I am writing a sci-fi/fantasy story and i need some information on what kind of hand-to-hand combat techniques different types of people would use. For example, how would a woman that has was taught how to fight from a teacher fight differently from a woman that learned how to fight by experience? What tactics would a man use to fight multiple opponents in open space? Also, what parts of the body damage one's fists more when you punch there? How is a kidney blow different from a liver blow in their effects? Stuff like that, any help is much appreciated.
Every civilization had a certain form of combat, usually wither focusing on a certain aspect like throws, submissions, ground fighting, kickboxing, locks, knees and elbows etc. and some times in a certain combination. Nowadays, due to globalization, people are training in a specific way, the mixed martial arts, taking everything while usually mastering in either standing up or on the ground. I think trained fighters will immediately target the weak spot, and will attempt to foresee and to counter the first blow. Street wise fighters if that what you mean, will usually burn through the stamina faster, trying to knock down the opponent with as many strikes possible, usually to the head, and will sometimes attempt low kicks and throws or chokes from behind. I don't think there is much different between open or enclosed spaces. the items around you, even the walls can be used, especially by athletic and streetwise. Streetwise will usually try at the end, while athletic will try to use them to his advantage. Cornering someone can be used as an advantage or as a disadvantage. When cornered no one can attack from behind, but you have to knock them out to escape. Usually to fight multiple opponents the smartest thing to do is to pick on one guy and knock out even really brutally as a fear factor. To thin someone out, usually trained people will place themselves and keep moving so the assailants will block the view of one another so wide, but more easy to block, attack can be throne to temporarily incapacitate some to attack a specific one, and moving on until all are completely down. I don't know much about places in the body it is best to target. Pressure points are probably what you are looking for. Every joint has a lock for it. I think the deadliest thing is the blood choke which can knock someone out in a matter of seconds if not kill. For specific places for punches and kicks there are probably pro-boxing and mui thai manuals that can help.
I think a streetwise fighter will probably be more resourceful and improvisational. Trained fighters might be over-disciplined and confined to using the tactics and techniques they've learned, whereas the streetwise fighter might be more likely to grab anything near at hand and use it as a weapon, even just a handful of dirt thrown in the opponent's eyes.
I prefer barstools and pool cues. One thing about hand-to-hand combat, there's no reason for hands in combat. Broken hands, broken wrists and even broken fingers are debilitating, might cost you lost revenue (I use my hands when I work) and might be the cause of arthritis down the road. Even knives expose you to blood-borne pathogens. If ya' gotta hit him, use a barstool.
True story, guy, no joke. I broke my wrist, had two fancy-schmancy ten-penny nails inserted into my arm, and I couldn't work for over three weeks. Even when they placed me in a smaller cast I had trouble doing anything. Even dislocating a finger hurts.
I've read that the face is the worst place to punch with bare hands. Hit a jaw or cheekbone at the right angle and you won't be shaking hands with anyone for awhile. Either a liver or kidney punch is devastating, and can end a fight pretty quickly or even permanently. Shocking the organs causes intense pain as well as weakness. Even the toughest guy won't be able to stand up if the punch has enough force as his body basically starts to shut down. It's like a concussion without the brain damage. A powerful enough punch can rupture the live or kidney, resulting in agonizing death without medical attention.
The human mouth is full of germs. You punch a drunken townie in the face, and one of his teeth cuts your hand, you're in worse shape than getting bitten by a dog. I always carry gloves, winter and summer. I must have eight pair of Harley gloves in various weights and thicknesses. Cops do, too.
