How would you defend yourself against a swarming attack by bunch of teenagers? Lets assume you don't have a gun.

Is there a strategy of taking down the most assailants efficiently?

I'd run...

Back in the day, six words: "Wait 'til your mother gets home!"

Short of that, good advice from Blast.

A shotgun? Oh, assuming you don't have a gun...

Seriously, unless you're also a teenager I don't think that this is a terribly likely scenario, unless you go out of your way to offend someone, and they come back 10 minutes later with all their buddies.

there is a rise in swarming attack perpetrated by teenagers against adults. for example, the new york times mentioned a bunch of hoodlums attacks young women at Chinatown.

Is it necessary to carry a knife for defense in this situation?

I live in NW Pa and there have been many home invasions by teenagers lately, the doors stay locked at all times, cell phone is on my hip and there are phones on all three levels of the house as well as in the garage. The shotgun would be the last resort, hopefully you would have time to call 911 or leave the area.

I think it would be extremely ill-advised to pull out a knife when you're outnumbered. They could all have knifes, or worse, guns, and suddenly you give them reason to use them instead of simply taking your wallet and giving you a bump on the head. I think your best course of action would be to give them your wallet, no, THROW your wallet as far as you can away from you, and play dead.

While I didn't have a knife pulled on me personally, riding the T home yesterday the guy sitting next to me pulled a knife on a someone who he thought was slowing down traffic. To be fair, he was slowing down traffic and we're very uptight about traffic here in Boston. That was approximately when I called 911 on my cell. The police never showed, but nobody got stabbed, either. *shrug*

Go for their iPods.

Playing dead, isn't that supposed to work on Bear's ? Not teenagers...LOL

Katie is right, pulling a knife on a group of people is only asking for trouble. Everyone should be aware of their surroundings, seeing things before they happen so to speak. If you see a group of teenagers or anyone else for that matter acting suspiciously the best thing to do is avoid them, almost the same a defensive driving, don't let yourself get pinned in, always have a way out.Something else to consider having is a whistle, drawing attention to the situation might help to diffuse it before it gets started. I'm no expert but those are some things that come to mind.

Shadow out !!!

my dad used to say = if you're gonna get creamed, pick out the biggest guy and nail him good. if done right and he goes down and stays down it just might be a showstopper.

that's after you have tried all of the above...

personally, i'd try an epileptic seizure - i've seen enough that i 'm sure i could pull one off..

or crying and peeing in your pants...

or vomiting on the money as you hand it over..

whatever it takes to be in one, intact, non-bleeding piece when done...

you may look stupid or foolish or cowardly, but who's really smarter?

Throw your wallet and RUN!

Playing dead is what opossums do; they tend to get eaten.

If you are prevented from running, you fight for your life. And that means slamming kneecaps and folding them inward, fists slammed into throats or family jewels as hard as you can, eye-gouging, bending fingers backwards all the way, and anything else you can do, and you try to make it permanent. The best swarmer is a crippled or blinded swarmer.

Just keep in mind that swarming is an ATTACK. You play by their rules, not Marquis of Queensbury, and if there are girls involved, they get the same treatment.

Victims who refuse to be victims sometimes have a surprising effect on this kind of trash. They often DEPEND on your being a crying, begging, sniveling, cringing victim. That's the kind of victim they want.

Sue

Having just quit from a juvenile detention center, the question is a valid one. Teenagers are mean no days! The attack may be provoked or they may not. If I was going to give any advise, it would be to make sure that you use your verbal skills as opposed to your fighting skills. I have personally been confronted by a group that personally did not like me. As they approached, they made their intent clear, my first responce was to use VERY basic resoning. The quote I used was lets walk away from this cause one of us is going to the hospital, one of us is going to jail. I was not talking to anyone of them, but it was clear enough that I had to endure some taunting as I walked away, but I WALKED AWAY! Maybe this isnt the most heroic thing I have ever done, but I know that I am not Chuck Norris and this is not the movies. As a side note - I have my CCW and I am a former cop. I was carrying and at that point, a weapon was NOT an option, it was the first thought, but unless you are in fear of your life or the life of another is in danger, dont put yourself out there as a first choice. Good luck with this thread, it is a VERY real threat, and talk about ETS hitting close to home.

