Hi all, in my personal experience a LOT of fights occur during, or after parties where an intoxicated person and usually his friends start picking fights with people. Firstly I was wondering whether anybody had any strategies on how to defend themselves against a drunken individual, who although may be clumsy will have an extremely high pain tolerance. Secondly, does anyone have any pointers on what to do if you are drunk yourself and you have to defend yourself Sorry I know this may sound stupid but for me it is a common scenario
As far as dealing with a drunk......legs are the easiest. Take out the legs and they wont be a problem. keep your distance and dont grapple w/ them.
Rely on their predictability. I've been against enough drunk opponents and this almost works formulaicly. Relying on their slow reaction time I step in close withing striking distance and step back out quickly. Invariably they see a "perfect shot" and lunge. When they are lunging I have MOSTLY done one of two things. The first is just evade, grab and throw. The second is grab the hair and knee the face. A few times I've even jumped a knee to the face. I wouldn't say this always happens, but my point is that they are predictable and aggressive, use it against them. When you're drunk, don't go out in public!
Strategy?? get away and dont get involved, drunk people tend to have drunk friends willing to join into any confrontation. As for techniques specifice to drunkks, there arent any in my opinion, yuo open up a whole world of problems fro yourself if you start thinking, i'll do this then i'll do that. Just defend yourself as you would in keeping with your training, someone being drunk is an irrelevance. It doesnt matter, if it comes into your thinking it will affect the way you act and make it more likely that you will be injured. Just cause someone is drunk it doesnt mean they are an easy target, and someone to do flashy move on to impress any laydeees that may be around. Weapons are one of the main concerns also, drunks tend to have been drinking!! drinks come in glasses and bottles, and they are usually close at hand in any situation where a fight occurs with a drunk. So just do what you would do normally, against a sober adversary. Their level of sobriety should not enter your thoughts.
Good advice Stan. I would add a comment from a friend, "...if you interupt the normal workings of the nervous system, they're going down...". In short, chin them! How to defend against these people when you are drunk? Tough. By that time its too late. Best defence with this one is not to get drunk!
poke them with a rather large stick....once your done with that, beat them with it......with that asides i wouldnt rely heavily on any pain-techniques (i.e. pressure points) because like billy-bob thorton put it in bad santa when teaching a kid how to box, "I'm always drunk off my ass so that puts me at an advantage to you, i can't feel a damn thing!" the first thing i would try is to do is take them out with some sort of sweep kick, but thats because i love sweep kicks, and pin them in an arm bar or some other technique they can't get out of without disabling themselves. joint locks are my friend fighting a drunk, but you can always try to knock them unconcious. i wouldnt be afraid of trading punches with a drunk if you're sober; they telegraph everything and move slow. the only thing i would really be worried about when fighting a drunk are weapons being pulled. other than that, your a martial artist and they probably aren't + they are drunk, it should be like shooting fish in a barrel for you.
My advice- Stay out of their reach, if they are drunk its very unlikely they will be able to walk/run fast. Just move away from him and leave.
I got something: Drink at home! and also try the search function because there have been so many of these threads it's unbelieveable. See mods I beat ya to this one! Muahahaha
Theres nothing wrong with being drunk as long as you are not overly so and your reasons for drinking are social/have harmless intentions. I have worked in lots of nightclubs, bars etc While I've been picked for fights by drunks many times and had to break up loads there has honestly not been one situation in which I had to strike anyone, I had to block someone once and that was it. It helps to swallow your pride a little and think about what your opponent wants to gain from fighting you. I realise that sometimes it is inevatable and you can't get out but that situation occurs alot lees than you think. If you do get into a brawl however I'd definately support what the guys have had to say through this thread.
Im only 18 and have never hat two deal with this situation, but i do now just because you can fite dussant meen you should.If a persan is so drunck you can deffete then easerlly thay are not a riyal thret,herting them just because you can issant a hellthy parstime.If you are cornad and fiting is yuor only opshan then do so and i agry with the consensas the legs are probbubly the week point. ps.the haerdest form of martial art to lern is the one you never yous ________________________ Vilents is the resort of the vilent
Confuse the drunk person. When someone is drunk, their mind will take longer to process even simple ideas. Asking questions like "Why is the sky called blue" "Why do trees grow bigger?" Asking an aggressive drunk these questions has help me avoid violence on two seperate occasions. I guess that with the affects of alcohol, these questions just give the guy a real head ache, so he leaves you alone just to make life easier on himself. Or, he thinks your a complete idiot and leaves you alone anyway. Or, thinks your a complete idiot and tries to hit you anyway. Whatever happens, give it a try. Sometimes it works.
My instructor gave similar advice, except he said to use a nonsense question, such as "What color is your blue canary?" If anyone's interested, he learned that from David Meyer and John Will.
Be nice, he could have a learning disability that makes it hard to spell (I'm being serious. I know someone with a Master's Degree who spells like that due to a learning disability). Sorry to get off-topic . . . I have no experience fighting drunks . . . closest I came was when a bunch of us from my school were out celebrating Tammy earning her Thai Boxing instructorship, and Becky (another student from my school), who had definitely had too much to drink, put a rear naked choke on me. I pointed out that if she choked me into unconsiousness, there would be noone to drive her home, which settled the matter. She puked out my car window on the way home . . .
This made me laugh out loud! Hilarious! I love it! I'm totally going to steal it and use it. The only thing that would really freak me out about drunks is that sometimes they just rush people for no reason at all. I've watched it happen (hell I work at the bar) many times. I think it would be almost impossible to guard against being rushed like this because it's totally unexpected and often unmotivated. I guess the best strategy would be what to do after having been rushed. I've never been rushed and I always wonder what I would actually do since I really don't think there is even time to think. I wonder if I would be able to recover from the impact.
