the fighting skills of the average man

In My Humble Opinion
61

In looking at the multi-episode BUDS course (available on Youtube) covering the Navy SEAL training process from start to being inducted the SEAL training is incredibly physically intensive. The cardio capacity required is astounding to complete these tasks. Having said this while there is a hand to hand combat component of the training it is by no means the primary focus of their training which in the series appears to focus on physical endurance training, combat weapons training, dive training, and working together as a team to overcome obstacles. “Bar fighting” does not appear to be a course module.

I know there is this sweaty palmed fanboy mythology about SEALS that they are the absolute masters of all forms of earthly personal combat and would hand anyone short of an Olympic level martial artist his ass in all one on one situations, but I kind of doubt this is the case.

62

“I don’t do bars, 23+ years sober, so how would I get into a hand to hand fight?”

Either you don’t read real well or you just like to insult people IMO.

Smart ass from afar is cool. :cool: Typical, but what else can be expected? :stuck_out_tongue:

63

Well, seems you can’t read either.

The bar is in the far east.

I said absolutely nothing about random strangers fighting on a regular basis.

I take it you have never been the biggest guy in a bar with a short red headed Texan looking to be a tough guy either.

NOTE: I am 23+ years clean & sober. I do AA, I do not even use mouthwash with alcohol in it. I take it that serious.

I would appreciate it if you and all the others that like to throw that around to think of a different insult, like you think * am crazy or something.*

I don’t really expect any class from you two but it is now on record that I asked nice. :stuck_out_tongue:

64

I read quite well. I just find your internet tough guy free-verse compositions in most any thread even peripherally related to violence impossible to take seriously. I’ve known some genuinely tough, scary guys. Some of them are doing time. A few are dead. Some of them got old and calmed down. None of them that were for real ran off at the mouth like you do. Of course, you couldn’t quote them while playing bongo drums to hilarious effect, so you do have that.

65

Nobody but you waded into the thread, commenced to dickwaving, and wanted the topic to be what a hard-ass you are. Why don’t you go back and re-read how many times you’ve made similar posts in other threads?

66

It has nothing to do with “sweaty palmed fanboyism”. Most “bar fighting” consists of a couple of drunk a-holes shoving, rolling around on a beer soaked floor or swinging wild haymakers at each other. Navy SEALS spend years training for combat. Does that make them invincible? No. But putting a SEAL against a random street brawler, I’m going to put my money on the SEAL.

Yes, you absolutely sound like a crazy person. I don’t say it to insult you. But you do know your post comes across like a lunatic rant?

As someone else pointed out above, I do feel like my generation (over 40) were more “rough and tumble” than kids growing up these days. And we look like pussies compared to generations before who spent most of their youth killing Nazis or Viet Kong. Our dads taught us rudimentary boxing. Kids would occasionally give each other a fat lip or black eye in the school yard. The Karate Kid was considered a valid play book for dealing with bullies. Even in college, we had occasional scuffles with rival fraternities or “townies” looking to start trouble.

I think it varies. Members of the upper classes weren’t expected to be street brawling thugs, but they weren’t expected to be total pussies either. The wealthy had duels or were often required to defend themselves against lower-class thugs. Remember that in ancient feudal societies, typically the upper classes were the only ones who could afford to own and train with weapons and armor.

67

Hi!,

As the usernick implies, I have seen an altercation or two in my time working the door at various locations.

The average man (IME) is going to try and push the other person away, and if they do throw punches they’re going to be something closer to hay makers. Generally speaking, they’re going to want distance to the fight, to minimize their own chances of getting hit, and they’re going to want to end the fight with one or two blows. They will tire extremely quickly.

Against another average man, it’ll be a crap shoot as to who lands the knockout blow (if there even is one).

Against a trained opponent, even one with relatively minor training, they will generally do poorly, depending on the sobriety of the individuals involved and their opponents level of physical fitness and, frankly, luck. To put it simply, you can defeat a SEAL, if he’s drunk enough. OTOH you can also probably defeat a Secret Service Agent if they’re drunk enough.

Of the two though, I would argue that Secret Service Agents are probably more dangerous as hand-to-hand fighters because their mission involves the necessity of disarming, controlling and defeating an opponent within arms length far more often than a SEAL would normally have to. They train more for it, and more often at it. SEALs, otoh train at blowing things up, and HALO parachute operations, and all kinds of things a Secret Service agent doesn’t.

But neither a SEAL or a protection division Secret Service Agent is anything like an “average man” in terms of skill set or physical fitness. In most circumstances the average man is going to lose, it’s going to be quick and it’s going to be decisive.

The truth of the matter is though, that most of the time an “average man” doesn’t really want to be in the fight at all. They’d much rather make noise and swell up their chest to intimidate the other party, and they’re very happy with the security people showing up because it lets them save face without risk of serious injury. “I woulda kicked your ass except for all these lame bouncers!” etc etc.

BTW: Most seals are not these ginormous mountains of dense muscle. They tend to be around 5’10ish, and built more like endurance runners than weight lifters. Think Michael Phelps, or a triathlete.

Regards,
-Bouncer-

68
  • 1000

Impossible to take seriously, that is, when they’re at least comprehensible on some rudimentary level. Otherwise they’re just sheer word salad ramblings of some old(er) man on his computer.