What nobody mentioned was chemical agents (pepper spray). With the spray a group is easier to hit than an individual. The spray and spin works with a group of teens as well as it does in the middle of a bar fight. Just be aware that you will get some too as at least part of the spin will be into the wind.

Just be sure they are a threat and not a lost church group looking for directions. You will know the difference. Lost or other legitimate groups tend to stay together while predators spread out to surround victims. It was also a good idea to start with the biggest or the obvious leader of the group.

Take Care and Stay Safe

I once heard a story about a senior black belt in some martial art who was reputed to be so good that he could fight off five other black belts simultaneously.

One day, when he was leaving the dojo, a bunch of six teen hoodlums decided to gang up on him - not a mugging, they were looking for bragging rights.

He looked them straight in the eyes and said, as coolly as he could, "You know, I can only fight 5 men at a time. So - I'm going to have to kill one of you."

After a tense silence, they backed off and let him go on his way.

Not a solution for most of us, but I figure, if a black belt with his reputation felt it was safer to use his mouth than his fists, I'd be committing suicide if I tried to get physical.

It is a real threat in urban areas these days and a serious predicament if you happen to become a victim of such an assault. Avoiding places where youth gangs hang out is good advice. I've been in that situation at least twice. Once I managed to get away without getting physical. Once I got blindsided by the biggest guy while a couple of others distracted me and caught a sucker punch but since I didn't go down (I used to box a bit) the guys freaked out, backed away and a passerby defused the whole thing before it turned into a big fight.

In my experience, confrontations with youth gangs always start at a verbal level and often stay there. It's mostly about ego. In any gang most guys are basically cowards and don't want to fight (though they will happily assist in beating a helpless victim if they can without risk to themselves). But there is always at least one leader/tough guy who looks for trouble in order to impress the group. The usual tactic is to surround a victim and intimidate him. If you hand out your wallet or cellphone at this time it may not help. Maybe they're looking for money, maybe it's about something else. If they smell fear they will likely press you even harder, very simple predator mentality.

Good verbal skills and taking a confident but not aggressive stance seems to work best. If you can run away, good. But if you have to fight you must understand that you're heavily outnumbered. If you let them surround you you won't last more than a few seconds. Though most groups don't expect the victim to fight back. If you're the one to initiate the fight and manage to disable at least the leader there will be serious panic among the rest of the group. The advice from people who I know could actually handle themselves in that kind of fight is always go for the leader, strike first, keep all the assailants in front of you, maybe incapacitate the closest/weakest attacker and use him as a shield. Any kind of weapon is a big asset but it has to be deployed instantly before anyone knows what's going on and once you do it there's no turning back.

It is possible to fight your way out through multiple attackers but only if you're totally comitted and have the skills and attributes to pull it off. Look into Krav Maga or military combatives (WWII), they deal with this. If unarmed, strike hard to vital areas and move as fast as you can. The idea is not to incapacitate every guy in the group Bruce Lee style but rather to stun and disorient the leader and any guys directly blocking your way so you can escape as quickly as possible. A concealed blade can be extremely effective, aimed at the face or hands. But once you deploy a knife it's kill or get killed. In a civilian enviroment that probably means going to jail even if you survive the fight. Nothing to be taken lightly and a whole lot easier to talk about it than do it for real.

OK, contrary to some of the advice given:

Attack into them. You have, for all intents and purposes, been ambushed. The only way out of an ambush is an immediate attack into it.

Be very clear about one thing: You have to kill or cripple as many of them as it takes to break them. DO NOT attempt to run away. If you run away, they will run you down. They will hammer you into the floor and they will kick you either spastic or to death.

If they have any one who looks like a leader, snuff him.

If you have anything that can be used as a weapon, use it. Forget about negotiation. It needs two to negotiate and they are not "negotiable" as it were.

You are going to be very scared. Accept it. Use it. Focus it. Being scared is normal. It causes your body to generate a massive adrenaline surge. Your strength increases. You reflexes accelerate. You ability to absorbe punishment increases.

You are going to get hammered. Either by them or by the Court later. Quite possibly by both. The chances are very good that you will, through no fault of your own, be imprisoned for a very long time or (if where you live has a Death Penalty) executed.

That being the case, exact as high a price as possible.

If all else failes: Do your uttermost to ensure that you have a proper escort across the Styx.

