Friday 3/15/19
Bouncing 270 min
Easy shift all night until 1:15, which is when alcohol can no longer be consumed. The last guy in the bar didn’t want to give his beer up, even though I politely told him to finish it up several times in the 5 minutes prior. He was my height and probably around 200-220, so not a small guy. I took the beer from his hand and he didn’t like that at all. I told him it’s time to go home and he said “Make me.”
Okay then. I warned him one more time I’m going to put my hands on him and he didn’t seem to think I would. He didn’t seem drunk, he just seemed like he didn’t appreciate being told what to do and had it in his head that he was in control of whether he gets to stay in the bar or not.
Let’s break the encounter down like any other good scrap during training!
I started with a gentle tricep grip, then when he started to shove with the off-arm I arm-dragged him, took his back and started with a seatbelt grip. I switched to working a rear naked choke when it was clear he wanted to fight. He knew how to defend the choke and we were grip-fighting on the non-choking hand so I couldn’t quite sink it in. He started gurgling even with the one-arm choke and I decided to put him on the ground, dragging him backwards from the choke and putting him on his butt. I followed him to the ground, and put him in side control but we were in a corner and I really couldn’t settle in to full side control. I punched him in the stomach several times, but he kept fighting and used the corner walls to post against and keep me from settling into a dominant position.
He managed an escape and got back to his feet, I got back up too. He wheeled around to start swinging, I clinched him up and ate the blows while I took his back again. I took him down again with a knee-bump that put him on a small set of two stairs, then followed him to the ground and climbed up into full mount. Gave him some pressure and secured an Americana.
“I’m done,” he said.
“We’re staying right here for a little bit,” I told him. When I was sure he was done and assured him that I don’t want to destroy his shoulder I let him up. He apologized, shook my hand and complimented my fighting, then left.
The bartender called the cops during the fight and they showed up four cars deep about a minute after he left. I told them what happened and the cops told me point-blank that I should have broken the arm.
I guess I’m nicer than the cops in my town. I didn’t need to break his arm, so I didn’t. He’s probably banged up a bit, but I didn’t injure him at all.
A few take-aways…
This guy definitely had grappling training. Wrestling or jiu jitsu. He knew technical defenses, positional escapes and he also knew the moment he was truly beaten. Definitely not a typical drunk chump, which is probably why he was so confident that I couldn’t make him leave.
He also had a knife. It fell out when I first put him on the ground and I kicked it away. I don’t think he had any intention of using it, but I was glad to put it out of play. He left without picking it up, and now I have a trophy.
This is the first time I’ve gone to the ground in a bouncing situation. I did it decisively because he was the last guy in the bar and I knew there were no more people in play. I’m a shark, of course I want to swim when I can.
Jiu jitsu fucking works. His strikes were ineffective when I had him clinched when we were standing. The only damage I sustained were some minor scrapes on my knuckles and some bruising on my knees and elbows from the floor. It was probably a two minute fight at least, and I had the superior position for the entire encounter, even though I didn’t have complete control over him until the very end when I mounted him.
Hard floors don’t make a difference. It may as well have been mats. My training kicked in and I just did what I know how to do. My knees and elbows are a bit banged up but I didn’t feel a thing when it was happening.
I ended up in a corner and haven’t really trained how to fight in a corner, so the positions didn’t work the way I expected and he was able to escape when I was on top of him. Crafty motherfucker.
You never know what someone can do, or what kind of weapons they have. Once we were on the ground he was (correctly) more concerned with defending the position and trying to escape than trying to do dumb stuff like hit me from the bottom of side control. He knew how to defend a rear naked choke and succeeded. I was trying to put him to sleep fairly early on and failed, so I had to go to plan B. This was not a guy who was going to let me street choke him.
I’m glad I had a plan B, and a plan C. Someday I hope to add D, E, and F.
I’ll go ahead and point out that nobody got seriously hurt, which keeps my long streak going of ending violence without injuring anyone.
The final take-away is to always have more fight than the guy who wants to fight you. Don’t ever quit. I had a lot of gas left in my tank. His spirit broke and he gave up. I suppose it’s possible that he realized that he was acting like an asshole and losing a fight because of it, but that doesn’t really matter to me. The outcome was good. He quit, I was unharmed and so was he.
I train jiu jitsu for self defense for a reason. There won’t be any berimbolos or x-guard entries into omoplata sweeps when the whistle blows and it’s on.
I love this shit!