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While taking a similar seminar on self defence that question was asked by a group of Jiu Jitsu and kickboxing students. The professor replied. "If the person you are engaged with on the street is throwing body shots, you picked a fight with the wrong person. That person is a trained fighter and in my 40 years of Karate, Muay Thai, Jui Jitsu and Krav, the trained fighters are not usually picking fights on the street." -edited for spelling

I think another thing people forget is that real violence is often SLOPPY AS HELL. People aren't carefully studying their opponent, they're grabbing and flailing almost blindly. Theory goes right out the window.

I think a lot of people forget that most properly trained fighters tend not to get into fights

"There's really no way of perfectly doing anything"
                                                                               - Inspirational words by the illustrious Sensei Seth, 2024

My man seth suffers fools glad af

15:42 "People who train in martial arts and learn how to fight first and...fight under that pressure, I think have the best aptitude of fighting. But I don't think they have a realistic outlook on what all fights look like outside of a cage. Like, there's no perfect way...to solve the problem of being attacked. That's what's hard, and what's scary." This is perhaps the fairest and most nuanced overall description of the dichotomy between combat sports and "self-defense".

The fact that you were able to have as much success as you were with nothing more than a brief introduction to the style I think shouldn't be overlooked.

I was dying at how much Seth laughed at that guy in the water

You should cover Right Response. It's a method of self-defense for social workers and nurses that is legally compliant. I got trained in it when I was a caregiver and had to handle violent clients when I couldn't do any grappling or striking (pushing counted as striking lol) without mounds of paperwork and an investigation. It's such a wild inversion of normal self-defense styles because it's for such a specific situation and there are zero counterattacks. It's almost entirely about deescalation, and if that failed, how to escape and run. There are a few specific holds that you could do, but only in very specific instances where the client poses a threat to themselves or the public. By itself, it's not very practical on the street, but I escaped the job with no lasting injuries, and I'm absolutely glad to have the techniques in my toolbox.

@SenseiSeth You said an interesting thing along the lines of ‘I didn’t want to kick my friend off a bridge and so I couldn’t test the self defense techniques fully’ - I think there’s an argument to be made that this is actually a pretty accurate part of a self defense incident!

There is some statistic that says a significant proportion of violence is perpetrated by people you already know - family, friends, acquaintances, etc. It is totally reasonable, in a real self defence situation, to think ‘I can’t sparta kick this man off a waterfall because I don’t want to kill them’, be it due to their relation to you OR because you are worried for moral/ethical/legal/social reasons.

I think adapting to use reasonable force against a specific threat is a highly underrated and very realistic skill that you ARE training by sparring in a controlled way!

What happened at 9:43 is kind of interesting. The other guy was so focused on the body that he forget to defend himself and ate an elbow for it; in a real fight, thrown at full force, that could have been a KO. Tanking a couple of body shots to land and elbow isn't so far fetched of an idea, that type of trade off is interesting to consider.
Still a normal high guard is probably better, but this doesn't look as useless as I honestly thought it would be.

Great video.

I was a nightclub door supervisor for ten years, '94-'04. In all of the fights/situations, I personally witnessed and dealt with there was not one body shot thrown. They were all punches to the head and stand up pushing, shoving and grappling. If it went to the floor, which was rare because of quick intervention, the head was still the primary target.

So I've been in more violence than I wish I had as a bouncer and CPO and almost every fight was wild swing, optional second wild swing (these are haymakers that are loosely aimed at the head and telegraphed from about 15' away if drunk).  Then there is some optional crappling.  Unless they fight someone like me and I teach them grappling and there are handcuffs at the end of the lesson.  The average fight was over in 20-40 seconds.  This is the early '00s.

Trying Muay Thai, Sumo, Boxing, Kickboxing: "Here's a recorded and detailed breakdown of my journey over these months/years, I really think trying this other style beyond my own has made me a stronger fighter all around."

Tries Keysi and similar fringe arts with no competition or sparring: "There really is no perfect way to do anything."

Love this!!! 🔥🔥

I've been in two fights as an adult. One was when I was 18, had an abusive step dad and hit my limit. The other was a (now ex) friend who decided to try to murder me (long story, of course). Tackled me out of the blue in my garage as we were talking, with a knife in his hand. Didn't see it coming. Luckily my left hand snagged his right shirt sleeve as we went down, so the knife was contained momentarily. I was in a bad position on my back, but had enough room to throw a (rather weak) elbow at his chin. That startled him and he reared back a little - which gave me room for another elbow with some zing on it. He was rocked, I pushed him off, rolled in to a half guard and buried an elbow in to his jaw that caused his head to impact concrete. He lost two teeth, a knife, and consciousness. The entire lethal force fight lasted less than 3 seconds and involved 3 elbow strikes.

Moral of the story, elbows are absolutely vicious in a fight even from a bad position, if you put them on target. Don't discount something because it looks stupid, because every fight looks stupid and chaotic and there's nothing ever resembling a plan, just go-go-go until the threat is no longer a threat.

The only time I've ever seen the body be a main target vs. the head in a street fight is against an opponent armed with a knife. No one is trying to stick you with a knife in the face. Thankfully, the only time I've had a knife pulled in an attempted street fight, I had distance, and they fled when I pulled my concealed carry. I'd be interested to see Alan demonstrate the system's capabilities against an armed opponent. I feel like it'd be a struggle.

I think the key to this system is hyper aggression, we used to use a fairly high guard for real incidents for exactly the reasons you showed but if you alternate between normal guard and the keysi guard for mid range and close range respectively it seems a very useful tool for the toolbox.

We all want to see the Keysi coach spar!