Before and After

A lot of people like to talk trash on combat sports for "not preparing you for the street." My story is simple: in spite of having years of martial arts training, it wasn't until I got into combat sports that I had either actionable self defense skills on the street, or the confidence to handle ugly situations on the street.

My first Martial Art was Tae Sho Arnis, in the late 80's. In class we sparred like "American Kickboxing" or "full contact Karate" of that era. We did light contact sparring with padded arnis sticks, and practiced various common Filipino Martial Arts Drills, some Karate kata, and some basic self defense drills. We would occasionally do 2 on 1 sparring. The most memorable moment of that time was when we were sparring and the instructor turned off the lights and said "keep sparring, you won't always have good lighting on the street."

The problem with Tae Sho Arnis was we trained to compete in Kumite Point Fighting, and we got good at it. We ended devoting most of our training to that end. I remember the day when that ended, when our grand master walked out of a point fighting tournament for getting called on contact for kicks the judges said weren't landing on his opponent. Being in a Navy town, our instructors kept moving and the local school closed down. We dabbled in Tae Kwon Do of that era, which was stylistically similar to what we had been doing, but it didn't seem as practical.

A bunch of us then got one of our friend's father, a 2nd degree black belt, to teach us Aikido. He was really focused on teaching us "self defense" and mentioned numerous times he wasn't following the standard Aikido curriculum, and he had other martial arts experience. It was a rough and tumble class with contact randori, brawling on the mat outside of formal class time, and eventually light contact boken sparring.

Now up until this point, you will notice that I actually had a very "live," self-defense oriented martial arts training, more so than most martial arts of that era, about 2 years all together. But I still lacked confidence and actionable self-defense skill. I once stopped a shoplifter about twice my size by doing a takedown on him from behind, and I thought I was pretty tough. Then a few months later on the way home from the same job, I was jumped by four people trying to get my wallet. They only hit me one time, didn't get my wallet, and I got away, but I had to get about five stitches between my right eye and the bridge of my nose, and was left shaken in my confidence in my ability to defend myself.

That was before, in my late teens.

Then in my early 20's I got with one of my instructors (Vern Miller, Doc Fai Wong's first student to be endorsed to start his own school,) and got into K-1 style kickboxing (as well as Choy Li Fut and Tai Chi.) Back then we had no appreciation for light contact sparring, we were over compensating for being involved in Kumite Point Fighting, and I was coming home with new bruises or bloody noses more days than not, 5 or 6 days a week. My fights cards were disasters, as I had to cancel both fights due to chronic wrist pain from pounding on heavy bags for hours and hours every week.

But I learned how to fight, really fight, like it mattered. I really learned circular footwork. I learned how to really hit someone. I learned how to really take a hit. I learned how to handle my nerves headed into a ring where I knew I was going to get the crap beat out of me, almost naked in front of a critical crowd, and how to keep fighting even though blood was spraying around the ring, peppering the walls and posts near the ring.

Since then I have had no problem at all handling myself on the street:

• I was once chased by five people at night trying to mug me, throwing rocks at me. I kept my distance, but kept taunting them to follow me dodging and ducking them though dark streets and back yards, until I was finally in the back of a police car with them lined up in front of the police car for me to ID them.
• I was once attacked by a homeless person throwing stuff at me at very close range. I thought it was funny, side stepping and blocking with ease, I wasn't even slightly alarmed. He was aggressive, but no threat to me at all.
• I had a guy try to head butt me in front of my supervisor, and I dodged out of the way with ease, and continued to address him as if nothing had happened. (My supervisor was not amused.)
• I once had to talk to a large athletic dude-bro smoking methamphetamine, who became enraged and tried to attack me. I used circular footwork to use a tree to keep us appart as I explained the rules of the neighborhood to him.
• And this happened: 
• 'At one project I was involved in I was responsible for protecting the perimeter of a block in downtown Seattle. I was recklessly talking on my cell phone as I patrolled the area. I ran into a man verbally accosting a woman trying to get into her car, using sexist language that made me very concerned for her safety. I interrupted with "Sir, do you know this woman?" He replied by coming at me swinging. Still on my cellphone I used bobbing and weaving and footwork to avoid the strikes... on camera, much to the amusement of my supervisor at the time. The miscreant eventually tired, wandered down the street, blocked traffic, got arrested and went to jail. This miscreant left behind a back pack. Interested in who he might be, we secured the back pack and examined its contents. We discovered sentimental objects from his childhood, medications, and documentation that led us to believe that he was a homeless veteran who was not recovering well from a back problem, and that he had been mixing medications with alcohol at the time of our skirmish. A few weeks later the miscreant reappeared on the perimeter, looking for trouble. I got his back pack, and walked directly up to him, and asked "Sir, is this yours?" He immediately broke down into tears. He sobbed "no one has ever done anything like this for me before." We never had problems from him again.'

I would also note that I have continued to add to my skill set, training in submission grappling and full contact weapon free sparring. This has further boosted my ability, as per my fights in 2017: 

For example I was once involved in a neighborhood watch type of program near a drug rehabilitation clinic. I knew I had upset some amatuer phramcists distributing illicit benzodiazapines. A man came stumbling towards me on the side walk, obviously under the influence of the said substance. He pulled out a knife, looked down at it, and looked back up at me.

I carefully stayed out of lunging distance, but still very much in his face. I told him "you need to put that back right now, before you get into real trouble." I stood there, all be it on my toes, full well acting like I expected him to just put the knife away and walk away. That is exactly what he did. (Pro tip: don't abuse benzodiazepines if you are nervous about getting ready to threaten someone with a knife.)

I will end with this Aikido black belt's thoughts on the difference combat sports has made for him: