My search-fu is weak, apparently – I seem to recall a thread some time back (maybe a year or so ago?) discussing the differences between movie fights and real fights, and now, when I want to refer to it, I can’t find it.
So, failing that, I’m starting over. How do fights in the movies differ from real fights? (Aside from hitting someone in the jaw/face/head being a bad idea because there’s a lot of bone there… right?)
Right.
Movie fights are entertaining. Real fights involve a lot of lame flailing around until either one person wins, or they both run out of gas.
Regards,
Shodan
Well the main thing is that real fights don’t have two guys standing off trading punches. Real bar fights and street fights 90% of the time have one or two awkward, badly aimed swings, then devolve immediately into clutching and grabbing and stumbling and falling and gasping for breath. The other 9% of the time one of the guys actually knows what he’s doing, and drops the guy in a couple well aimed hits, or throws. (The final 1% of the time is when both guys know how to to fight, but I’ve never seen it happen)
In my experience a real fight starts with very little warning, if any. They are also over pretty quickly and there are no dramatic sound effects. If the attacker gets off a good move first the fight resembles a mugging more than a fight. An exchange usually goes to the ground within a few seconds and involves rolling around trying to get on top of each other until the bouncer (if there is one) pulls you apart. YMMV
I’ve actually choreographed few stage fights and I teach fencing. What I tell my students, is that in a stage fight I want the guy in the back row to see the attack and say “wow that was cool.” In a real fight or fencing match, I ideally want people trying to figure out where that shot came from, after it has already landed.
1 v 2, 3 or n doesn’t take place in real life with the 1 coming out on top, or at least not often. Extremely difficult to take on even two people in a fight if they’re both motivated and looking to get involved.
If one guy has training, real fights are more like this
Real fights I have seen usually involve more posturing and “hold me back!” type of talk, with neither side wanting to strike first (about 15-20 times). It friends don’t pull them apart then shoving matches ensue and are broken up quickly by bouncers or friends (I’ve witnessed about 5-6 of these). And in the rare instance it goes farther than that: 1-3 punches followed by a clench and a fall to the ground, with some head locks attempts and crude wrestling until it is broken up (I’ve seen 2 fights get this far).
As xisor says, there is usually more posturing than fighting in real fights. When the fight actually starts, it usually ends pretty quickly. My black sheep uncle told me many times that if a guy started talking about hitting me, I should start hitting him without further delay and keep hitting him until he quit, which wouldn’t take long. His advice was sound, based on the few times I used it in the somewhat bad neighborhood I grew up in. Most people deal very poorly with being punched in the nose.
Note that fencing bouts (rounds, or whatever you call them) are typically over in 3-6 seconds. Now perhaps that is because the blades are light and hence easily manipulated (vs. bastard swords say). In movies, where they (actors not characters) try to hit each other’s blades, and not each other, TVTropes calls that “flynning.” I don’t actually know whether, in a knock-down drag-out faceoff with heavier swords, defense would trump offense like that, or the other way around (I’d think that you would think defense first).
There are “fights” and there are fights. In the former, two guys are usually facing off until one gets up the guts to [try to] sucker punch the other, after which it generally becomes a ground scramble. The latter are usually over within a few seconds as one person enters inside the guard of the other and makes a disabling strike. No fight between trained professionals is going to last more than a dozen seconds past first engagement, especially a knife fight. See the hotel knife fight scene in Quantum of Solace as an example of what a real fight between trained fighters would be like. It’s not JCVD facing off against half a dozen thugs in sequence; it’s two guys grabbing everything at hand to throw at one another while trying not to get sliced or stabbed.
You can tell real streetfighters from trained martial artists; the former rush in flailing and yelling, willing to trade a few hits for an effective blow to the head or abdomen, while the latter drop into stance and try to figure out how to deliver that Stroking Tiger, Gagging Flamingo move in perfect form. Guess who typically wins?
Stranger
I did like the ending of Rob Roy where after being picked apart by the faster, more agile and skilled Tim Roth and on the verge of defeat, Liam Neeson grabs the blade of his little rapier in his bare hand and chops him in half with his claymore
The trained martial artist, as long as he’s trained in actual self defense and not tournament moves. Your example is frankly horseshit.
The question is how many people trained in tournament moves think they can handle their own self defense.
