How to Win a Fight when Outnumbered

Street fights can be many things, but fair is not one of them. Quite often the kind of people that go around starting fights and causing trouble do so in groups, all egging each other on and abandoning personal responsibility to collective behaviour. It is also that those old saying aboput the school bully being a coward hold true when those bullies grow up and become violent criminals and thugs, so they always prefer an easy target and to have the back up of their firends.

All of this means that if you do get into a street fight there is a good chance that it won't be an even one on one, so every martial artist should be prepared to fight wyhen outnumbered.

The first thing that you must recognise about fighting when outnumbered may sound a bit obvious, but it is essential to remember - it is very hard to win a fight when you areoutnumbered. Even if you are a very skilled and experienced martial artist your chances of getting an outright victory are pretty slim, especially if you are outnumbered more than two to one.

Given that you are so unlikely to actually win you shouldn't be trying to - instead you should stay focus only on protectiing yourself and surviving without injury. At all times your number one priority should be to escape from the situation, but in the mean time there are things that you can do.

The first thing you must do, and also the most important, is to keep moving at all times. Movement is always important in a fight, but this is especially true when you are outnumbered. The only way you can hold your own against multiple opponents is to engineer the situation so that you can take them on one at a time. If you stay still then they will all come for you at once and you won't stand a chance. Ifyou can keep moving, as unpredictably as possible, you can avoid this. The ideal situation that you are trying to crate is to have all of your opponents lined up behind one another. On the other side of the equation the worst possible situation is to allow yourself to be surrounded, so you should always try to move to and around the outside of any group of people. In some places you can use your surroundings to help you. A tight space, like an alley, is always much better than an open space, as it limits the area by which they can approach you, and hence can limit them to attacking one by one in a line. Even having your back to a wall, which feels bad, can help becuase it means you can't be attacked from behind, although you should be careful not to cut off avenues of escape.

When it comes to the acutal fighting it is vitally important not to get caught up with one person for too long. Unless it is for a very quick throw or something similar you should avoid any kind of grappling at all costs, and if someone grabs hold of you braking their grip is more important than blocking any strikes they may throw. Strike as quickly and powerfully as possible and then keep moving. If more than one person is closing in on you it may be worth taking a punch or kick without reply if that means that you can move to a better position and avoid them all piling in to you at once.

Continually moving around also makes it easier to find an avenue of escape. But if one doesn't come along then you have to create one. Any kind of distraction or obstacle can give you the opportunity you need. Use anything you can find to throw at them, or to throw into their path (overturned bins and so on). Dashing across a road in a gap in traffic can be risky, but it can also give you the lead you need to escape. As long as you are always keeping one eye on opportunities to get away, then one will come up eventually.