The REAL DANGERS of STREET FIGHTING…

There is a usual list of predetermined conceptions people have when they meet me for the first time and discover I am an MMA fighter and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt.

The first is that…I must get into a lot of fights.

Truth be told, because I am an MMA fighter and a BJJ Black Belt…I don’t.

Imagine if you were a Lawyer…and you got paid to write contracts. Would you come home, open up a cold brewsky and for ”fun” start drafting legal documents for your friends?!…Prolly not. So what makes fighting different?

Is it because I ”KNOW” how to fight?! Egh…

I should say that I know enough about fighting to KNOW I don’t want to fight unless it is for sport. A street fight is not sport, and many times it is capable of escalating to life and death situations. While not from the ”roughest streets”…I have seen my fare share of street violence.

Forget about the Travan Martin/Zimmerman trial in America….a good friend of mine Danny Wren, has less than a year left on his prison sentence that started back in 2005 for a street fight incident that resulted in some significant violence. Guns, Knives, baseball bats, those are all possibilities when it becomes a fight for survival.

There also isn’t a ref to pull anyone off of you when you’ve ”lost” the fight.

I can honestly…100% say…that since I ACTUALLY LEARNED HOW TO FIGHT, I have walked away from more fights than I ever did before knowing how to scrap. When you don’t get humbled everyday in the gym, you have this sense of ”saving face” which can escalate to an altercation. I’ve seen it in the club when a guy approaches another man’s girl, I’ve seen it in traffic when someone doesn’t go fast enough at a green light, I’ve even seen it at house parties when someone has partied a bit too hard.

Usually the actual reason for the ”fight” isn’t a matter of life or death…or even self defense. Usually it is a matter of Ego. If you really wanted to learn self defense you wouldn’t learn Muay Thai, BJJ, or even Karate…you would learn how to shoot a gun and if you lived in America apply for a concealed weapons permit.

Martial Arts has helped me grown into a better person, a more mature person. While I’m not going to get bullied, and I am still known to stand up for myself from time to time, the actual ”street fight” situations have become less and less with maturity and self value. I no longer worry if my friends think I ”Bitched out”—because at the end of the day, I have my own inner peace and understand that fighting even if in self defense should only be used for a last resort, as you never know how far it is going to escalate.

Former UFC fighter and current Bellator star Maiquel Falcão is being broadcasted all over the Web this morning after a street fight in Brazil lead to him being KO’d by a baseball bat, and his training partner being viscously stomped while unconscious. The guy in the video being soccer kicked on the ground is Kaue Mena and was rumored to be on the next UFC TUF show, however he is still in the hospital in critical condition, and I doubt that opportunity is going to be given to him.

While its obvious Maiquel Falcão was harrasing the women inside the gas station, you can’t help but to wonder if a little less ego would have lead to a different outcome…I’m sure for everyone involved this night has become a life changing event.

The real Jedi trick…is to learn how to avoid a street fight all together…because you never know how quickly things will escalate, and life is too valuable to waste…