OK, I've 25 years experience in a variety of martial arts (though, to be fair, not that many "real world" fights - thankfully). With someone who has been taught to fight, their style will vary dramatically according to their teacher and the particular martial art. Some teachers/styles are very classic, some are quite down-to-earth and practical. Some are all-wrestling, some are all strikes, and a number are a mix of the two. However, in general someone with "only" experience will have developed a dirty style of fighting using safe techniques (i.e. techniques that don't risk you becoming off balance), and may well use more hair-grabbing, eye gouging, groin strikes, biting and so on. That said, there are quite practical instructors that may have given trainees experience of some of these things. Someone with a lot of experience in, say, a Tae Kwon Do club may try high kicks that leave them at risk of becoming off balance, or showy techniques that are slow and ineffective in a street environment. A Judo-trained individual may "naturally" risk getting tied up dealing with one individual leaving them unprepared for multiple attacker scenarios. But these are generalisations, and self-defence aware instructors will have prepared their trainees for them - at least to an extent. (Sports or traditional style instructors won't have thus prepared them, however). To fight multiple opponents on your own, the basic rules-of-engagement are 1) DON'T. It's a high-risk situation, and therefore one to be avoided if possible. 2) Talk your way out of it if you can. If only one person is threatening you with mates backing him up, try to make it personal with that one person, make it serious you mean business, and let the mates know they don't need to get involved. 3) If the situation is definitely going to descend to violence, get in there first. You'll have the element of surprise and might take a couple of them down quickly and even the odds a bit. 3) Try to face your opponents one at a time - by manoeuvring yourself to keep one of the attackers between you and the rest. This is difficult, and takes practice to get right. 4) If the situation allows, grab one of them, put them in a hold (armlock, wristlock or strangle) and shout at the others to back off. "Get back or I'll break his wrist" / "Put down your weapons or I'll kill him". 5) If you play it cautiously, they'll have time to overwhelm you, so you can't. You need to hit them hard and take them down as quickly as possible. Use anything you can to your advantage - makeshift weapons bin lids, bottles, stools, anything really), walls/doors. 6) As much as you can, stay on your feet and don't turn your back on anyone trying to hurt you. OK, parts of the body to use and attack. A good rule is "soft to hard, hard to soft." Your elbow or fist is hard, so you hit soft things with it (liver, kidney, throat). The palm of your hand is soft, so you hit hard things with it (skull, chest, nose). Soft-to-soft will be ineffective. Hard-to-hard will get you hand injuries. NOT MANY PEOPLE REALISE THIS - that's why so many people break hand-bones in a fight (especially people used to punching with the protection of a boxing glove). The best knock-out targets are the point of the chin and the temple (impact on the corner of the head maximises the movement of the skull and the bump of the brain inside). You can also knock someone out with a strong blow to the liver. Most other striking targets are generally causing pain to your opponent and wearing them down until the fight goes out of them. Good places to cause pain are eyes, kidneys, abdomen, groin. There are "clever" pressure points that, for example, will make someone's hand go numb, etc. etc., but good luck to your character if he can hit them reliably in a high-intensity fight against a resisting opponent, because I still can't. (Yes, in theory you can hit the nose at about 30 degree below horizontal with the right amount of force and push cartilage back into the brain. Again, probably impossible to do in a real situation). Obviously, throwing or knocking people onto the ground (or into furniture, windows or other people) can also be effective.
@iolair, I think your "fight when you can, run if you have to" is prudent, with one proviso. You have experience, and you've practiced the same moves over and over at a dojo. You had a sensei kicking your butt if you got sloppy on a stance. You've hit and been hit. These guys haven't. My skills--ahem--are more generic to the venue and genre, if you catch my drift. Even then, with acquired skills and plus 20 guys to come to my aid I've had my nose broken twice. I would encourage members of a forum to get one of those 90 day karate coupons, buy a 'pink belt' and admit that they are rookies. I wouldn't send a newb into a gaggle of working cowboys at a honky-tonk and tell him to throw a "chu." In fact, Hunter Thompson in his book on the Angels writes that a bartender with scar tissue on knuckles can hit harder and faster than a karate expert that's never been bloodied. That's almost an exact quote. And considering Thompson spent one year going to smarmy saloons, and was later gang whipped himself, I'd believe him. If the member is researching a book, I think a sensei might let them watch and explain jargon.
As someone with martial arts experience, I agree with Iolair, he hit everything spot on. And as someone who has been in a few actual fights, I feel the need to add that when in an actual fight, about 60% of your training goes out the door due to adrenaline, or unperceived circumstances. To adapt the military adage, "The best plan changes when the first punch is thrown."
