It’s a relatively long time since I’ve been involved in a violent confrontation, and I’m also not a great fan of martial arts instructors “war” stories, however if lessons can be learnt from mistakes, then I thinks there’s a benefit to telling them. My first caveat, is that when real-life violence does kick off, it’s a mess, and what I’m recalling, is my remembrance of the event, so things might have actually happened somewhat differently.

So this happened, on one of the first nice days that we’ve had in Massachusetts. As luck would have it, my car had broken down on me, and wouldn’t start. I called AAA, and they couldn’t start it. Since it was a Sunday, and none of the garages I’ve used before were open, I decided to not have it towed, but leave it where it was, as it was perfectly safe, and about 500 yards from a Nissan dealership. I’d resolved to sort it out the next day. I mention this, because it put me on foot, and also meant I was mentally preoccupied, thinking about the car. I had decided to head to a Starbucks and do some work for a bit, so I grabbed my laptop case, and started to walk.

As I was walking there, I noticed two guys sitting on a bench, but they were a long way off. Whilst they were still a good distance away, they got up, and started walking in my direction. Due to the distance between us, when this happened, it wasn’t particularly obvious whether they’d got up, in relation to my movement, or if they had moved because they needed to be somewhere else, or because they were just ready to start walking again. If I’d have been a bit more aware, I might have picked up on them talking, turning their heads towards me, turning back into talk, and then turning to look etc. before getting up and walking towards me. Having identified individuals in my environment, I should have taken a closer note at what they were interested in, and what they were looking at/observing. In hindsight, it’s obvious that they must have spent some time watching me, and discussing, however briefly, what they were going to do before moving towards me. A good lesson in always being aware, whatever other issues in life you have to deal with.

The first movement I was aware of that caught my attention, was when the two of them started to separate, and spread out a little, whilst the one on the right started to move closer towards me, asking if I had the time (I was carrying my bag over my right shoulder). This is often referred to as “fanning out”, where multiple assailants, spread themselves across your path, and attempt to move to your sides. I was also suspicious of two people in this day and age not having a mobile phone between them, and needing someone to tell them the time. In retrospect this should have been the moment I tried to line them up properly, as there was a huge expanse of grass to my right which would have given me the room to do this, but my ego wasn’t letting me back away to do this, so I moved more to my right, and took a small step back, to try and create some distance, and also see who moved first to fill that space. As I did this I apologized, for not having the time – after all I’m British, and politeness is in my blood, and I do that as default. It was the one on my right who moved closer, the one on the left actually moved a bit further away, and to the side of me. Those two movements, snapped me out of any state of denial I was in, and I knew they either wanted something from me, or were just intent of giving me a beating etc. I’d decided then that my best chance was to act pre-emptively, and that I’d be best going for the guy on the right, as he seemed to be the main aggressor/instigator.

I let him come closer, waiting for him to come into range (I’d had my hands up in my Interview Stance, from the moment the first question was asked), and was ready to throw the hardest rear punch I could, when at that moment the guy on my left said something to me. It was a real rookie mistake; as I turned to look at him, the guy on my right lunged in for the laptop case on my shoulder. The rest is pretty blurry, but I remember throwing in some form of Hammer-Fist with my left (which felt very clunky, demonstrating that I need to get more comfortable generating power with my left) and moving with the pull of the bag towards the person, unfortunately for me, my right arm was all tangled up in the bag and I couldn’t free it, but the person I was hitting was backing away, and covering – the bag had now dropped to the floor. I was aware that the second person was coming up from behind me, and turned. I made some form of blocking action, but it wasn’t fully formed, and I ended up getting hit hard on the side of my head – I have a mouse on my temple where he connected. As I was turning I managed to connect pretty solidly with my right, and I just remember pushing him backwards with one hand, and punching him several times, before he too backed off. As I turned to see what the other person was up to, he was bending down to pick up the bag. I should have left it, but instead I just charged into him (I may well have thrown a knee towards him, because although it’s not bruised it hurts like hell), and knocked him backwards – I then picked up my bag and ran, in the direction they’d just come from. This all probably lasted 5 seconds top.

My biggest mistake from a confrontational perspective, was not lining them up from the start, and it was ego that prevented me from doing so – I should have just stepped on to the grass, and then moved to pre-emptively hit the nearest person to me. But I was reluctant to back away, which I would have had to do, to move them into line. As a consequence, I ended up getting stuck in the middle. I’m not aware of getting hit by the person who went to grab my bag; he was too intent on trying to pull it, and only let go, when I started hitting him (showing extreme aggression, will often take the fight out of a person). If I hadn’t been in the middle, I wouldn’t have ended up getting hit from the guy behind me, and he landed a really solid strike, which I’m still feeling the effects of now. However once he started to get punched, he backed away. Neither one of them wanted to actually fight, that much is pretty obvious, and both backed away as soon things didn’t go their way – in that respect I was extremely lucky, because if they had been committed to their cause, it would have most likely been a very different ending.