{"id":4359,"date":"2017-03-14T15:37:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T22:37:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fightfast.com\/blog\/?p=4359"},"modified":"2021-04-01T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T16:24:09","slug":"how-to-fight-even-when-you-are-tired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/14\/how-to-fight-even-when-you-are-tired\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Fight Even When You Are Tired By Derek Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"When I was attending my Federal Police Officer's Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) we used to do what we called \"3-minute Wars\"<\/strong> where for 3 minutes we would battle all out with our fellow officers using the defensive tactics we were being taught.\n\nSometimes we would fight multiple attackers as well. 3 minutes does not sound like a long time, but needless to say, we were exhausted afterward.\n\nThe goal was to push us to our limits and then teach us keep going... pushing past the exhaustion. We could barely move our arms or legs after several rounds of this.\n\nToday, I train in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and Krav Maga four times per week and in the BJJ class we do anywhere from 3-5 seven to ten minute rounds. At 53 years old, rolling with guy's half my age for 21 minutes is ROUGH<\/em>, but according to my instructors, if we can do 7 minute rounds in class for 21 minutes straight, then a 5 minute BJJ match will be easy (although at my age I won't be competing.)<\/em>\n\nNow I realize that most of you reading this don't train like I do, so if you find yourself in a self-defense situation you will probably face total exhaustion. Adrenaline rush causes exhaustion to occur even quicker. Instead of panicking and getting your ass kicked, I can teach you how to fight your way through the exhaustion.\n\nFighting while you are exhausted is one of the toughest challenges you will ever face if attacked. The challenge is both physical and mental. Even if you can train hard four days a week like I do, you may still manage to get tired during battle.<\/em>\n\nYour body will quickly tire and your mind will tell you to just quit and give up... trust me, I have been there. But when you are in a life or death situation and not in the ring where you can just tap out and live to see another day... your mind will have to get you through this... making your body give you a little more.\n\nSo what does it take to keep your mind mentally strong and carry you through when your body has given up on you?\n\nRead on as I give you a few training and fighting tips to help you keep going.\n

1. Mentally Prepare For The Battle<\/h3>\nMuch of the fight is mental. You need to prepare yourself in advance to know you are going to find yourself in a battle and you will be quickly exhausted.\n\nThink about it when you're at the end of your regular workouts and you are dog tired. Imagine yourself in their place. Expect it and push through it. Being prepared is half the battle.<\/strong>\n

2. Stay Relaxed<\/h3>\nNow I know this is a tough one because if you have ever been in a real fight you know your adrenaline will be flowing and it will be hard to relax. When you fight for your life your body operates in a way that is beyond your control. You need to train in such a way that allows you to operate in this \"zone\".\n\nDid you know that a typical adrenaline blast lasts only 30 seconds?<\/em><\/strong>\n\nThen you need about 3 minutes to recover.<\/strong>\n\nThat is a lifetime when you are fighting against weapons, multiple assailants, broken glass on the ground, snow, etc.\n\nRelaxing was the hardest lesson I had to learn in my BJJ class. Weighing 250 pounds I either tried to out muscle everyone or if I was on the bottom of the fight I panicked and tried to fight my way out to avoided getting submitted.\n\nNeither of these worked against trained BJJ fighters and only wore me out quicker allowing for the submission anyway. My instructor continuously told me to \"relax.\" If you practice often and learn to relax during your training, it will be easier to do it during a real attack.\n\nAlso visualize attack situations. Personally, I train for the meanest, toughest SOB I can imagine. I picture him kicking in my door and attacking my wife and kids. If you picture this I guarantee you that if someone is standing between you and your family, there's no question what the outcome should be.\n

3. Keep Your Eyes On The Attacker<\/h3>\nLong ago I got my nose broken in a sparring session. For years when a punch was thrown at my face I would flinch and turn away. The thing is that the punch was coming anyway, and since I was not looking at it I was definitely going to get hit.\n\nI know it is a natural reaction, but don't do it.<\/em><\/strong> Stare down your opponent. Maybe none of your other body parts are still working, but you can damn well keep your eyes on your attacker to see the punch or kick coming.\n

4. Don't Run From Your Attacker<\/h3>\nIf you are exhausted and feel you cannot fight anymore, you may try to run. There is nothing worse than being dead-ass tired and trying to run.\n\nDon't do it.<\/em><\/strong>\n\nInstead keep your feet moving. You won't have the gas to bounce, shuffle, pivot, or move quickly, but you can damn well walk. So do that instead. The goal is to avoid giving your attacker a standing target.\n\nThe more you walk, the less chance you have of taking a hard shot and it gives you some time to get your breath back.\n

5. Keep Your Defenses Up<\/h3>\nEven if you can't throw punches or kicks anymore, keep your defenses up, meaning keeping your hands up. Instead of attacking at this point, go into a defensive mode.\n\nIf you get cornered because you're not walking like I told you in step 4 and are taking a bunch of hard shots, keep your head and body covered as best you can, keeping your elbows in tight. Let the opponent tire themselves while you rest for YOUR next attack.\n

6. Move INTO Your Opponent<\/h3>\nI know you probably feel like you want to move away from your opponent so you won't get hit or kicked, but after studying grappling arts like BJJ, and Hapkido, and then trying this in real life, I have learned that it is sometimes good to move closer to your attacker.\n\nWhat this does is dissipate your attackers power in his kicks and punches. Most people cannot fight at this range and their blows will be shorter and therefore not as strong or hard as they normally would be.\n\nIf possible, grab them and clench with them. Lean on them with all your body weight and tire them out. But stay relaxed so you can rest and use step number eight coming in a moment.\n

7. Interrupt Their Game<\/h3>\nOne thing I do when I spar or fight is that I put my hands in my opponent's face so that he cannot see me or so that I can interrupt the technique he is trying to execute. It is hard to hit someone if his hand is in your face.\n\nIf you don't have any power left in your own punches, just get your jab out there. It will interrupt your attacker's offense and slow him down.\n

8. Fight Dirty<\/h3>\nFinally, my last tip is to fight dirty. There are no rules in fighting. Bite, scratch, jab eyes, elbow, head butt, and do whatever else you can come up with to protect yourself. I teach all these things in my self-defense course by the way.<\/a> Above all, do what you must to protect yourself and survive the encounter.\n\nClick Here For More Instruction From Derek Smith<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was attending my Federal Police Officer’s Academy at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) we used to do what we called “3-minute Wars” where for 3 minutes we would battle all out with our fellow officers using the defensive tactics we were being taught.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4359"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12852,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4359\/revisions\/12852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fightfastvideos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}