Combatives And The Use of Foul Tactics - Part 1 - Biting

A lot of self defense programs, especially the MMA based ones, have an ongoing complaint about the use of ‘Foul Tactics’ and how the Combatives based programs talk about those tactics like a magic wand. Over the next couple of weeks I will try to address these issues in a rational manner.

Now to a degree, their claims are legitimate. There are far too many yahoos running around the internet with claims of “I’ll just bite the guy to get him off me” or “I’ll fish-hook him to control him”, and the old “I’ll just poke him in the eye”. A lot of guys making these claims and putting up bad videos on Youtube, Vimeo, Liveleak, etc. do nothing but make themselve look stupid and Combatives in general look bad.

There’s no denying that.

However on the other side of the coin I could also just put up the list of techniques that are banned by the UFC, Bellator Fighting, and a host of other professional MMA Combat Sports businesses/organizations. But I’m sure everyone reading this can easily Google that information.

So, where does that leave us? As with most issues of this nature, the answer is most likely to be found somewhere in between. For the first installment of these articles I will be addressing the issue of biting.

A few weeks ago I came across a couple of videos on Youtube narrated by a guy who was also addressing the question of whether or not biting was a viable way to win a fight, particularly in the street. The guy showed 2 video incidents where a bite was used in a street fight. While both bites did an appreciable amount of damage, the biter wound up losing, while the guys who got bitten didn't realize the extent of the damage until after the fight. The presenter talking about these two altercations said after searching the internet he had found and watched numerous other videos and the result was usually the same.

He stated that while he had also found and watched videos where the guy getting bitten freaked out and wound up losing, it was not in the majority of the fights. The fact is that while the biters did manage to inflict subatntial damage on their opponents, it only rarely ended the altercation.

I'll let you guys watch and draw your own conclusions.






One of the things that stood out to me in both these videos, and which I have observed in other videos of street assaults (not all the time mind you) where other techniques other than biting were used, was how the recipient did not cave, run away or roll up in a ball calling for his mother. However I have seen numerous incidents where the recipient was shocked or startled for just a moment before he resumed his attack.

This brings me to where I will say that my Combatives instructor, the late Carl Cestari, always made it clear that when using these “Foul Tactics”, you should not depend on them to be fight stoppers. The point was that you had found yourself in a bad situation and using one of these techniques was your only option, and that the point was to create a momentary break in your opponents assault so that you might gain the space to transition to another, more effective technique or escape long enough to gain some distance.

After watching street attack videos for quite a few years now I have to say that it's amazing to me how many times I've seen someone on a Youtube or Liveleak video gain a momentary advantage over their attacker and then fail to capitalize on it. Whether from lack of skill, strength, conditioning, or simply the willingness to do what was necessary, they wasted an opportunity to prevail in a violent confrontation.

Above I showed you the two videos of the failure of the bite to stop an assault, now I’ll show you the classic video of a case where a bite stopped a trained athlete in his tracks and screwed up the results of a multi-million dollar boxing match.





Now in the case of the Tyson vs Holyfield video I think one of the reasons that the bite worked so well was because it was a sporting event, and Holyfield was stunned by the fact that he was bitten. This would be as opposed to a predatory attack in the street where both parties are in survival mode and both believe that their lives are in danger, not just facing the loss of some money and professional prestige.

So, to wrap this Blog Post up, in my opinion, while biting is an option that can be used to possibly help you break away from an attacker and give you time to either escape or mount a counter attack, it cannot and should not be relied upon to end a violent attack in the streets.