The ‘Naked’ truth about unarmed hand to hand fighting.
The human being has only become the Apex predator on this planet due to its superior intellect.
When it comes to combat the development of ever improving weapons technology keeps us at the head of the game.
From the first time, pre-historic man discovered fire and fashioned a crude spear or club out of flint or stone, man moved up a step in the food chain.
Currently with a stockpile of nuclear weapons when it comes to combat we sit firmly and smugly at the top of the mountain. We have no equals that we know of unless there are superior beings in outer space?
When man hunted purely for food they encountered all sorts of wildlife that was extremely dangerous and they realised quickly that they would have to develop weapons to combat and kill these creatures.
The development of blunt weapons, edged weapons, projectiles and then firearms insured that man survived.
But strip away those weapons and we stack up a very poor second to most things in the animal kingdom.
No matter if you were a world champion boxer, wrestler or MMA fighter going up hand to hand against for example a Grizzly bear would basically be suicide.
We as human being were not built to fight.
I would suggest that a vast percentage of the human population cannot fight at all.
Yet incredibly we are the most violent species on the planet.
Let’s back track to birth. As a baby, we are born practically helpless. In biology, altricial species are those in which the young are incapable of moving around on their own soon after hatching or being born.
We as human beings cannot even sit up or roll over. Not exactly built for survival, are we?
Now let’s look at the blue wildebeest for example. After 6 minutes of being born it can stand up on its own. After 30 minutes, it can walk. It can outrun a hyena in a day!
These animals and others like it are called in biology, precocial or superprecocial species which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching.
Things we can do from birth as humans are yawn, suck, swallow, salivate, hiccup, blink, yawn, sneeze, cough, break wind, stretch, cry and sleep. Apart from the first two which help us eat the other things are not great when it comes to survival or fighting.
A new born baby does have a very strong grip and it can support its own weigh if lifted but after a few months this skill diminishes. (Does this go back to our primate ancestors?)
Even as we grow, we still need care, attention and guidance from our parents right up to when we are 18 years of age. (In many cases, much longer.)
When we become a fully grown, mature adult, stack us up naked against most of nature’s predators in unarmed hand to hand combat we still become a very poor second.
Most creatures have evolved in some way to protect their DNA from the elements and aid them in combat.
Human beings have no fur, feathers, scales, claws, large teeth, armour plate, spikes or horns.
We have no venous poisons or stings.
Our hands, feet, fingernails and teeth provide hopelessly inadequate defences.
Our skin can be cut, ripped or punctured easily.
We cannot run as fast as a lion or a tiger. We cannot out climb a primate.
Put the world’s number one fighter bare handed against a silver back gorilla and there is only going to be one winner.
Research states a gorilla can run up to 25 miles per hour and has between 6 to 15 times more strength than a human.
Even the world’s strongest man would be ripped limb from limb.
A Grizzly bear can weigh between 600-1000 lbs. It has the bite strength to crush a bowling ball. Their paws are twice the size of a human hand and sports 3inch claws.
It could probably exert the strength of 2 to 3 large men without any effort.
Your best right cross or leg kick isn’t going to trouble it. Forget choking it. Firstly, you must get its back and secondly your arm will not fit around its neck in any shape or form.
Basically, against the animal kingdoms top predators we have no chance and there are many more that aren’t even in the top of the food chain that we would have no chance against never mind all the small creatures and creepy crawlies that bite, sting and poison.
Let me ask you a question to survive bare -handed against the top Apex predators would you rather have spent time lifting weights, fighting, learning to run fast or learning to climb?
Tough isn’t it. Against a big cat none of those skills would help you.
Maybe time spent learning how to squeeze into little small spaces would have been better!
As stated our superior intellect gave us the knowledge to develop weapons and safety equipment and strategies to combat large predators but fighting hand to hand isn’t our greatest forte.
In the world of self- protection these rules should also apply. Not every situation will require you to smash the fuck out of another human being, yet this seems to be the sole purpose of many ‘Martial arts’ these days.
If we look at history and the many wars and battles that have been fought from the Romans to Nelson through to the war on Iraq once physical action was decided upon how much of it was done bare -handed. I suspect little or none. We know going into war without weapons is futile and crazy.
