If you are able-bodied, and have the financial means, consider joining a BJJ or boxing/kickboxing/muay thai gym. The recent zionist mob violence - along with the neonazi/proud boy violence seen a couple years back - has driven home the point that we keep us safe. We cannot expect the fascist police to keep us safe, nor should we. As part of learning to fight you will learn how to move. Learning how to move is important to being able to evade the cops when they try to grab you, and to keep your balance and footing when the cops are shoving your line. Also, learning to fight is fun. A lot of people describe it as feeling like you’re a kid again, roughhousing with your friends (if that is an experience you had).

Some details so you know what to expect:

Training for most fight sports can be split into two categories: technique, and sparring. In the technique portion the instructor will show you some move or strike then everybody practices with a partner at low resistance as the instructor roves the area observing and correcting. Sparring, in contrast, is simulated real fighting. You and your partner will attempt to apply the moves you know to each other with significant resistance. The amount of resistance varies; in striking sports, you rarely use more than 25-50% power because you don’t want to hurt your partner. In grappling sports like BJJ it is more common to use 80% or higher levels of resistance due to the reduced risk of injury & concussion. The general consensus is you cannot learn to fight by learning technique alone. If you do not spar, you do not know how to fight because you have not been tested in anything resembling the crucible of the real world. Sparring is what separates actually effective martial arts from “fake” martial arts that claim their moves are “too deadly” to be practiced against a resisting opponent or some other such nonsense.

BJJ is the most accessible of all fight sports due to the low risk of concussion, compared with striking-based fight sports (for obvious reasons). In BJJ you spend a lot of time learning to fight a single person once you have both fallen to the ground. As we saw in the zionist violence, this is not entirely useful because once you’ve fallen to the ground the fascist’s friends will surround you and beat you. However, BJJ does teach how to get back up once you’ve fallen down with somebody on top of you and also how to keep your balance so you don’t fall down in the first place. Thus it is mostly valuable for learning how to move, since you’re unlikely to be locked in a 1:1 struggle in the sort of scenarios we are worried about.

Striking based sports are most useful for learning how to block the fascists’ attempts to punch or kick you. It’s questionable whether it would be worth it to actually strike somebody, but knowing how to absorb or block a shot is a nice skill indeed. If nothing else a good leg kick will make them think twice about coming near you.

To set expectations, you will take at least two years to become basically competent at any of these sports, if attending class 2-3 times per week for 2 hours at a time. By competent I mean you will be able to easily ragdoll almost any newcomer to the gym unless they are physically large & muscular or have significant background in wrestling or other physical sports like football. 99% of people you encounter in the real world will not have any training whatsoever.

Two years is a long time. The best time to have started training was two years ago. The second best time is now.

  • Pluto [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I think everyone should attempt to work out, if you’re able to.

    I don’t want to shame anyone into working out, but it could prove useful in the long run, and healthy too.

    • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      i gave up the local chud gym but hiking and physical labor that is just weight lifting for pay seem to maintain things pretty well.

      at least until i finally take the E and melt my muscles into goo lol

    • EmoThugInMyPhase [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Well if one doesn’t work out, it would be best to avoid events that would become confrontational, or at least stay far back. Otherwise everyone would be at risk, the person who isn’t trained, and the person who is and now has an extra responsibility

      • i_ben_fine@lemmy.one
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        2 months ago

        I don’t think this is the right mentality for a protest. Everybody should be there. Those who can take on the extra responsibilities will.

  • Dr_Vegapunk@lemmygrad.ml
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    2 months ago

    Can we have a maoist urban guerrilla movement disguised as training gym? One-on-one fight will only get us so far, we need organized group fighting tactics!

    But yeah, go to gym if you can.

  • StalinStan [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Not to get weird with it but I am gonna get weird with it.

    For a while I was going to a local larp group. In terms of the stuff going on right now learning to form a sheild wall is probbaly an important skill.

    Also gets you out meeting people. Renesance fairs were started by communists. So this has other benefits to organizing and socializing as well. This is generally good for people with diverse body types as well.

    • itappearsthat [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      2 months ago

      hell yeah shield wall training is especially important in these modern forms of protest people are using, with reinforced banners and such

    • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, some HEMA groups teach group combat and it’s very much worth it. English school fencing manuals also focus on unarmed and improvised weaponry combat as well, and you can generally find a stick at least if a protest goes south (do keep in mind that the cops will attempt to stack extra charges on if you so mach as use a backback as a shield.)

  • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    This isn’t something that’s easy to train, but: get comfortable being swung at. Learn to block and when you do, practice by having a friend take (slow, easy at first) swings at you live. You need to learn to stay calm and focused with a blow incoming, because during the attack is when your opponent is most vulnerable to a counter.

    Become accustomed, even if just a little, to the feeling of being punched in the face. It’s like an ice bath plunge, shocking but only briefly. Being used to that, and being able to shrug off the surprise and react immediately, will give you an advantage.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    If combat training isn’t for you, there’s still a lot things you can do to make yourself less useless.

