As it happens in so many movies, books, videogames, etc., I figured it would be safe to ask this in Café Society. Has anyone here been in a real life (i.e. non-exhibition, noncompetition) martial arts (Kung Fu, Judo, Karate, Teras Kasi, etc.) fight?
I was 
I had a good friend with whom I attended my Karate and judo classes, this was at around 10th or 11th grade in high school.
We had a falling out when a girl he used to like asked me to go to a school function with her and I accepted.
Well, the day before the function we ran into each other on the street. There were two people with him (a girld and a guy) and I had three of my friends with me. We exchanged curt words and started to walk away when I made the mistake of saying: “Hey you know, I’m really sorry about what happenned”.
I guess he wasn’t ready for a reconciliation.
We assumed the standard fighting stance and went at each other. The whole thing is coming back to me as I’m thinking about it now, though it was a while ago, so I’m bound to get details wrong.
I believe he started off with a round house kick which I side stepped. Using my own momentum I swung around for a round house to his midsection which caught him dead on, but didn’t seem to do much except make him angrier. Then he pissed me off by trying this little tactic we used to use on the white belts: He started throwing punches like crazy waiting for an opening, then landing a front kick on the midsection.
I saw it coming of course and pre-emptively kicked him on the chest (took some punches though), knocking him back. When I pressed, he kicked my knee and I almost fell but caught myself just in time and, seeing an opening, l lunged forward to grapple him.
That’s when things got ugly.
He kneed me right on the jaw and I saw stars from blow! I don’t know what happenned next as I recovered, but for some reason he didn’t follow through. I managed to get off a few more punches, then moved closer and tripped him to the floor. I put my knee on his chest and went into a pin position in judo I can’t even remember now. Then I said “This is sad man, we used to be friends”. And with that it ended, I got up, dusted off and walked away.
My friends were saying that the fight looked ‘faked’ like straight out of a kungfu flick. Which I found amusing.
Other than that, and one fight were a friend I was walking with got jumped by some people I didn’t know, I haven’t had to use self defense and that makes me happy.