My Dad was a champion boxer (Golden Gloves). He laughed a lot at movie fights, he said one punch to the jaw like that and the puncher would have a hand full of broken bones and the punchee would be down.
I did see my Dad vs a bar drunk one time, the dude couldn’t lay a hand on Dad- even though he was half Dad’s age, and in better shape. Dad was dodging, blocking and weaving. It took a bit before the dude fell down and his buds pulled him away. Dad did not hit back.
I worked my way through college working security, and was in my share of fights, but I had a nitestick and they didn’t. I had two fights last more than one real good kidney hit: one dude was very drunk but was blocking my stick with his hands, so he ended up with broken hands. The other dude was a 350# Samoan, and even with my partner we couldn’t hurt him, he was unstoppable.
I was in one real fight with my fists, I did what my Dad had taught me, kept my head down, then when I had a good shot I hit him right in the nose with a jab. The pain and blood from a nose punch stops most fights, and the nose cushions your hand. I was lucky, of course.
I know that feeling; we were all trained in our family in Aikido from a very early age on, and it helped on occasion but once, a furious giant of a man just crashed into me in a bar and, well, that was pretty much it – and I am a 207lb, no fat, guy.
That’s why I can’t help but laugh when someone tiny can not just hold his ground on tv against a far more massive enemy but is actually able to win such a mismatch.
True, the difference between martial arts in sports or in self defense is significant; a true bar-room brawler is in my (limited) experience more dangerous because he won’t consider neither immediate (injuries) nor later (legal) consequences, so he won’t hesitate; he is used to get beaten (so he isn’t surprised by pain); and he will use anything as a weapon, especially when you look physically superior.
During my time in the army, a brawler also taught me the most valuable lesson ever (by doing it to me): when you can’t afford your opponent to stand up, dislocate a thumb or break a finger or two and he stays beaten.
IME, a single nose shot is enough to incapacitate most people in a fight. Your eyes start watering so you can’t see, and you end up doubling over trying to protect your nose and let the blood flow.
I’ve got to post this, though!
I think I remember the thread the OP’s mentioning, and one aspect that came out in that was how movies seem to have bad science on the notion of being knocked unconscious.
And your response is begging the question. Most people who study Oriental martial arts, even those intended to be a fighting art rather than demonstration, are not trained to fight; they’re trained to perform technique and (hopefully) demonstrate good stance and balance. These are all important things, they’re not “actual self defense”.
In a real fight the decisive factors are typically the ability to take the initiative and the ability and willingness to accept a certain amount of damage to put the other guy down. (Most) streetfighters are not technically adept and know only a few ‘techniques’ that have worked for them in the past, but they’ve learned to take a punch or kick and keep going, whereas most trained martial artists who have never been in a no-holds-barred fight will wince away from a strike that makes it through their defenses, thereby losing initiative and usually the fight. And there are no perfect techniques in a real fight; however much a martial artist has studied a particular technique, the odds are good that it just won’t come off right (even if he has picked the right technique for the attack and implemented it well), forcing him to improvise. That is why the most effective fighting arts rely on just a small handful of techniques and a large amount of aggression.
Like the kick to the groin, this may be effective on someone who has not been on a fight, but it’s not going to do much against an experienced fighter except further enrage him. The most effective non-permanently deforming strikes are those to the solar plexus and kidneys; the most effective non-lethal strikes are those to the knees, shoulders, and elbows. The idea of defense is to end the fight as quickly as possible by rendering your opponent incapable of functioning or mobility. A blow to the nose or genitals may hurt, but it won’t stop many people and does not affect the fighting and locomotion ability of the target.
Stranger
Most of what I’ve seen in real-life fights has been covered.
But one thing, since we’re comparing cinematic vs. real-life, is the lack of blood in the movies. Two guys get into a five minute fist-fight on film and both come out of it with a trickle of blood from the corners of their mouths.
The last bar fight I saw maybe lasted 12 or so seconds and was inside the bar. Both guys were bleeding but the guy on the bottom recieved maybe four good shots to his face. When they pulled him up his face was running pretty well with a split eyebrow (I’m guessing there was a broken hand on the other end of that) and both nostrils running. His torn T-shirt looked like somebody had thrown a glass of blood onto it.
Facial cuts do so bleed…