Have you ever been in a fight?

Have you ever been in a fight? I get asked this question all the time. Sometimes it's a morbid curiosity, sometimes it's for entertainment. But often what these students are really asking is: how do you even know if this works?!

I am a private person and don’t often share personal stories or experiences with my students. However, as time goes on and decades of teaching pass me by, I feel the increasing importance for my students to understand how my perspective as a martial arts teacher has been shaped by experiences that I ultimately hope my training will help them avoid altogether.

Let me tell you about a life-and-death brawl with terrible odds. This is the night I learned firsthand about the limitations of traditional martial arts for personal self-defence.

The following story has never been shared with anyone but my wife until now. The individuals who were involved in it are identified only by their initials.

I grew up in Chicago in the '80s and '90s. My parents worked hard to send me to a Jewish private school during the day. However, by day's end, I got off at the very last bus stop to return home—in a more affordable neighbourhood far from my school friends and increasingly overrun by gang activity.

As a teen in this environment, I didn't start fights, but I didn't back down or walk away from one either. I was very confident in my martial arts skills at the time, which included a Black Belt and competitive experience in Tae Kwon Do, a winning record in the boxing and kickboxing ring, training in Judo and Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, and a spot on the varsity wrestling team that got me scouted for a university scholarship.

During the early '90s, DJ parties gained popularity and attracted many teens including gang bangers. I and six friends were at one of these parties at The Purple Hotel (they never had one of these parties again). I can recall how half a dozen fights broke out during the party and the DJ kept announcing that the party would be cancelled. But we were having a great time dancing up a storm.

When we left, we started walking to the parking lot, and all of a sudden guys were coming out the side door and about 5 cars showed up and more guys started coming out of the vehicles. We were slowly getting surrounded. A giant guy came right up to me and started mouthing off. Being who I was at the time, I knew what was about to happen and did nothing to stop it from happening. I put myself in jeopardy but more importantly my friends too (for which I still carry some guilt). I walked right up to the large man and said "Let's see what you got". (I thought if I knocked him out right away the rest would back down, sparing me and my friends from a crazy brawl.) He throws the first punch at me which I easily block and I hit him back with a straight left. I identified another sneaking up on me so I utilized a sweep on him. My friend beside me was able to punch him while he tried to come back at me. It was chaos! Our group of seven was instantly swarmed by 25-30 guys - it was so crazy I accidentally hit my friend in the face (this is the actual reality in a fight). He was hurt badly but got up to continue fighting and was then struck on the back of the head with a bottle, he fell to the ground bleeding and was kicked repeatedly in the head while lying on the ground, unconscious. I fought back with a combination of rage and skill knocking out several guys and managed to pull off a spinning back kick which I knew broke several ribs on contact (I mention this because looking back with what I've learned since, this was a poor choice for the scenario).

All this happened in mere seconds—the fight was over almost as soon as it happened when someone yelled "Cops". (I recently reached out to two of the guys in this story and together we recalled details from this night. Turns out it was one of our buddies who yelled “cops” but there weren’t even any. We do remember security just watching entertained as this fight unfolded. They did not follow protocol or call the police. They just watched.) A buddy of mine, M. had his nose badly broken and his gold chain which was very valuable stolen (in Chicago, you would get your jewelry robbed while fighting). Another friend, R. had a hole through his cheek, not sure if it was from an ice pick or a ring.

We limped back to R.'s house to assess the damage. I only had a cut on my lip, and my friends had gotten the worst of it. It turns out the youth who attacked us were from a gang called The Spanish Cobras—notoriously known for vicious stabbings. They had mistaken us for football players from a local high school who jumped their friends. It dawned on us that a case of mistaken identity could have cost us our lives. Looking back now, we were lucky not to get stabbed or worse. My friend B. mentioned to me that he suffered a concussion that night which caused slurring of his speech from time to time 25 years since the incident. M. had surgery to repair his badly broken nose. The fight was big enough to make 2 local newspapers.

As a martial artist, I immediately began to consider how the martial arts styles I was practicing helped me survive but each had limitations in dealing with multiple attackers and weapons. I explored new training styles including Jeet Kune Do and Israeli Martial arts while continuing to train in Boxing and Jiu-Jitsu because I felt they each had elements that would help in a street altercation. Not long after the fight, I moved to Toronto, where I continued this martial arts journey. After many years and many different combat styles, I settled on Krav Maga and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu both of which I am privileged to teach to this day. I truly believe that had I been a Krav Maga expert at the time, things might have ended differently or I would have been wise enough to walk away from the situation being educated in what could happen in an all-out violent brawl.

Now and then, I would think about that night and my friends who experienced it with me. When I reconnected with B. and M., I realized that each individual involved had a different scenario and their own fight they had to deal with at the same time. I was somewhat surprised at how much detail they remembered, both mentioned they would never forget that night. As for me, I won't forget it because it changed my outlook on training and teaching martial arts for the 30+ years since.​​

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