Unarmed combat skills were taught as last ditch defences normally if you were caught behind enemy lines and had no weaponry. Rather than surrendering you opted for all those ‘deadly’ Martial arts style moves you learnt in training most highly exaggerated to give the soldier some grain of hope when their weapons were gone.
If you read any of the hand to hand stuff from World War 1 and 2 a lot of it was grossly exaggerated. Especially the striking of vital points and their expected results. But you couldn’t encourage the soldier to go hand to hand if you said that knife hand strike might knock your enemy out or that palm heel strike to the nose probably won’t drive the enemy’s nasal bones up into their brain and kill them. So, a little artistic license may have been used.
Most Martial arts skills were grossly over sold particularly when they became big business. We all wanted to believe that there were killer techniques out there that just required a mere touch or a flick of the wrist. Shit I got into Martial arts training initially for this reason.
When we watch professional fighters at the top of their game they are truly deadly poetry in motion. Their working days are designed around learning and training how to hurt another human being and they are fucking good at it. But in the big population of the world they are a tiny minority.
If you train and associate around, fighters, Martial artists’ and are in and out of Dojo’s and gyms you would be forgiven to think everybody and their dog knows how to fight.
The reality is most can’t. A lot can have a good fight from the safety of their arm chair but that is it. Many can take a swing when drunk but wouldn’t have a clue when sober and there are many living in a fantasy world convinced that they are a cross between Bruce Lee, the Terminator and a Ninja Turtle.
That all said take that small minority of top drawer fighters and put them naked and unarmed against any of the animal kingdoms Apex predators they will fail miserable.
As great a grappler as you may be, do you fancy grappling a Great White shark, a Nile Crocodile or Anaconda?
Want a kickboxing match against a silverback, a polar bear or a tiger? Probably not.
These creatures won’t worry about your tribal tattoos, your piercings, your red mohawk haircut or the size of your biceps. They don’t give a fuck how much you bench press, how many people you have ‘tapped out’ or how many black belts you have got. That is all fucking window dressing that might keep the ‘wannabe’s away from you.
But this is real shit now whether that ‘Great white comes in shark form or human form!
There is a hierarchy when it comes to hand to hand fighting and we are not at the top by a long way.
The professionals will take their place in there somewhere down the line but the rest of us have no chance.
Give us a knife or a gun, a grenade or a bomb then we quickly jump up the pecking order.
That is why in street fights most people bring a weapon to the showdown and not trust their unarmed skills.
I have personally trained a life time in Martial arts and love them but I also realise their limitations. Training seriously in them with excellent quality instruction will give you a better than average change against ‘Joe Bloggs’ on the street but training in Martial arts doesn’t make you some super powered Jedi knight.
The guys I call ‘real warriors’ know this because somewhere along the way they have laid it on the line and found out what works and what doesn’t. They have a very down to earth opinion on what Martial Arts are and are not. Others I am afraid are living in ‘Cloud cuckoo’ land. You only need to go to Youtube to witness it first-hand.
I have trained religiously in Martial arts since I was a young boy I have had the shit beat out of me in the street, cage, ring and contest mat. I have also beat the shit out of people in all said arenas.
I have learnt Martial Arts don’t make you invincible but learnt properly they can keep you one step ahead of the game.
We as human beings are genetically designed not to fight. We will run, hide or freeze before we fight. With our intellect, we will negotiate and de-escalate before physical action. Hopefully through years of ‘civilised’ evolution this is what we should be doing.
I have found depending on how intellectually competent or comfortable a person is at mediating will normally determine how soon it may go to physical. Many individuals who think they are being outsmarted verbally will become like a cornered dog and will resort to answering you with a punch in the mouth.
Most though don’t want to resort to violence and I suspect that is the way it has been since time began and will probably carry on that way. Their bark is usual more dangerous than their bite.
We are though the only species that kills for pleasure but normally from a fucking safe distance or when we are mob handed!
It is only when we have a big fuck off machine gun, Glock pistol or machete in our hands or have our finger on a button that we feel brave and that’s providing that our enemy hasn’t got access to one of these things as well!
Keep safe and keep it real.