A Note on "Seeing Red"

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” - Mike Tyson

Tyson was probably the most terrifying man on the planet in his prime. For the uninitiated, Tyson had one of the worst childhoods imaginable and he channeled it all into his fists. When he was at his peak he ran 4 miles per day, sparred 10-15 rounds and did skills work, and that was BEFORE he worked out. He did 2k squats, 2.5k situps, hundreds of dips, hundreds of pushups, and other weight training. He threw literally thousands of punches per day, every day, for like twenty years. 

So why does the average person think that, if they were faced with a situation where they needed to fight someone, they’d somehow be able to channel their inner Tyson and knock someone out with a single punch? I blame the movies. They make it seem like a knockout punch is something that the average person is just capable of doing somehow. Go to the average Joe on the street and I guarantee you, after a few beers with their buddies, they all feel like Tyson, even if it’s just a little bit, and they all feel like they’re capable of doing something in a physical confrontation. 

Allow me to state the obvious: If you don’t train in fighting, you cannot fight. Period. 

One of my favorite things in Jiujitsu is watching people have the realization during their first sparring session that everything they thought they knew about their body’s capabilities was wrong. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not calling Jiujitsu fighting. It’s not! It’s a simulation of one aspect of fighting, but doing it is usually enough to melt the ego of the average person and remove all their preconceived notions of what getting in an actual physical altercation is. And this is just grappling. I grapple with MMA guys quite frequently, and man do I take advantage of the fact that they can’t hit me while we’re rolling around. If they could - I think my success rate with them would drop by about 90%. 

A cop once that when entering into a physical confrontation, they’re taught that they will not rise to the occasion, but they WILL fall to the level of their training. I’ve never heard it put more succinctly than that, so I will leave it there. 

You won’t “see red and make bodies drop”. You’re going to end up on a youtube highlight reel of people getting knocked out in between someone getting dropkicked in a Denny’s parking lot and someone falling off a skateboard. You’re not Tyson. You’re more like Jim, from accounting. And we like Jim! But Jim’s not a fighter. Better to solve problems with words anyway. 

If you want to find out what it’s like to get in a physical confrontation, without the dire consequences, you know where to find us!

See you on the mat!

–D