69

You’re just lucky you didn’t try this against a real tough guy like ducati or Broomstick.

70

Old age & treachery usually overcomes youth and enthusiasm.

When people are laughing at you, they are usually underestimating you.

Why do clowns scare so many people?

Yeah, I’m old, 71 + and I have never done anything in my whole life. he he he

So why do you bother to respond to me. Can’t pass the train wreck without rubber necking? :smiley:

71

Because clowns will fucking kill you. And then rap about it in wicked rhymes.

72

That is a factor, but I think it is more the intrinsic rapeyness for which clowns are infamous.

73

That’s true. In common with most militaries, the necessity of engaging in unarmed combat is taken as a sign that someone fucked up royally, and therefore any sensible soldier would prefer to shoot you or blow you up to taking you down and submitting you with an armlock. It saves time, and trouble. H2H training is more a “last resort” prep than a primary focus, as well as a way to increase aggression and build confidence.

But I think you are underestimating the role of the two factors in which a SEAL is going to predominate - physical conditioning, and mental attitude.

A person who can do a ten mile run with a loaded rucksack and then do 200 pushups is a person who is not going to run out of gas in the first thirty seconds of a fight. And if he has spent the last few years training to swim several kilometers underwater, take out sentries, plant bombs to blow up bad guys, and then retreat in good order, he has the kind of mental toughness and focussed aggression that constitutes a good 60% of success in fighting. Add to that an extraordinary level of physicality, and he is going to make bloody hamburger out of the average guy or even the average bar fighter.

They are not invincible or superhuman. But they exist at the super elite level of fitness and warrior spirit. Convince them that, for whatever reason, they need to win a bar fight, and they will approach it with the same considerable presence they would any other mission.

Maybe the average street brawler could defeat them. Maybe a Golden Retriever would kill a pit bull. “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong” - but that’s the way to bet.

Regards,
Shodan

74

Means a lot to you to have a bunch of strangers on the internet believe you are Billy Bad-Ass, does it? Why is that?

75

I think most doormen would go for a punch in the stomach. Fights are invariably initiated by people under the influence of alcohol, and this kind of punch causes them to double up and fall safely. A punch to the head could cause the punchee* to fall on to the back of his head, which is a fairly common cause of death in pub brawls. It’s also kinder to the knuckles of the puncher.

A few years ago, I was walking back from the pub on a Saturday night when I chanced upon a couple of Elvis impersonators squared up outside another pub on the way home. I stood to watch the fun while munching on my kebab (US:Gyro) when a third man, presumably the promoter of the event told me “Move on, there’s nothing to see here”. Like I was going to walk away from what could have been The Greatest Post Post Pub Entertainment Ever.
Unfortunately (well, for me) the third man calmed the situation down and I was denied the surreal joy of watching two Elvises* knocking seven bells out of each other.

  • Shakespeare made words up as well
76

Who is silly enough to believe anything I say?

When it comes to the average guy fighting the average guy it is always wise to consider that you might not have average as an opponent.

Many seem to think that only average drunks fight and that was not the OP question. I show other things that might be coming through the door.

You don’t believe me or like the way I do it or say it, cool with me. :cool:

Now you get two average guys to physically fight, say, because one grouped the others SO and would not stop, no way to call the cops, etc., etc… Got to fight or watch the SO suffer, well there are people on the SDMB that claim they would just watch & do nothing. But then again…

The great majority go through life and never have to make the decision to fight by hand another person. ( Why oh why can’t the whole world be like that? ---- all together now… )

But the attitude that you will never meet an average guy that thinks different, is kind of silly IMO. Ever been around the average Turk? Been to the far East? Lots of average guys in this world that think or care about everything a lot differently than the average guy that lives on your block or subdivision.

So, this attitude that the only average guy you ever meet will be just like you is fine, until it isn’t. Or they aren’t.

Hope you never do but don’t keep telling everyone that you have THE correct answer that ALWAYS applies.

Let’s all be careful out there today. :smiley:

77

Why yes I have. And I would not conclude that they were any more prone to getting into fights than any average guy I meet of other ethnicities in other regions. Far East a bit less so … note all humans are capable of violent actions and have dark sides. But I think Americans are if anything bit more likely to get into a road rage, parking spot, other casual contact altercation than most other world cultures. Fitting in and collaboration is more the cultural norm than America’s mythic male rugged cowboy archetype globally. We are a bit more likely to want to individually punish the cheaters and worry a bit more about what is “fair.”

No question there are still certain subcultures within America in which “men” fighting is more normative, at least in young adult life, and in which fighting is considered a normative part of a young adult male’s toolkit. Less so than it was though. We live it out in videogame and other entertainment fantasies but in the real world we fight and either prevail or fail with the written and the spoken word.

78

Steven Pinker suggests that violence has been declining more or less steadily since the first city-state:

A little bit of Googling has failed to turn up an answer so far on whether this downward trend in violence carries over to the kind of fight we’re talking about here, but I’ve started a GQ thread on the subject.

79

Dude…

80

You are the one introducing this concept into the thread. So no, SEALs are not supermen. They are just better trained and conditioned than the drunken louts who fight in bars.