No expert here, but I know a couple of moves. If you make a fist and make your middle knuckle proud from the rest of the fingers, you can grind it really hard into the back of the hand of your opponent. It hurts like hell. This is particularly effective if someone grabs you from behind and puts their hand over your mouth, but you have one hand free. Pressing on someone's eyeballs with your thumbs is equally uncomfortable. With hands also, if you can forcefully bend downwards (flex) the wrist of your opponent (say the one in which he is holding a knife or a gun) he will be forced to drop it because he'll no longer be able to maintain the grip on it. Another is if you are in a bear grip from behind, simply bend to 90 degrees forward really quick, your butt will push the guy back and you might have time to escape. Obviously, stamping the stiletto on the top of assailant's foot, knee kick in the groin and bottom of the palm kick in the nose (from below) are all well known self-defence moves. With fast legs, it might be enough for a newbie on the streets to get out of trouble. ps. Thanks to everyone who offered an expert opinion in this thread, it'll come in really handy in my writing also!
Like Iolair I too have a long history of martial arts and have trained and now teach for well over 25 years. Iolair pretty much hit the nail on the head but I would like to add a couple of things based on my real world experiences. As mentioned previously a lot of your training knowledge will fly out the window when adrenaline starts pumping and fear takes hold of you. It also depends on your training, if you have drilled something time and time again it will probably be relied upon due to muscle memory and it feeling natural to you. I come from a back ground mainly of kick boxing and American Kenpo and Kenpo has proved invaluable to me in real fights. It is technically a self defense art, but it is very destructive and I have found that it has a very practical element when taking on multiple opponents. Again I agree with a previous post, if you end up in a situation with multiple attackers the first reaction should be to get away, talk your way out of it or run. However, if this is not possible, then as soon as the fight starts try and deal as much damage as possible. This is not simply punching to the face hoping for a knock out, but stamping on a knee to break the leg, snapping an arm that has grabbed you. This effectively takes a fighter out of the fight instantly (hopefully) and maybe makes the other attacker's a little cautious of you which then gives you the opportunity to, you've guessed it, get out of there - not go all Bruce Lee on the remaining guys. I can also answer the difference between liver and kidney shots. Both of painful, however after receiving quite a beating to my kidneys over several rounds in full contact fight I can say, that although painful, you can continue to fight through it, however, I was in pain for 2 weeks afterward. With a decent liver shot it is completely different, I took a solid roundhouse kick to my liver once and it dropped me instantly, it throbbed horribly and I could barely breath, so technically it winded me badly too. Hope that helps.
I'll give this a shot (no pun intended), hope I'm not repeating too much of what's already been said (good stuff, btw, folks): For the taught vs. self-taught: It really depends on a lot of things. Firstly the woman who has been taught by a teacher: how long has she been training? How serious was she about her training, i.e. did she go train in a team twice a week for a year or did she train ten times a week for ten years, competed every other month in full-contact bouts etc? What style did she train? Of course one adage is always true: it's not the style, it's the fighter. Meaning someone who trains Shaolin kung-fu can be a monster in a street fight while a krav maga/MMA practitioner can get her butt handed over to her in an instant and vice versa but the trained discipline does contribute to what skills she has. For instance, if she's a boxer, she won't know how to fight on the ground. If she's a sport Judo practitioner, she won't know how to throw a good punch. If she's any combat sport practitioner, she won't have much of an idea how to defend herself against multiple opponents or weapons. As for the self-taught/experience-taught gal: has she been triumphant in her previous altercations or does her experience consist mostly of getting beat up? The latter doesn't teach her much, I'm afraid. If, however, she's a natural, she likely has a good "eye" for fighting. That means that she can "read" her opponents, you know, pre-attack ques (i.e. she'll know an attack is imminent when her antagonist starts shifting their weight from one foot to another, their speech goes into one syllable-mode: "So?" "Yeah?" "Oh?" etc, they glance over their shoulder as a subconscious way to check for witnesses/cops etc), whether the antagonist truly wants to fight or if they're just full of hot air and just wish to intimidate her/impress their girl, whatever, but avoid the actual fight etc. She also probably