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Fight Deception: The Art of Being First

James “Smokey” West Here

Have you ever heard the saying, “the punch that gets you is the punch you never see?” I have recently been asked questions about how to get to your opponent or attacker without getting hurt. It’s a great question and it involves closing the gap or distance between you and your opponent. If you don’t do a lot of reality-based fight training, this concept will be hard to master or even conceptualize. If a fight or a self-defense situation is imminent, things can get crazy in a hurry. You’ve got to face the situation, even though you (and even seasoned street fighters) are concerned about getting hit first and taken out.

Control the Altercation

I realize there are some genetic freaks out there who are simply hard to hurt, making it even more difficult to beat them. To do so, you have to be deceptive, fast, and first. You may have to sucker punch a guy as there is much to be said about getting off first to win.

Once an altercation has reached critical mass and can no longer be avoided, it is vitally important for you to minimize the damage you take, while maximizing the damage you deal to the would be assailant. Your ability to avoid getting hit is based largely on your movement. This starts with controlling the distance between both of you from the onset, always knowing where you are in relation to your opponent.

Mitigate Attacks

If, for example, you feel like your opponent may bull-rush you, there are a few simple tips you should keep in mind to help minimize the initial rush and impact.

  • You should align yourself just out of the attacker’s reach and on the side furthest away from their power hand or side.
  • If you feel they may lead with a bull-rush or that they’ll strike you first, then you want your feet about shoulder-width apart with your lead foot pointing at their lead foot and you want to have your weight shifted slightly forward about 60% to the front leg and 40% weight to back leg. Your knees should be slightly bent. This will enhance your ability to ride the punch or bull rush without getting your weight locked down on your back heel, immobilizing you. Also, do not let your opponent get their hips lower than yours—gravity counts.
  • Get your hands up close to your shoulders and keep your lead hand between you and your attacker.

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Striking First

If you feel that your best option is to hit first, don’t worry about being judged because you sucker punched some AH who wants to beat your ass. Just let it rip. It’s a great idea, but not always effective.

  • You have to practice hitting hard from many different angles. This is best done on heavy bags.
  • You want to hit the guy in a way that attacks their vulnerabilities and maximizes your punching power. This is never going to be the same for every situation or person.
  • If you can freeze your attacker before you punch by creating a distraction and then hitting him, this is better for you. Fakes and feints work well here. It’s like punching out in front of him.
  • Zig/Zag foot work is a method of closing that may work well, especially if your attacker has tunnel-vision and is fixed on their target and the outcome they desire. This happens when you push/slide very fast, first to the left or right as you close the distance between you and your attacker and then immediately do the same in the opposite direction, all-the-while continuing to close the gap. This may make your opponent miss you or at least have to readjust their footwork and stance, confusing them and getting them off balance and taking the power out of any strikes.

This zig/zag footwork came in handy for me many years ago when I took out a 6’8″ aggressive attacker in the streets one night.

Here’s The Story…

I was stationed at Ft Bragg NC in the 7th Special Forces Group at the time. Two of my martial arts training partners and I were out and about one night having a few adult beverages. Like many young Green Berets, we stayed out until the bars all closed down. As a result, we were not feeling any pain and had also made the natural assumption that no one would screw with us.

Little did we know how quickly things would go south. We went to an all-night breakfast restaurant and it seemed all the other hungry drunks had done the same. Long story short, an all-out brawl broke out and people were slugging it out all around us. We decided to get out of there before the police arrived.

As we were walking to the car through the parking lot, I notice a huge guy heading straight for us. He was about 6’8″ and had very long hair and was wearing a long winter maxi coat. He also had his girlfriend by his side. My internal alarms started going off because he was not only staring me down, but was making a B-line directly at me.

Things Went South Quickly

Of course my mind was going, “Holy shit, WTF?” I figured he didn’t want to talk, so I was thinking of what the best course of action I could take was to avoid getting my ass whooped by this big AH.

Just as I thought things couldn’t get worse, the guy reached into his mouth and pulled his dentures out. Now, I’m thinking this is going to get real and bad in a hurry. Keep in mind that all of these thoughts are racing through my mind in a matter of seconds as this guy is about 25 feet away and closing.

He, however, clearly didn’t have a plan of action and his internal alarms were obviously turned off. As he closed in on me, he accidentally handed me the answer to winning and not losing. He took his dentures and started pushing them down into his right pocket. As he was shoving his dentures into his pocket, I thought to myself, “there is no time like the present and this may be my only chance to take advantage.”

A Brutal Ending

When he was about 8 feet away with his hand stuck in his pocket, I did a quick zig/zag first to his left in a sprint-like motion, rapidly changing directions and zagging back to his right as if I were running past his right side. I reached behind his shoulders and grabbed his long hair and kept running behind him, forcing his weight back on his heels. As he was attempting to play catch up and regain his balances, I pulled him over the hood of the nearest car.