This discussion is getting close to the borderlines of acceptable content for the board(If I remember the rules correctly), but, given that, I would feel remiss if I did not commit on this...

WARNING... Controversial and adult content follows... If you do not like that, then do not read it.


If you are going to pull a knife, you had better be afraid for your life... If you are afraid for your life, you do NOT pull out the knife and try to scare them off, you pull it and start stabbing as fast and viciously as you can and try to put as many of them out of commission as you can, and then RUN. If they are not expecting it, you should be able to take three or four of them out before the rest catch on to what is happening, and it you are acting crazy enough they will likely want to get away from you... This is assuming that they are not hardened gang members... If they are, then YOU would likely have a knife in you as soon as they surrounded you, if they were intent on killing you.
Remember, you NEVER want to get in a 'knife fight', what you are trying to do, is save your own life, by whatever means possible. You do not want to try to injure them, you want to put them down... But remember, you are NOT trying to kill them, you just want them to be out of the picture, whether they are dead at the end of the day is of no consequence. Only whether YOU are alive.

Saying, "Don't beat me, I'll only get an erection," apparently worked for Stephen Fry.

He has an ultimate weapon:

He just offers to kiss one of 'em.

i didn't think anyone saw the humor - after my first suggestion - but leave it to you brits!

cheers!

bsmith

I wasn't aware Brits have humor.

If one get attack, can the person hide in a car? Can the car windows withstand attack long enough for the victim to call 911 ?

Hey James
I have a question thats bugging me, you copied and pasted my post then the first words out of your mouth were.


"This discussion is getting close to the borderlines of acceptable content for the board(If I remember the rules correctly)"

Did I say something wrong, seems to me the only thing I could have said was.

"Playing dead, isn't that supposed to work on Bear's ? Not teenagers...LOL"

I was only following suit like.

Back in the day, six words: "Wait 'til your mother gets home!"
I'd run...
Go for their iPods.
Playing dead is what opossums do; they tend to get eaten.
or crying and peeing in your pants...
He just offers to kiss one of 'em.

I mean the list could go on and on, this is the second time someone has used me as an example. Like I offended them.



I mean if I'm out of line here please tell me, I'm not as smart as the majority of you so maybe I need educated in the proper use of forum posting, I'm getting to the point where I'm not going to be part of your little group.

Maybe I'm reading this all wrong, if thats the case I'm sorry for this post.

Shadow out !!!

Only if you're outside the police station and they are standing around outside taking a break. The side windows shatter & fall to pieces from one good hit. The front window shatters immediately but will take some pounding (its laminated with plastic in the middle). I don't know about the back window.

If you can get into your car, drive away. Over them, if necessary.

First situational awareness.

Be aware of what is going on around you. That way you may or should spot what is going on around you. Then maybe you can avoid the problem all together. Then if it does happen you know some of the available options.

Fight or Flight.

Bail if you can.

Fight if that is all that is left.

Get your back to something. That way if they can only come at you from one direction.

Use anything that is in the surroundings as a source of weapons.

Fight all out. do as much damage as you can. Try to make is painfull and bloody as possable. Do your best to make the damage as obvious as you can. Of course as mentioned target the leader and/or the biggest ones first. You might discourage the rest.

Do the worst you can. That way even if you lose you can take an honor guard with you.

Ohhh, sorry if you thought that was directed at you...
It was about the entire discussion...
I am on some forums that are VERY worried about anything people post that sounds like you are talking about doing bodily damage to anyone, so I just wanted to cover myself, and remind people that we are on a public forum...

I actually had posts removed from a forum because I mentioned that I would at least TRY to use a knife to defend myself against a bear, if I were attacked. The administrators, were afraid that the forum would be accused of advocating knife violence, and deleted the posts.

I'm always amused by the sorts of answers you get when a question comes up of naked human aggression. Particularly when it comes in a form which conforms to a lot of people's worse fears about loss of control, crowds, implicit race or class and all the related symbolism.

The first thing that comes to mind is that these attacks resemble attacks by barracudas. For those who don't know to some divers in tropical waters a school of barracudas is more frightening than sharks. Barracudas are fast and evil looking and it is easy to imagine that a dozen coming at you at once would be impossible to defend against. If it goes down like in the stories your meat.

The question is if barracudas are so formidable how can other fish exist? Why are so few divers attacked and why do so many survive the attack.