has no qualms putting the hurt on another human as long as she feels it's justified. This means that when she does attack (usually pre-emptively because most often the one who throws the first blow, wins), she will be ruthless and unrelenting, attacking until the threat is gone. She will have some idea as to how to put down a person (like someone already said, the jaw is the primary target and the temple/eyes/throat are also good), and, frankly, she will likely carry a weapon. It can be anything from a gun to a knife to a set of brass knucks or even what Irish gals carry: a rock in a sock (which is a great weapon btw, good for knocking people out and breaking bones and it's fast too if she needs to fight off multiple opponents). Chances are, she won't know how to fight on the ground. Most street fights, if finished successfully, end in a second or two with her throwing the first strike that'll end the fight, possibly following it up with a kick/stomp to the downed opponent's head (even if he/she is already unconscious). But if the fight drags on and the other person is bigger/stronger, it will likely end up on the ground and unless she has a knife and the guts to use it, she's going to be in trouble because dirty tricks like eye gouging and biting can only get you so far (and if the opponent is in a dominant position, say, on top of her, it's pretty easy to avoid/pull back from those or if, say, she bites him, he can easily gouge her eyes to make her release him. For some reason people often forget the opponent can use dirty tricks too). And of course if one guy takes her down, his friend can simply step over and kick her lights out. This reminds me of a bit of research data I once encountered about biting in a fight: contrary to what I used to believe, getting someone's blood in your mouth, even if it's HIV positive, for instance, isn't really all that dangerous unless you have open wounds in your mouth. Thing is, the bacteria and whatnot in your mouth will kill whatever germs are in the blood in a heartbeat, well before any of it ends up in your bloodstream. Oh, and as a sidenote: knife wounds bleed a hell of a lot. Far more than I ever would've believed. And it doesn't even have to be a severed artery or anything like that; a friend almost bled out once from a simple 2-inch knife cut (width of the cut, I mean) right below his calf and the cut wasn't even deep. Granted, it took about a minute before he started getting dizzy so he could've fought a dozen fights in the meantime but it was an eyeopener anyway. There was a puddle on the ground the size of a large-screen TV by the time the paramedics got to the scene and he was white as a sheet and sweating profusely, breathing was rapid and shallow, and his heart rate was through the roof. That's one way it could go. Another is that the martial arts/combat sports practitioner does nothing they've been taught. A case example of this was when a pro boxer killed another man by kicking him and then strangling him with a cable. Not one punch was thrown, not one feint/bob/weave made. Another incident was when a BJJ guy knocked out two guys with punches. But some do revert back to what they were taught. I think it has to do with fear control: we all feel fear in a confrontation, we all get adrenaline in our blood flow in massive quantities in a fight. Some can deal with it naturally, some learn to cope with it, but some don't know how. It's usually the latter group who either go against what they've been taught, negating any advantage their training may have given them, or they keep trying to do something they learned at the gym even though it clearly doesn't work for them at the time (say, they try high kicks when time and time again their opponent takes them down but, being kind-hearted, lets them stand up instead of strangling them/beating them into a bloody pulp on the ground). Those who do know how to turn adrenaline/fear into their advantage are often people who have been exposed to it often either on the street or at the gym (many modern self-defense styles like krav maga, senshido etc. incorporate scenario training into their curriculum where they put the students into exercises designed to make them uncomfortable enough to get their adrenaline flowing). It's these people who fare well in fights because they won't freeze and are able to choose effective ways to deal with the situation at hand. I would generally advice against this because when you're within grappling distance, you usually lose sight of the other person's hands and unless they're naked, you won't be able to know if they carry weapons. And you might not even notice a stab wound until it was too late: my dad's friend was knifed in the stomach in a fight and he didn't even notice it until suddenly all strength left him and he collapsed into a bleeding heap. Luckily my dad and his mates took care of the knifer after that but had he been alone, he would've been a goner. Some guys can also withstand a great deal of pain, especially if they're on drugs, i.e. you might break his wrist but he won't even flinch much less stop attacking.
