3 years. This particular night, our club got raided by the cops and eventually shut down because of some underage drinkers. The night was still young, so a group of us decided to go out and party a little. Hartford, CT is a smaller city and the area of the clubs and bars is always very small; so that many of the other bars and club owners / workers knew the people from our club. So we were able to jump around clubs and have a good time.

Boooze = Trouble

As you can probably assume, drinking with a bunch of crazy 20 something club workers who all have the night off can get turn into a little bit of “fun”. As the night progressed, the level of intoxication did as well. At the time I was taking ju-jitsu for about 1-2 years. I had a wrestling background and I thought I was “hot shit’… how naive of me.

Comments = More Trouble

By the end of the night there were about 5 of us, heading to my buddies place in the city to continue partying. As we walked down the side street to his apartment, we passed by 4 other guys. One of them was peeing on the building, someone made a comment about a “small dick” – not the wisest of all ideas.

A Brawl

Quickly a fight happened – and my from drunk, adrenaline high recollection – this is what I remember.

First 2 of our guys ran away, leaving it 4 on 3, the 3 being us. I remember fighting / trying to wrestle a guy then suddenly being on the ground with a man on top of me. Luckily one of my friends quickly pulled him off of me, and I was able to kick the guy square in the sternum. But, this is where things started to change.

Weapons of Opportunity

We separated from each other and our opponents did something that my semi-virginal street fighting eyes had not seen before. This is going 10+ years back in time and been involved in a good deal of bar fights, but had not really faced weapons until later in my “career”. Each opponent instinctively found a weapon. One found a bag full of bottles from a closed bar and just started whipping bottles at us as hard as he could. My friend that saved me actually got hit very good in the chest. No cuts, but definite later bruising. The other put his keys in his hand, something I had not seen before, nor thought of. The other followed the first’s cue and grab a bottle, but not to throw, but to use a club or cutting device.

Oh Shit…

Right off the bat – we were all on the defensive. We are having bottles hurled at us, with nothing to return, and 2 men advancing with decent enough weapons. I had my keys, but I decided to get to my car (right near us) and grab my knife (I carry one, but left it in the car while at bars). The others I am with follow. I have my knife and ….

Slice and Dice Time!?

Sorry, no slice and time… almost on que, the police cars start coming down the street. As a said before, my buddy lives on this street and we are actually right next to his door (next to car) and as soon as we saw the lights, we bolted upstairs. Why we didn’t do that before… I don’t know. It’s funny that you’re more scared of cops then you are of men wielding weapons.

Eventual Outcome

We were able to get into the building and because my buddy lived in on the top floor, he had access to the roof. From the roof we watched the cops talk to (but not arrest) the other guys. They pointed at the door where we went and pointed at my car. Thankfully the cops did not come up, nor do anything with my car. It guess since no one was really hurt, then nothing had to happen.
Unfortunately, all was not forgotten by these guys. Since we still had our club shirts on, they knew where we worked, and did come back. We did fight them again in club, but with more people, and it really wasn’t a fight, it was us kicking them out. But for the next 2 weeks after, my tires were slashed are car was keyed repeatedly until I had to park elsewhere. I spend a lot of money fixing those tires and scratches. I had not made other enemies, and it was far too convenient that just after this fight, things started happening to my car.

Lessons Learned

Fighting can be avoided: If one of us didn’t make the comment or if one of us tried to defuse the situation with words, we would have never faced this problem.

Walk or Run Away if Possible: At any time we could have just walked or run into the building and that would be it. Instead we were complete DUMBASSES and decided to fight.

Used Weapons of Opportunity: A street fight or a self-defense situation is not a sport or fun fight. If your life is in danger, treat it that way and use a weapon of opportunity. View our Self Defense Weapons of Opportunity Post Here