Which begs a few questions:
If human swarm attacks are so frequent and deadly why do so many otherwise defenseless denizens of the inner urban utopia, such as it is, continue to exist? Look around any inner city and you see a lot of inhabitants. Most of these people are fairly weak. Presumably easy targets. But even among this collection of weaklings very few are attacked and most of those attacked survive. Why?

I don't know for sure, and I think there is a lot of randomness and chance involved, but I can offer a few thoughts:

Attacks are not entirely random. A lot of gang and group idiocy is centered around times when young-adults are free and drunk or high and at times and places where there are not a lot of people in authority around.

My understanding is that Friday and Saturday nights within a few hours either way of the closing times for the bars is peak time for all sorts of felonious assaults of all descriptions. On the other end early Sunday mourning is the time least likely for such behavior. On week days trouble rises after schools are out and peaks at the closing time for the bars. Safest time is early morning at about dawn.

Used to be police also knew when during a month the worse weekends would be. It was no great feat. Welfare checks came out on the fifth of each month. The young bucks would emerge from the woodwork and get their cut of the check from their girlfriend/s.

If it fell on a Friday or Saturday the police knew it would be a particularly busy night. There would be the usual fights as the bucks renegotiated their cut with the mother of their children. Then more fights as the bucks negotiated transfer of funds from government checks to cash and still more as the funds were converted into drugs and alcohol. Then, with a belly full of their inebriant of choice and fresh from three weeks of slow partying as the bars close the bucks hit the street looking to make it a memorable night.

Times have changed some. Welfare checks don't come out all at once and the credit card benefits are harder to convert into any form of sustenance a young buck might crave. Which isn't to say there aren't patterns. Just different ones.

Just knowing the signs and patterns of the streets you can lower the risk considerably by timing when your out. Talking to inner city kids they know this even if they can't tell you in so many words.

There are a lot of factors. Like what motivates an attack? What does the individual and group gain? What are they afraid of and what do they avoid. Drunks and derelicts get beat up but most survive and there is certainly no shortage of them. How and why?

Understand this and your chances of surviving go up.

If you see the your best chance as running try to consider how groups move. Lacking any better option a corner is better than being caught in the open. If they have to come at you one at a time it takes longer and there is more chance of both defending yourself and of the followers getting tired, bored or losing enthusiasm. Remember that most businesses and homes have a back door so running in the front serves many purposes. A crowd has trouble getting through a doorway.

If you run into a house or business, even if you have to kick the door, your involving the residents. These are likely to object to your entry but so to to a large number of people following you. The residents your involving are locals who may have more leverage with the people following.

Don't stop to talk. Think about using anything available to slow down the oncoming crowd. Make noise. Keep going right out the back door. Repeat as necessary. Keep going until you are well clear of the neighborhood. If you get away they may keep looking for you.

One final word: Beware trying to be a hero. Joke is that hero is a sandwich and an accolade assigned posthumously. There isn't enough glory in the world to make up for the going down part of 'going down in a blaze of glory'. It is easy to muse on about your standing in Valhalla but in the end there are only two categories that count: Those that survived and those that didn't.

After the fact you can make up any lie you wish about how you fought like a lion against twenty to one odds and well told it might get you a beer or two but you have to survive the event to drink the beer. Calculate your odds carefully and do what you need to do to survive. A lot of bold talkers reconsider when faced with the actual event. Which is how so many bold talkers stay alive. This is not a time to worry about playing a part in a hero fantasy.

If, in the end, you think attack is the best route ... good luck. Do it if it is the best way to survive. Don't do it with the idea that anyone will be impressed.

Art,

Great post. The paranoia that brings us to this site needs to be whacked down every so often. Excellent point about the weak living in the cities. If they can srvive then things can't be THAT bad...

-Blast

Good point about running away. It made me think back. I can't recall any people shot, stabbed or beat up while running or even walking away, but I've seen maybe hundreds who stuck around as words were clearly headed towards violence, or even after the violence began.

Jeff
(But the stereotyping and vocabulary almost made me stop reading)

There will be a "leader" of the group. Armed or unarmed, let that person know that, no matter what happens to you, you are gonna take him out first. And then do your best to take the sob out. If you get in a luck kick/punch/stab/shot/whatever, that may slow the rest of the gang down long enough for you to get away. Keep in mind that you are going to get hurt in the process. ..