I'm pretty much the polar opposite to this. I have a history that involves serious alcohol abuse and so, I've been in more than a few street fights. Some instigated by myself, others by friends or the attackers. I am tallish, and have very long arms. When I fight I try to keep my enemy as far from me as possible. I've scrapped with people who are a little taller than me but they still did not have the reach to get inside and hit me. I'll avoid kicks because they throw me off balance and take too long to recover from. When I'm thinking straight, I keep a close guard: Fists clenched and resting against my face. This forms a buffer, so that when I cop a hit, my fist isn't knocked into my face. Leading with left hand jabs, I'll hit hard and fast, but the point of them is to keep the enemy on the defensive so when I move with a right cross I'll have time to recover. As far as psychology goes; at the beginning of a fight I'll feel really tough, firing on adrenaline. But this is where it gets interesting, (keep in mind I've lost a lot more fights than I have one, but!) when I have my attacker under control. When they're just soaking up my blows, reeling back and generally being wrecked. The rush wears off and I come to the realization that this person will hurt me if I give them the chance. That is when fear takes over, and I am very deep in fight spectrum of fight or flight. Once I hit this trigger, and it has happened twice, I become a menace. I simply will not stop until the person is out of sight. One time a friend pulled me off the other guy only to get hit himself, which then set me on a mission to avenge my mate. It was a messy evening and I spent most of the early morning with my hand in an ice bath. Getting hit is quite peculiar. I hear it much more than I feel it. There will be a loud sort of clack. If you open your mouth and slap your face (not to hard), it sounds like that. Never have I felt the blow until after the brawl has concluded. Being knocked unconscious is, to me, very different to how it is depicted in film and literature. I try to convey in writing by not describing the actual blow. When knocked unconscious by a security guard, I did not recall anything other than that I hit him with right hook. Then I woke up being carried by two friends, about a block away. I've read books where the writer has described the attacker's hand coming back and feeling the blow before falling unconscious. I am not sure if that is what occurs when sober, but for me this has never happened, and I've been knocked unconscious twice. It's extremely fast, nothing slows down, your life doesn't flash before your eyes; one minute you're fighting for your life and the next you're coming to somewhere else. One thing to consider when writing about street fights is that, in my experience, they are never avoided by friendliness. Only twice have I avoided an altercation, once because I happened to know the friends of the guy who was threatening my mate and the other time I challenged them. Walking home after a night out; five guys and three girls came after me. I was with one other person and it took quite a while before we realized the group was yelling at us. They were all smaller then me, drunk and very young (I think I was twenty one or twenty two, and they couldn't have been older than 18). One guy, a chubby fellow about a foot shorter than me claimed I slapped him. I told him I was sorry and that I didn't mean any harm. Then his friends requested that he should be allowed to slap me back. I told them no, and that I would be happy to fight him, but he wouldn't be getting any free shots. This obviously terrified him and he backed off immediately. This was very lucky, because I knew that when his friends inevitably jumped in (unless I had a bucket load of luck), I would be beaten... Badly. Once the first guy had caved and rest did not leave with him; I challenged the next, and the one after that. I kept asking them to hit me, trying to look as calm as possible. At one point I begged a guy, a lean but muscular chap, who was even shorter than the first to come after me. When finally energy was building and it seemed like it might actually go off; I whispered to one of the girls with them that I'd been kick boxing for 12 years and that I would destroy them. A massive lie, but it got the girl on my side, and she sorted her friends out. Though at the time, the lie simply came to me, when I think back I believe that had I announced it to the group it would have been worse than had I not said anything. Outside of a bar a few blocks from my house; a guy who was trash talking me, dared me to come at him. Claiming he'd been doing Karate for four years. I had been trying to avoid the altercation but after he said that, in my drunken state, he became a potential notch on my belt. To this day I would like to believe that the little smart arse was in fact a 'whatever belt' he said he was. But when I let fly, he took two hits, fell over, then scrambled to his feet and ran off. It was almost certainly a lie, but as he was the one who picked the fight, I can't even guess at what it was meant to accomplish. People I've spoken to who are in the army, apparently, keep the fact quiet when they go out. Because it makes them a target. It's the same for sportsmen