As he fell onto the hood of the car, I slammed his head into it. He tried to get up and I continued the flow and hit him in the face with an elbow strike as hard as I could hit him. I had nothing but my survival and bad intent behind the elbow strike.

As his head bounced back up I hit him a 2nd time with a flush forearm to the face and then immediately stuck my right index finger knuckle-deep into his right eye. This seemed to do the trick. I don’t know medically what nerves are connected to what in and behind the eye ball, but this sure had a negative effect on him. I kept my finger in his eye socket and kept digging my finger into his eye.

Every time I pushed down on my finger, his right leg would straighten out. That was very interesting.

At this point a bunch of bystanders and his girlfriend jumped on me and pulled me off of him. So, we got in the car and drove away with no other involvement from the police or anyone else. This is a neat case where if you know a lot and use a little (i.e. the zig/zag footwork), you can overcome bigger, stronger assailants with little to no real plan.

Closing Thoughts

When your brain goes into survival or self-defense mode, you will stay relaxed and make faster defensive choices without hesitation. I remember when I was training with Joe Lewis he said, “the toughest thing a fighter has to do is to make critical decisions while under fire.” Ain’t that the truth.

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242 thoughts on “Fight Deception: The Art of Being First”

  1. thanks for the info , we need all the info we can retain. every little bit helps, hopefully some of this will sink into my hard head.

    Reply

  2. Smokey, my dad was an amateur boxer and growing there were very few Saturdays that my two brothers and I didn’t have put on the gloves in the front yard, with each other and all the neighborhood kids. What I learned is that the “boxer stance” allows each to put the weak hand out so the strong hand is in the back at the ready. i.e., my weak hand is my left so my ready stance is with my left “jab” hand forward and my knockout right is up but back. Taking your advice to maneuver around to an opponents weak side allows him the same advantage as in boxing, he can take a full swing with his right hand.

    Me personally, I stand to the right of a right-hand dominant man so he can’t unload a haymaker on me, and it gives me a slight advantage when I throw my right cross to his chops. But let’s face it, if we know the fight is gonna happen then don’t wait for an invitation to fight by the rules, get the first punch in and keep pounding the head/face until you can go for the throat and/or eyes. I’m 5-9 and weight about 155/160, I’m also an old Marine and a retired big city cop so I can say that at if the balloon goes up I have every intention of hurting the other guy as quickly and efficiently as I can, and if that doesn’t work then I’m in big trouble so I will entertain Plan B… Bang! I definitely don’t want to start a fight much less get into one, but I will do whatever I have to in order to get home so my wife can yell at me and tell me I’m too old to be fighting.

    Thanks for what you do, far too many men don’t have clue and the bad guys know it. You are at least giving people something to think about so they have a better chance of surviving in one piece.

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  3. Love the zig/zag movement to close the spacing. Never thought of it before. Great tip! Thanks For everything you do for us and thanks for what you have done for our country!

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  5. first, fast, and accurate and continue to finish, worked for me. know the disabling points and use as many as you can.
    use what’s around you. bust a head on the concrete , stop his/her breathing quickly if possible, blind him/finger deep
    in the eye.. don”t stop until you can see no one else wants you. use him/her as a shield..

    The above story is good. got my adrenalin flowing..

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  6. Thanks for sharing with us.
    Very valuable lesson. Don’t wait till the s___t hits the fan. Act without hesitation, with deception and hitting, to be able to walk away.

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  7. Thank you for this information. Just like most all of the information I have received from you folks, I will review it often.

    Reply

  9. I may be too late in sending this note of appreciation to Mr. West. I appreciate your information,your time and your service.
    I hate being on the computer and am behind on my reading, but I eventually get around to reading this kind of useful information.
    Look forward to more of your information (and your details of your experiences).

    Dan

    Reply

  10. I was told by a guy of experience that as soon as the adrenalin hits your stomach it is the time to act. That is when you are your strongest. So, use it as soon as you feel it. It works…

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  11. Thanks for the article. It was very informative.
    Thanks for your service and all you have done.
    God bless!

    Reply

  12. Thanks so much for this article and for sharing your knowledge and experience. I have great respect for the men of Special Forces – probably going back to hearing “The Ballad of the Green Beret” during the Vietnam war when I was a small child. I was and still am in awe at what you men do. Thank You.
    I had an opportunity to attend a few of Joe Lewis’s seminars back in the 1980’s, a few of us even went out to dinner with him. What a great guy. Fantastic teacher and down to earth man. He is very much missed. That zig-zag footwork sounds a lot like his movement in confusing the opponent and making him miss. This was an excellent application of the technique to self defense. Great stuff!! Thanks again.

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  15. Thanks for all of the healthy comments. My step father used to tell me “He with the firstest and the moistest usually wins the fight” He also said it’s better to have cuts and bruises on your knuckles than on your face.

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  18. Great story, and good advice, too!

