Padwork And Movement Drills Against Multiple Attackers

One very safe method for getting a handle on fighting multiple opponents is windsucking. This is a drill they use over at DKK, something that Gavin Mullholland came up with I believe. In simple terms it involves one person striking the kick shields and/or thai pads of 2 to 4 others, while they move and jostle/barge the striker. It’s simple but puts a lot of pressure on the striker particularly when tired and it doesn‘t take very long to get tired!

Within this drill the striker can practise movement tactics to make life difficult for the pad holders while striking. The tactics of Darren Laur and others mentioned in the last post on the training components for fighting mulitple opponents can be applied within a framework of continual movement. That is,

• screening (human shield)
• cracking (splitting)
• re-directing
• clinching (certain aspects) 
• feinting (dodging)

Of course the described windsucking drill alone will not address all areas required to train for multiple attackers but it will certainly help with the movement and striking while on the move, if nothing else. The following clip (ignore the first part) gives an illustration of the kind of movement you want to aim for, obviously the clip is slightly different to windsucking but it’s similar and illustrates some of the concepts in action. These padless drills can of course be included with windsucking.

Windsucking as a stand alone drill or in conjunction with purely movements drills has some value. With a little imagination it can be adapted to include further pieces of the multiples puzzle, e.g. the striker can be pulled back, pad holders can strike etc. Of course other elements must be trained to properly prepare for a self defence encounter fighting multiple opponents but this series of posts provides a starting point.

In the Turkish clip the survivor of the multiple attack from the first post was able to strike and cover on the retreat, cut angles and move effectively. Most of these skills would seem to have been transferred from some form of previous training, probably boxing. It’s a moot point as to whether further skills from a kickboxing martial art and/or MMA would trnasfer as successfully.

In my opinion there is more transferable than not, with some obvious exceptions. Head kicks would be risky while sprawling on a shoot/tackle would be close to suicidal the consequences of which are covered in two posts by Wim Demeere on his blog.

MMA against Multiple Opponents

MMA against Multiple Opponents part two

Hathaway stuffs the shoot

Using MMA as an example, not everyone uses head kicks or likes to go to ground, there are many who avoid the ground very successfully, this suggests that some of the skills used in the cage would transfer very well. For instance, in the recent UFC114, John Hathaway lands a lovely knee strike to Diego Sanchez’s head in the first round off a shoot. Excellent skill for fighting multiple opponents if you can pull it off, training to use it would help of course.

In my opinion there are aspects of combat sports that are transferable to fighting multiple opponents and if selected with a critical eye can be implemented into training for mutliple attackers.

Fighting Multiple Opponents – Some Training Components

As I have little expertise at fighting multiple opponents when devising training drills for fighting multiple attackers I draw from footage of real life situations. Akin to the Morris Method approach of  ‘watch the fight‘ this can provide some rich information.

In the last post I embedded the clip  of a victim surviving a multiple attacker situation. The clip from Turkey, looks like a road rage argument that escalates into violence. Three blokes attack one in the middle of a busy street and it’s all on cctv. To say that the bloke attacked does well is an understatement, and the clip provides an excellent example of some of the attributes required in a multiple attacker situation where there is plenty of space.

He is a continual flurry of movement, attack and defence. He moves and strikes while going back,  defends and strikes while cutting angles to fight his way out of trouble. He repeatedly knocks down his attackers even managing to knock one out cold! Admittedly, he was a better fighter than the opposition, but was nevertheless outnumbered. He successfully takes the skills he has, probably from boxing, and applies them to fighting multiple opponents. As a boxer he may never have trained specifically to fight multiple attackers but the movement, striking and defence skills he had accumulated were transferred to the street fight.

These skills, while not straightforward, can be covered in regular training and with a little imagination drills that tackle these issues can be expanded upon to become more appropriate to fighting multiple opponents. A number of further movement tactics can be adopted to use against multiple attackers.

Three of these I gleaned from an old internet article, the source of which I lost but have recovered at a different location. The Author, Darren Laur, grouped three tactics together and called them the “principle of S.C.A.R. (Screening, Cracking, And Re-directing)”.

• Screening – get a human shield! Position yourself so the attackers get in each others way, thereby being obstacles to others reaching you.
• Cracking – splitting the opponents. When possible move between the attackers, striking as you move. You can ‘bounce’ off them turning as you move into a better position.
• Redirecting – use the attackers momentum and direction against them by redirecting them into inanimate objects or other attackers

These in conjunction with two skills in addition to those from the clip but common in combat sports, namely clinching and feinting,  can be used within the context of the continual movement required for fighting multiple opponents.

• Clinching – not a boxing/mma clinch as such, rather using skills from clinch fighting to redirect or screen or set up a cracking movement
• Feinting – probably more like dropping a shoulder to feint in Association Football rather than feinting to throw a punch can be used to set up or in conjunction with the three tactics above

Clearly, these training components do NOT cover everything required to cover ALL multiple attacker possibilities. These are only useful where there is space to move, it does not cover the skills necessary to get back off the floor, for instance. But if successful continual movement could prevent the fight going to the floor, which is very dangerous when fighting multiple opponents.

Training to fight multiple attackers

Training to fight multiple opponents is an aspect of martial arts that is covered in many styles with varying degrees of validity. A trade off between safety and ‘reality’ or validity is required to train for multiple attackers. Too little validity/reality and the training has minimal transferable value to a real life situation. If safety is completely compromised for the sake of making the training directly transferable the outcome would result in the loss of training partners to injury.

There clearly is a market for ‘keeping it real’ and judging by the price of the equipment it’s making someone a decent wedge! There will always be arguments over the veracity of using protective equipment such as Tony Blauer’s High Gear. Because although full force, or at least near full force strikes can be absorbed the use of any safety equipment skews the training away from ‘reality’ to some degree. Put simply, there has to be some form of trade off.

In contrast, an overly safe approach to multiple attacker training can have close to zero or even negative transfer to the real world scenario. If multiples training were to simply comprise of three man Ippon Kumite, similar to what you can still see at demonstrations it would have negligible real world use. That’s a bit daft but there you go. In fact, that sort of training could be counterproductive as the practitioner might even decide to fight several attackers instead of running due to overconfidence in his/her ability.

I intend to cover the way in which we train for fighting against multiple attackers. We manage this without specifically running a multiples program as such. This means we cover the skills required to fight multiple attackers through a mixture of drills gleaned from internet articles and clips, taking stuff from training with Steve Morris (who has never specifically covered multiples with me) and others and adapting regular training drills but without bringing in a self defence expert and buying expensive protective equipment. There’s a huge amount of information available on multiples training but to get value requires sorting the wheat from the chaff.

My favourite clip of successful defence against multiple attackers is the one of an altercation in the middle of a busy road in Turkey. It’s been around for a few years now and shows an argument leading to one bloke fighting multiple opponents amongst parked cars and traffic. The bloke on his own has clearly trained, probably boxing, and deals with the three attackers pretty comfortably. He’s a flurry of continual movement, striking and defending on the move. It’s an excellent example of how to defend against several opponents.

So information from this and other sources will do a reasonable job in my mind. A series of posts will follow this that address the issue of training to fight multiple opponents without an actual program to train for multiple attackers as such. Does that make sense? Anyway watch this space.