Fighters and martial artists always talk about ‘heart’, or warrior spirit.

It is an unquantifiable quality. Natural for some people, and not natural for others.

It is the ability to keep fighting - to even fight more fiercely - even though you know the battle may have been lost. The ability to stare pain, or defeat, or fear right in the eye – which really means staring into the proverbial mirror – and say, sometimes quietly and sometimes in a loud voice, that you will not stop fighting.

Simply put, it is the strength of character to not give up even though you may want to.

This is a short, true story about heart. I hope it brings you some hope.

Sensei Gershon Ben Keren recently released this excellent blog on what Krav Maga can adopt from combat sports. I thought this was a particularly important piece (amongst his many excellent writings) as it highlights something that is often sorely lacking in Krav Maga, which I touched on here.
Too often martial arts and combat sports are dismissed in the purist self-defence circles (and no, those three things are not the same – more on this here). These criticisms range from painfully accurate to wildly fantastical, but at their core they are mostly the same: ‘that won’t work in the street’.
But there are many things that can be learned from martial arts and combat sports and applied in self defence. I’ve written about this extensively in the blogs above. This is what Sensei Ben Keren highlighted in the piece above as well.

But let’s look at the specifics. What specifically can we learn from combat and martial sports that can be applied in self defence?

In this article (and this video) I discussed some of the things that are important to include and consider when training for self defence. These are principles that are generally agreed upon by most self defence experts. In the previous blog I discussed the concept of no rules (and also my obsession with 80s action movies). In this blog we’ll look at one of the most significant factors that differentiate martial arts and combat sports from self defence – multiple attackers.
I vaguely remember my first time doing two-on-one sparring. The reason I remember it vaguely is not because I don’t remember what happened, but because it happened so quickly. I was trying to think about what to do, threw a few punches and next thing you know I’m on the ground with one guy hugging my legs and the other one wailing on me.

I also remember the first time it happened in real life. It ended much better (for me, at least…).
What is it about multiple attackers that makes things so hard? Why is it so often left out when people teach and train for self defence? What thing should you consider? What are common mistakes when training for multiple attackers?