and, as priorly illustrated, martial artists. One thing that I have never read about is the deep self loathing after a fight. If I lose, I will be in physical pain, and feel cheated. My mind would stew on the idea of vengeance, and I'd constantly think of how I'd go about exacting it. If I win, my mind wanders to the poor soul I beat the night before. There is not a single fight I am proud of, or I felt needed to be fought. Though it could be due to my own moral compass, I think that most normal people would feel this way. It's not nice to think you've hurt someone regardless of whether they wronged you. Since I've been an adult (and I use the term loosely) I've been in nine fights that came to blows. I've broken my nose twice, was arrested once (I still have scars on my wrists from the cuffs after fighting the police), been knocked unconscious twice, I have three (although small) pronounced scars on my face. Every fight, bar one, I have left bruised, normally in the form of a black eye or swollen cheek. I've ripped two jackets, and thrown out three T-shirts because I could not get the blood out (my own blood) and did not want to look at them any more. Considering the nine battles as physical challenges, I won four of them. But as mentioned before, I would hardly call two weeks of worrying the police will show up your door to charge you with assault along with mulling regret, a victory. I just realized I went off topic quite a bit here, but hopefully this gives you some insight into the mind of a self styled fighter.
In my experience, the guys (and gals) who really know how to look after themselves will very rarely stoop to starting a fight. They'll finish one for sure but generally they are confident enough that they have nothing to prove. The mouthy twats that start fights are usually the ones with no skill to back up the attitude. These are the type I dealt with in my youth. I generally punched them in the side of the jaw whilst they were busy mouthing off at me. Rarely was a second punch needed. This is your textbook sucker punch. If the jaw is open, a well placed punch to the side of the jaw, flat of fist on flat of jaw, is usually enough to spark someone out. I also did JuJitsu for 15 years, had to retire due to back and neck problems but you'd be surprised just how easy it is to break an arm, a knee or a collar bone. At how much control the small joints of the fingers can give you over a person. At how important it is to be able to fight on the ground. At how easy it is to choke someone to unconsciousness in just a few seconds. I could go on but I'd only be rehashing what has been said before...so I'll close with this: Prevention is better than cure. Not getting into a situation where your physical safety is under threat is far perferable to running away which is far preferable to actually having to fight.
That's actually true, I just never realized it before until you said it. Thanks, I'll have to edit a few fight scenes in my writing. Again true. Granted, this example was in a sparring situation but I saw his hand move and the next thing I know, I'm on my ass. I was out a second, max, but even then I have absolutely no recollection of the impact. I think you'd have to be Gandhi to accomplish this. Well, someone with the patience and kindness of Gandhi combined with the bullshitting abilities of a used car salesman (no offense to used car salesmen anywhere). I've found turning on the aggression works much better at talking someone down from a fight than pussyfooting around the situation. I find that's because most guys aren't looking for a challenge so when I throw down the gauntlet, they back off. Of course this only works if the other guy is a coward. If he's not, I don't think you could avoid a fight. One thing I've noticed though: there's a difference between saying "fucking back off!" and "back off, motherfucker!" The latter is much more likely to end in blows, imo, whereas the first one supported with intent to put down the guy if he doesn't comply tells him you're ready to fight but doesn't cause him to lose face if he does choose to back down at that point. I think this is something like that happened here: I think if you had said that to all of them, it would've been trouble because then you would've issued a direct challenge, even if you would've said it to just one of them but so that they all could hear it: if he backed off, he would lose face, so in order to avoid losing face, he would now have no choice but to attack. This is also why I believe the tactic I mentioned above (psyching them out with aggressive words/behavior) usually works better against one guy or a small group or if the rest of the group would just like to move on and have fun but one guy is itching for a brawl. That was good thinking, btw: turning one of them on your side, a girl no less, is just good tactics. People often forget that others besides soldiers and rape victims suffer from post-traumatic stress too. PTSD can be a real bitch and I don't really know how to avoid it. The only situation where I've felt good the next day after tussling the night before and "winning" has been when I've felt my actions were fully justified and that I would do everything the same way again even if given a chance to go back in time (sober).
