Ring fights and street fights are different. Therefore success in the ring (or any tournament or sparring style setup) does not guarantee the same on the street. You need to be aware of their differences:
– rings have explicit starts and stop. Fighters have a chance to warm up and sometimes even have information about their opponents. Street doesn’t. It often happen in a hurry and you seldom know much about your opponent(s)
– there are rules in the ring to protect the fighters – as an example, you are not allowed to hit back of the head, the groin, poke the eyes, etc.. On the street, anything goes.
– there are no environmental hazards in the ring but on the street, you have table corners, obstacles, display windows, doors, cars, curbs, park benches, slippery surfaces, stairs, lighting where your tool set may be restricted or affected.
– you have the referee to stop the fight in the ring. On the street, the aggression may not stop until it is too late.
– In the ring, you are always fighting against one person and there are no weapons. On the street, when a fight starts, there may be other non-explicit adversaries that may join in against you. It may be quite risky to put your full attention against one person.
Awareness exercises:
– Pick anyone of the environment conditions described above and explain why it can work for or against you.
– When you are in different places (time of day and/or locations), look around you and try to see things that can work for / against you. Are there anything that you can do to change the odds against you?
– What are the hazards in the picture below? (Click on picture on top as well as the one below for practice purposes)
