Street-Fighter

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The next term used to try and demonstrate the superiority of one form of fighting over another, i.e., the street-fighter vs. Amateur MMA Fighter. Not really able to determine what it is they are trying to prove but a good guess is an attempt to show that an amateur MMA fighter is superior to a street-fighter.\

Well, lets try to find out what a street fighter is. When you try to define that term, i.e., street-fighter, you come up with defining sites for a game. If yo separate the two words you get more of the same. Apparently the game industry has a monopoly on that term as far as Google searches are concerned. I also have a feeling I am one of the few in the world to attempt to find a definition that works for what self-defense often calls street fighting. 

Now, when searching street fighting, with the “ing,” you get, “hand-to-hand combat in public places, between individuals or groups of people. Unlike sport fighting, a street fight might involve weapons, multiple opponents or revenge and has no rules.”

A pretty good site to check regarding this term is the “No Nonsense Self-Defense” site created and maintained by Marc ‘Animal’ MacYoung and Dianna Gordon MacYoung. http://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com/streetrat.html

The following quote comes from the site at No Nonsense Self-Defense, it is well worth the effort to read the entire article. “ … a street fighter, it means that I was a vicious, self-centered, misbehaving drunken, stoned thug among other vicious, self-centered, misbehaving drunken, stoned thugs. We were the worst kind of savages. Man to man, mano y mano was bull. Numbers and weapons were always used to increase our odds whenever possible. Once you realized the other side could and would shoot back, you did everything in your power to make sure he never got the chance. You always stacked the deck in your favor. You hit first, you hit hard enough to make sure he didn't get up. You ran as often as you hit, and you hit from behind as often as you could. The blood, the bullets and the knives were real. In the streets, life and death were determined by whims, pride, intoxicants and sheer stupidity. It's a way of life (and often death), and it's constant. It's living with being the hunter and the hunted every day and night.“

My personal thoughts on the matter are as follows:

First, there are various levels of what I would define as a “Street Fighter.” It is a full range or a gradient between the most extreme that I would classify Mr. MacYoung at then there is the opposite end of that spectrum that is at its most opposite. It would be hard-core to that level of soft-core with many levels or gradients that flow across that spectrum.

Hard-Core: Look to Mr. MacYoung’s quote above then read the following and it should give you an idea of what a full-fledged all-out street fighter would be, i.e.,:

"I've stopped knives that were coming to disembowel me

I've clawed for my gun while bullets ripped past me

I've dodged as someone tried to put an ax in my skull

I've fought screaming steel and left rubber on the road to avoid death

I've clawed broken glass out of my body after their opening attack failed

I've spit blood and body parts and broke strangle holds before gouging eyes

I've charged into fires, fought through blizzards and run from tornados

I've survived being hunted by gangs, killers and contract killers

The streets were my home, I hunted in the night and was hunted in turn

Please don't brag to me that you're a survivor because someone hit you. And don't tell me how 'tough' you are because of your training. As much as I've been through I know people who have survived much, much worse. - Marc MacYoung"

In my mind if you can claim that you have lived and experienced the above then you are a street fighter. But, when you start to look at what most actually believe are street fighters then you begin to see why there is such a disparity.

Folks who have had a couple of fights in the local school yard tend to think that is street fighting. Then those who have had a couple of fist fights in their neighborhoods because it occurred on or near a street think they are street fighters. Those monkey dances in local sports bars when too much alcohol is consumed and testerone rises and two guys go nose-to-nose they assume they are street fighters. Well, actually bar-fighters but that as well is far from reality and that is why some seem to refer to those encounters as the “Monkey Dance.” 

I believe that at the hard-core level and a few gradient levels below that, no where near the balance point of that spectrum, you can say a participant is a street fighter. When you get to the other lower levels, not so much. Fighting out in the street does not make one a street fighter. I consider the title one that you would attach to someone who lives a life where conflict and violence are in integral part thereof where they have to fight for survival. 

All the media drama monkey oriented forms we see today referred to as street-fighter are actually sport oriented endeavors where the use of the term is simply a sales tool that also works as a self-soothing form of making ourselves feel something that we can only feel if we lived a life of conflict and violence, etc. Remember for a street fighter there are no rules and anything goes to remain alive and to survive. 

Now, to make sure my readers don’t mistakenly assume I am a street fighter, I am NOT. Yes, I have had a few fights in my life and yes, I have experienced a very, very small amount of violence but most men do at one time or another - THAT DOES NOT MAKE A STREET-FIGHTER!

Most males in these modern times are doing the monkey dance. A form of fighting that involves attack postures, attack indicators, a LOT of verbal violence and a LOT of indicators that say, I will get physically violent if you don’t I will attack but in reality even if the attack comes it comes from the use of hitting and getting hit, and that is not the end all violence we all assumed it is or was. 

When I originally read a post on a FB Wall about a competition between a “Street Fighter” and an “Amateur MMA” guy I immediately thought, “Who says the guy is a true to life real street fighter? How would they or could they know? Are they using the media driven version of what it is to be a street fighter as depicted by sport oriented labeled street fighter crap or the video games also labeled the same?” 

From where I sit today, NOT even close. When I watched the actual video and didn’t observe a predatory like attack by the labeled “Street Fighter” against the Amateur MMA guy, I kinda figured it was a media oriented drama-esque type effort to gain our attention and to sell something effort. 

Come on reality, where are you?

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