Five Basic Skills for Dealing with Multiple Attackers

The following are five basic strategies that are applicable in a multiple attacker encounter, no matter what the style of martial art. They are designed to improve your chances of exiting the situation safely, and that is the most important consideration. Success is not about dominating or destroying the group, you just have to be able to get away safely to succeed and hopefully achieve this without getting seriously injured.
 

1.  Exit the situation as quickly as possible

In a group encounter your focus is essentially on how quickly you can get to the exits and out of the situation.

Situational awareness is important for safety. Don’t take that shortcut down that alley – choose your route with an element of safety in mind. Cross the road if you see a group of people acting in a manner you don’t like. Don’t respond to comments, from a member of a group, designed to draw you into an encounter. Don’t get pinned against a wall in the first place, and then you won’t have to worry about learning some technique to save you.

Don’t wait for the group to become a problem. Run away as fast as you can before the encounter begins. Don’t be concerned with how you might be perceived by others; just don’t wait for the group to engage you and then try to talk your way out of the situation.

Don’t hesitate, move!  In short, if you think danger is coming your way then don’t hesitate or wait to see how the situation evolves. Get out and let someone else be the victim that day

 

2.  Keep moving as rapidly as possible

Keep moving is the most basic strategy for defence against multiple attackers and is one of the most effective. It helps prevent more than one attacker getting to you at a time, and helps prevent attackers tackling you to the ground.

When you stop moving then you tend to engage against one of the attackers and the rest go in for the kill as well, as they now have an easy, stationary target. We all know that a moving target is more difficult to hit than a stationary one and as most groups are low functioning, the concept of keep moving adds greatly to your safety.

The greater your acceleration, the harder it becomes for the group to target you. Most people don’t move as quickly as they can because it prevents them from using their arsenal of strikes, kicks, etc. as effectively. You should balance this loss with the knowledge that it also prevents your attackers from using their weapons as effectively and there are more of them. Reducing the accuracy of your attacker’s strikes more than offsets the loss of your own, especially when the groups are higher functioning.

 

3.  Maintain your progression

Keep moving to the exit. Never start with a half-hearted attempt to fight your way through the group as it means your intention is lacking in commitment and signals to the enemy that you are willing to submit.

The thing you don’t want to do in a group attack is to get stuck in a corner or get pinned against a wall or run out of energy. You can’t get stuck anywhere so maintain your progression and get to safety.

You have a certain energy reserve which you don’t want to use up before you get to the exit. The solution to any distraction or hold-up is acceleration, as it will regain your vision and path.

 

4.  Spend only one moment on an attacker

You cannot waste time on any one attacker. Time is all important in a group attack situation. There is not enough time to apply your intentions to any one person as you would in a two person fight. You don’t have to destroy each attacker – that is a myth that increases your chances of getting hurt. To be successful, defence against a group attack requires that you spend only a moment with any one attacker. This point should never be forgotten in relation to a group attack. You have no time to slow your progress and fight each opponent.

Spend too long on a single person, and the rest of the group has a chance to focus on you. If you spend too much time on one attacker then you run the risk of getting tackled to the ground or of being hit from the side or from behind by other attackers. The problem for every technique you use is that it will slow you down, and this allows the group to focus on your position and your progress. Taking the time to control one individual means the rest of the group has more time to grab you and take you down. The individual does well in this video, that I found on the net, except towards the end when he slows down to fight one of the attacking group, which enables all three of the group to focus on him.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6-rGQ4QnDg

 

5.  Never split your focus

If you spend only one moment on an attacker, then you can move on to the next attacker without splitting your focus between attackers. Don’t be in contact with one attacker and focus on another attacker. Never try to strike two attackers at the same time. Basically, if you don’t split your focus then you don’t split your intentions.

The more acceleration you maintain during the encounter, the less time you spend per attacker, the less chance you split your intentions, which hopefully means you can maintain your goal of exiting the situation as quickly as possible.

 

As always with group work, train safely and under the supervision of a qualified instructor