    Decades ago, while a student at Michigan State, I got into a little verbal altercation at a party one Friday night. The guys putting on the party hustled us out into the halfway of the apartment building, where we continued the “discussion”…which then started escalating, because everyone had been drinking and having a good time…which, after all, is why you go to college, isn’t it? lol

    Now I admit, I didn’t really “like” to fight, but, when I was drinking I would never actually avoid a fight either, and there was always some A-hole that you just wanted to punch. lol.

    Anyway, at 5’11” and 175 lb, I was a pretty normal size, but, the guy that was giving me a rough time was a LOT bigger…at about 6’4″ or so, and in pretty good shape it appeared at about 200-210 pounds.

    Well, it escalated some more with neither of us backing down, and I could see I might be in trouble!

    Well, we decided to start fighting, and people got out of the way, and the guy was wearing a black long sleeved pull over shirt with like a “turtle neck” collar.

    So, as he stepped toward me I point out that” I can’t hit anyone wearing a Christian crucifix” (lol), so “Diamond Jim” stops, grabs his cross and chain in one hand, and pulls his collar out a bit to drop the cross inside his shirt…lol

    Yep….BAM! BAM! BAM!…I stepped forward and laid into his face as hard as I could.

    Fortunately for me, but bad for “Jim”, was that I was wearing my old high school class ring, and it had tapered edges on either side of the center blue stone. One of the edges had caught the skin on the side of “Jim’s” nose and put a pretty good slice in it…and the blood started pouring out, and down his face!

    Everything, and everyone, stopped immediately and the hallway was dead quiet, as I’m sure, most of the onlookers thought I was gonna get a good butt whipping! lol (Actually, I was kind of thinking that myself! lol)

    So, as “Jim’s” friends, including his girlfriend, quickly gathered around him, I, and the buddy I was with, immediately made a hasty retreat down the hallway and out of the building, where we broke into a run to exit the area as fast as possible…just in case “Jim” or any of his buddies realized he wasn’t hurt that bad, and wanted to continue.

    I found out later that week, that “Jim” was a pretty good boxer, and had actually won some local “Golden Gloves” tournament recently…but, someone forgot to tell him we weren’t boxing! lol

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  19. Thank You great advice,I’m 57 started Taekwondo last year.hope I never have to use it,great to know there’s other options when dealing with AH’s and other undesirables.Really enjoy your site

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  20. Great article, well written with a ton of good information. I’m always a fan of anyone who strongly believes in reality-based training. I have said in other posts, if your self protection system doesn’t allow for real time validation (reality based training) you will be rudely awakened when you have to use it in a real encounter. Thanks again keep stuff like this coming.

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  21. Thanks Smokey…Fantastic blog. That really puts it into perspective to attack first while under pressure and win the battle before the fight begins. I like that you reiterated the best way to get the most of the attack is to minimize damage to yourself and maximize damage on the attacker. This takes a lot of scenerio practice. Where seconds count, in close proximity especially, practical techniques need to be reinforced in your training so that you’re going to do the quickest hits to gain the upper hand in real life situations.

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  22. Thank you so very much see I am a 59 year old woman living in the tenderloin in San Francisco everything I just read help a hell of a lot I thank you

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  23. Thank you for the good ideas. Valorie, ((60 years, 100lbs, living alone). I have every intention of taking care of myself.

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  25. Your tips are so helpful but I am an old women of 61 and my reflexes and power are limited. Seniors are being attacked for just that reason. I’ve seen a lot of leverage moves that I think I might be able to pull off. Could you please give us some more strategies for elders. Thank you so much. Karen

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  28. Loved the read. Deception is so important.
    Im very thing with little muscles but my height is 1.8 meters. I commonly beg for mercy and when the big buffed guy closes the distant i go for the neck. This has not failed me yet. Iv been in countless fights and funny enough i get beaten ny guys smaller than me yet iv never lost to the big muscled bullies. Could help but laugh but i actually fainted once and when he came near by to check if im ok, wham in the neck.

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  30. Very informative and realistic. ? Btw…..your description of the footwork sounds like American Kenpo……..and thats very practical

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  33. Thank you, hello brother. 1st and 7th. Many moons ago. I’m getting old and trying to refresh, this helps.

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  36. Hello Smoky,
    I’m looking forward to train with you some day. We have the same blood.

    Michael Bird

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  42. As a Winc Chun practitioner I found these strategies refreshing and correct. Thanks for the information

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  44. great tip.ive had occasion to use the zig zag,it can help a lot. thanx for your service and the tips

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  45. What about us women/girls. First, I don’t like pain so what can a women do in situations where a guy out weighs X 2, or his if his crazy AH girlfriend decides she wants a piece of the action? In a SHTF sit, if I/we lose then we are likely going to become prisoners in the worst possible way imaginable. I need easy to do, put them out of commission fast and still be cable to use my flight part of my fight or flight instinct. Thanks for ANY suggestions you may have!!!

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  46. yep, great advice, it’s counter-intuitive to most people to close the distance rather than back away

    Reply