The head if not punched correctly can really damage a fist. There is very little soft tissue in a "normal" head and the bone structure is quite sturdy as you would expect since it houses the brain. So while you are damaging a person's head your fist would be in for a good breaking too (if you are bare-knuckled, gloves negate this point). *Edit* Head mind you, face is a different matter, faces are comparatively delicate around the eye sockets, nose and cheeks.
it depends on the person, i mean, i was taught Shotokan Karate, but i wouldnt use just straight forward techniques in the patterns that i was given, they would be split and broken into the right pieces needed.
I just realized our (T.Trian and I) WIP has a similar situation. There's a big-ass woman who was taught H2H by military instructors and a smaller woman who's learned H2H on the streets (though practices bareknuckle boxing as well), and I never thought about the differences that much before. In our story's setting, the trained woman would use locks and submission techniques in a fight (which she does, to this smaller woman), but the un-trained would use striking-and-running, be it with a knife (falls on her back, the assailant between her legs, she pulls a knife and Singers his kidneys or slashes his throat with a knife), or if unarmed, maybe cow-catch and run, or power-slap and run. Kick in the balls? Risky and doesn't work as fabulously as one might think. Sure, maybe if caught in a choke, tuck your chin, turn your head sideways, wrench down the choking arm, punch his balls, crush his toes (little effect if he wears boots), slap him towards the eyes... the usual stuff. Then again, the trained woman could use the latter stuff too. Even the teacher-trained woman would use "dirty tricks", so suppose the difference I'd see here is with the trained one being able to submit the assailant as well so her repertoire is bigger.
I suggest watching the first years of UFC. Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, and Tank Abbott demonstrate a wide range of disciplines. Also, Pride Fighting is no holds barred, kick them in the nuts, stomp their head when they're down serious shit. Hollywood has made fighting so unrealistic for so long, there are people out there who think a blow to the head with a baseball bat is not a fight (or life) ender. Very rarely do fights outside of Tinseltown last more than a couple of minutes. Well trained fighters incapacitate their aggressor and leave. Drain a swimming pool and throw a couple thugs in there for money and you have a different situation. I have only been in a situation one time where I had to fight more than one person. Ultimately, I lost, but not before I punished the guy who started the fight as much as possible.
As someone who has punched a few heads I can agree entirely. Forehead is best place to be punched. You have very little feeling there and the bone is rock solid. Anywhere else on the head is going to hurt like hell but most definitely damage your attacker. When I was in high school I smacked a kid up a bit then as I was walking away he got up and hit me from behind. I went down, felt light headed immediately after the blow but no concussion, the other guy got a broken hand. If somebody swung at you, you could probably do some serious damage by headbutting their fist. It would break the momentum of their blow earlier, and almost certainly break their hand. I vaguely remember seeing it in a movie.
Unless they were already aiming at your head, I fail to see how you could throw your head down fast enough to intercept a punch -- unless, of course, you're Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris wouldn't waste his time moving his head. It would be assumed that they were aiming for your head - I'm not advocating blocking a kidney shot with your brain tank. If someone swung at your nose or jaw, it would not be hard to swing your forehead down and into the line of their fist. It depends on the assailant's speed really... I had a quick look for a kung-fu video shot in super-slow-motion. Shot at 150fps (I think) they still struck faster than me. It was intense. I wish I knew kung-fu .
As anyone who's ever broken boiled eggs on their forehead can attest Unfortunately I haven't managed to crunch a beer can yet. Headbutting the fist. Like seriously? (sometimes I don't know when you're being a smartass, AV ) I really haven't any fighting street cred, my forte is a 400m-dash, so I wouldn't know about this; it just sounds kind of... unlikely to work (kind of 'just helped this guy to knock me out'). All I know is I can block and dodge fists swinging my way, but that experience comes from boxing where you are not drunk in the dark of a Finnish winter night, trying to stay upright on black ice.