You can be weak so long as you aren't also stupid. If you are smart enough, you can usually find a way through any problem.

If you are stupid, then you have to be pretty danged tough to compensate. Even then you might not make it.

Now, if you are smart and tough, you can make bank.

Sing opera, badly... they'll flee.

or

Rather than use a knife to defend yourself, carry a golf ball in one pocket, and a tube sock knee-high hose in the other. If surrounded, slip the golf ball into the sock and start swinging.

A golf ball in a sock seems to be one of the quickest ways I can think of to incapacitate myself in a fight.

Precisely! If you kick your own butt, then they won’t have to… and they’ll be too busy laughing to do so.

For those of you who have little experience in fighting, hand-to-hand combat against a single person, raised in the street, is no easy challenge. No doubt, they will have the advantage. The difficulty increases exponentially with each additional threat. I don't believe that pepperspray is effective enough unless you have some degree of control over your adversary.

To much of the advice above, I say: Hope is not a strategy. Hope is not a method. Hope has nothing to do with what is actually going to take place in what you had better assume to be a life-or-death encounter.

Most everything that you have learned is contrary to hurting another person. Violent action, to have any degree of predictable success, has to be practiced. The question as to whether you are capable of killing another needs to be answered today. Violence has to be a mode that can be switched on and off. Because, the fight may very well be in your face in that amount of time.

Increasing your odds of survival is more than just carrying an Altoids tin. An all-encompassing approach recognizes that very serious danger is about and forges the mind into a weapon always at the ready to meet that danger.

I was going to add something, but decided instead to simply state that, until you are really ready to stop thinking as a potential victim and adopt a different attitude towards your fellow man, that is pretty much all you can be. You just can't help yourself until you cross the threshold. It is like quitting smoking. You can't do it until you make a willful determination to forever abandon that life, that there is no longer any choice; no turning back to it, ever. Until then, nothing out there can do it for you; not gum, not pills, not therapy. The only way you change without it being a willful commitment is to be completely removed from it for a long time, to be forced to face life without that comfort.

Combat hardened soldiers can never be victims of violence, only casualties. That is the best perspective I can share. I hope it makes some sense.

This is a tough topic for me; one that I see alot of BS on very frequently. I have personal experience with it. Not from a martial arts class, but rather from going to four different high schools. One of which had a grouping of large students of one race (20 or so) picking 1 smaller person of another race (in some cases me) to beat on for the sheer purpose of boosting their low self esteem or something..

So while alot of people spout theory freely, I have experience I can quote from. I would say the person I agree with anyone who said to run (look, it's not being cowardly - it's being smart), and with pretty much everything raspy said.

I have tremendous martial experience (12+ years, multiple arts) and had a fair amount back in high school as well (around 2 years) and found alot of things that did not work. Let me state a few:

8lbs of force does not break a knee, in fact, knees are pretty damn tough.
It's very hard to gouge someone's eyes when there's 20 of them.
Kicking someone in the balls usually does really work.
Biting is surprisingly effective.
Contrary to most training, people do not come at you 1 at a time.
You cannot always run.
You can, however, actually talk your way out of alot of these things.

In the end, there were only two physical altercations that I can remember. The first time I ended up on the ground, curled up, taking many shots.

The second time, I ended up on the ground, kicking and biting. After that, they never tried it again - I made sure the price wasn't worth the admission.

But in the end, I never had to deal with that partly due to a reputation (established at that point) and more in part to an enhanced ability to talk my way out of conflicts. It's amazing what you can convince people they don't want to do by being rational.

Nike-Fu is pretty good too. I was always a strong runner, so it was helpful at times.

Hrm... what else... Yeah. I would say run if you can, cover up your vitals (neck/head, stomach, jewels), fight back only if necessary.. and if you fight back make them earn it.

I've never found anything in training that closely resembles the madness of a 10-20 person on 1 'swooping' is. But if you can train REALISTICALLY for it, do it. Honestly though, Most formal training on this kind of thing will more likely than not hurt than help.

As for nowadays I carry myself in an aggressive posture, mind my environment, carry a knife (and am quite competent with it - 5 years of kali), and try to avoid potentially threatening situations.

Bingo!

Ah yes, the unofficial SAS motto,

Run away, Run away, live to fight another day.