    Dance for instance, especially earlier styles like viennese, waltz, polka, traditional Latin and Spanish dance, and especially ballet teach balance and movement. And just keeping your balance when the horses charge in is worth a lot.

    As you go earlier pre-romantic ballet and court dance begin to openly have fighting moves in them, to the extent that until the 19th century dance was considered the foundation of many western combat arts.

  • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    i did two years of competitive taekwondo in a really harsh, hyper-disciplined dojo. it wasn’t fun and i was young and talking out of turn, breaking stance, etc could make you be forced to spar the whole class until you nearly passed out

    but i am still surprised by how much stuck and how much muscle memory i retained. for a big person i still can move with crazy fluidity (even at work where i do phyiscal labor) and have broken every accidental fall i’ve had without injury (except one, but that’s a complex story and was unavoidable)

    im much older now and would sometimes love to refresh the skills under a vastly different style of fighting (and i have no patience for the fake militarism shit anymore) so this is pretty interesting to read

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    Been trying to get back into fighting shape since the year started

    Been doing a decent job of it

    Still got most of my boxing skills, can still punch hard enough to move a 100lb heavy bag

    Can still probably become a Wildcat-esque superhero named El Bombastico

  • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I think that the best way to defend against a mob (zionist or otherwise) is to have a bunch of people with shields and/or sticks. Riot cops do this without having to be individually skilled martial arts practitioners. This is a collective thing; as you note, even being a great BJJ fighter won’t save you from a couple fascists surrounding you.

    And the obligatory: if you are concerned with defense outside of these strange scenarios of lightly-armed street fighting (when have leftists won political change from street fighting anyway?), you should buy a gun. 4-6 hours a week for two years of martial arts training is a LOT of time and money. It is way faster and cheaper to become a competent shooter.

  • ChestRockwell [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I feel like I’m fucked no matter what because I wear glasses. My gut says contacts are a nightmare against the pepper balls, so is there anything I should do? I feel like hurling shit is my best use if shit starts popping off, but is my worry re: contacts wrong? Should I switch back and start training the punchies?

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      OP is a larper, but your concern is valid, Two options include sports glasses (which can still shatter, but a flexible frame makes them less likely to break otherwise) and wearing a visor or safety goggles or something in the case that you wear contacts, so they act as a protective barrier to irritants.

        • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          I think others have explained it well enough. Fitness is cool and useful, but this streetfighting shit is dumb. Convincing one person to get a gun is worth more than convincing a dozen to take up muay thai. Boxing comes out more favorably, but literally only because of the sheer volume of cardio training, since it will actively teach you to be worse at punching (ungloved) along with the other litany of issues applying a combat sport to a street fight.

          • itappearsthat [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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            2 months ago

            calling me a larper as though pulling a gun at one of these events the past few weeks wouldn’t make international news

            since it will actively teach you to be worse at punching (ungloved)

            you don’t train, got it

            • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              2 months ago

              I don’t box, certainly, but it’s the most basic knowledge you can have about boxing that the dynamics of bare-knuckle are wildly different from that of regulation boxing. Punching bare-knuckle, you really need to make sure you only strike with knuckles 2 and 3 and avoid the crown. In regulation boxing, it’s arguably the best strategy to hit with knuckles 3 - 5 and striking the crown is fine.

              At least from what I could find on the incident, when Tyson got in a fight with some rando and fractured his hand not too long ago, it was because he threw a boxing punch despite not wearing a glove, which is going to damage your smaller knuckles.

              calling me a larper as though pulling a gun at one of these events the past few weeks wouldn’t make international news

              Open carry works as a deterrent, you surely know this too.

  • Maoo [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    The best thing to practice is de-escalation and running away. If you need to fight, it should be after those fail. The exception is if you do something as an organized group, in which case you should use the program and technique adopted by that group. There is safety in numbers. Anything that is dangerous should be done with a group and in an organized way.

    Fights are very dangerous. It’s not like on TV. If you get knocked down and kicked in the head even once, you can die. If you get hit in the head and just fall wrong, you can die.

    It is certainly safer to carry a weapon before learning how to spar. Pepper spray, tazer, a knife, a gun. Those are ordered by safety to the user Ave I recommend getting them in that order and only doing so when it feels necessary and like this is more likely to protect you than become something that would backfire on you.

    • itappearsthat [he/him]@hexbear.netOP
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      2 months ago

      Carrying and using weapons is the exact opposite of de-escalation, even if they’re beating you people tend to give what they got. Which is why eyepokes as taught by krav maga for example are a bad idea - you just raised the stakes on a fight you were already losing.

      Fights are very dangerous. It’s not like on TV. If you get knocked down and kicked in the head even once, you can die. If you get hit in the head and just fall wrong, you can die.

      Yes, which is why it is important to know how to block/deflect things as much as possible, know how to avoid falling to the ground, know how to - if falling to the ground is unavoidable - fall while protecting your head, and know how to get up again quickly & safely. All of which you will only learn how to do effectively in the gym.