Tbh though, there’s advantages to doing it that way. Disadvantages as well, but the reason it never ends well in movies is a different thing than in reality.
A group of less experienced fighters can still wear down and “beat” an individual more reliably than rushing in all at once, particularly if they haven’t worked together in that way much.
You do sparring in martial arts, and you’ll eventually train against multiple partners. If they don’t work together well, you can play them off of each other, even if they’d whip your ass 1v1. Even a concerted rush to take you down can fail if they aren’t coordinated as well as coming as a group.
Thing is, it doesn’t take much coordination for you to end up with your ass in a cheese grater.
I’ve seen a few videos of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioners trying out 1 vs many situations. Call the 1 the “good guy” and the many the “bad guys”. You often see “bad guys” tripping over each-other, putting them off balance, and making them vulnerable to the “good guy”. OTOH, it’s absolutely exhausting for the “good guy” because they have to keep on moving extremely quickly so they don’t get surrounded.
The “good guy” is free to swing wildly because everyone nearby is an enemy. The “bad guys” need to be careful because there’s one target and lots of other allies you don’t want to hit.
The movie portrayals are almost always BS, showing one “good guy” easily keeping track of every bad guy, even the ones behind him, and smoothly countering every single attack. On the other hand, a coordinated attack is harder than it seems, and it is realistic that if every “bad guy” attacked at once they’d just get in each-other’s way.
Nice, they say it’s been having a revival lately. I hope that all practitioners are required to wear a stylish hat and a handlebar mustache.
It’s fun that one of the influences is Savate. That’s another fun martial art. The theory is that hitting someone with a closed fist was seen as attacking with a deadly weapon in France, so the sailors (who liked to brawl) developed a fighting technique using kicks and open-handed slaps.
Yeah, my experience as the “good guy” is that, eventually, you go down, no matter how well you use lack of unison against the “bad” guys. But, it’s also the case that you can whittle them down if the rules of the session remove them if you would have removed them from a real fight. Not HEMA, Japanese martial arts, some kali, etc, but the same basic idea.
It’s one of those situations where you have to be perfect, or near it, every single move, but they only have to be perfect once. But it is possible to come out of it “alive”, if injured (and likely beat all to hell for real).
The “good guy” being perfect is a big part of what I saw. The “bad guys” can afford to be imperfect because there are so many more of them, and eventually their numbers win.
Also, from what I saw, the tempo of the fight goes way up, which is hard on the “good guy”. Like, maybe in a normal 1 on 1 fight each person makes roughly 1 attack every 3 seconds. In a many-on-one fight the “bad guys” might attack at 1 attack every 5 seconds, a bit slower because they need to chase down the good guy and avoid their own team. But, if there are 5 of them, that ends up with 1 attack per second on average that the “good guy” has to deal with, which becomes pretty frantic.
Overall, I’d definitely rather be on the “bad guy” team, because you’re almost certainly going to win. But, I wouldn’t want to be one of the closest / first attackers because they have to deal with a fresh “good guy” while avoiding running into their own allies, or getting hit by a wild swing.
I did a couple months of Aikido in college and they did sparring against multiple opponents. More than 2 or 3 and they’re really just getting in the way of each other.
Throw in swords, and attacking simultaneously is more of a liability than anything else.
Nope. Ok, a "protagonist might connect one hit, knocking out one attacker. Then, half a second later, six bodies (including the kbocked down person, pile up on the protagonist. Yes, they don’t use any special moves, they just get on top. That’s it.
If you’re talking about grappling then yes. But most fights in movies don’t go there because it looks boring. If you’re grappling and everyone grabs a limb and dog piles that is pretty hard to beat.
Yes, i meant real world, and the real world IS boring. You wanted to kick around, but instead you’re just held, and then they can do anything to you, in a really “unbalanced” manner
That’s how most actual fights I’ve seen play out; just a bunch of people rolling around on the floor in an uncoordinated mess, except for the one guy that got sucker punched at got knocked out.
Tbh though, there’s advantages to doing it that way. Disadvantages as well, but the reason it never ends well in movies is a different thing than in reality.
A group of less experienced fighters can still wear down and “beat” an individual more reliably than rushing in all at once, particularly if they haven’t worked together in that way much.
You do sparring in martial arts, and you’ll eventually train against multiple partners. If they don’t work together well, you can play them off of each other, even if they’d whip your ass 1v1. Even a concerted rush to take you down can fail if they aren’t coordinated as well as coming as a group.
Thing is, it doesn’t take much coordination for you to end up with your ass in a cheese grater.
I’ve seen a few videos of HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioners trying out 1 vs many situations. Call the 1 the “good guy” and the many the “bad guys”. You often see “bad guys” tripping over each-other, putting them off balance, and making them vulnerable to the “good guy”. OTOH, it’s absolutely exhausting for the “good guy” because they have to keep on moving extremely quickly so they don’t get surrounded.
The “good guy” is free to swing wildly because everyone nearby is an enemy. The “bad guys” need to be careful because there’s one target and lots of other allies you don’t want to hit.
The movie portrayals are almost always BS, showing one “good guy” easily keeping track of every bad guy, even the ones behind him, and smoothly countering every single attack. On the other hand, a coordinated attack is harder than it seems, and it is realistic that if every “bad guy” attacked at once they’d just get in each-other’s way.
Looked up HEMA and found Bartitsu:
🤣🤣
Nice, they say it’s been having a revival lately. I hope that all practitioners are required to wear a stylish hat and a handlebar mustache.
It’s fun that one of the influences is Savate. That’s another fun martial art. The theory is that hitting someone with a closed fist was seen as attacking with a deadly weapon in France, so the sailors (who liked to brawl) developed a fighting technique using kicks and open-handed slaps.
Bully!
That’s the martial art that Sherlock Holmes practices.
(Well, it’s called “Baritsu” in the stories, but most agree that that was a typo.)
Yeah, my experience as the “good guy” is that, eventually, you go down, no matter how well you use lack of unison against the “bad” guys. But, it’s also the case that you can whittle them down if the rules of the session remove them if you would have removed them from a real fight. Not HEMA, Japanese martial arts, some kali, etc, but the same basic idea.
It’s one of those situations where you have to be perfect, or near it, every single move, but they only have to be perfect once. But it is possible to come out of it “alive”, if injured (and likely beat all to hell for real).
The “good guy” being perfect is a big part of what I saw. The “bad guys” can afford to be imperfect because there are so many more of them, and eventually their numbers win.
Also, from what I saw, the tempo of the fight goes way up, which is hard on the “good guy”. Like, maybe in a normal 1 on 1 fight each person makes roughly 1 attack every 3 seconds. In a many-on-one fight the “bad guys” might attack at 1 attack every 5 seconds, a bit slower because they need to chase down the good guy and avoid their own team. But, if there are 5 of them, that ends up with 1 attack per second on average that the “good guy” has to deal with, which becomes pretty frantic.
Overall, I’d definitely rather be on the “bad guy” team, because you’re almost certainly going to win. But, I wouldn’t want to be one of the closest / first attackers because they have to deal with a fresh “good guy” while avoiding running into their own allies, or getting hit by a wild swing.
I did a couple months of Aikido in college and they did sparring against multiple opponents. More than 2 or 3 and they’re really just getting in the way of each other.
Throw in swords, and attacking simultaneously is more of a liability than anything else.
Nope. Ok, a "protagonist might connect one hit, knocking out one attacker. Then, half a second later, six bodies (including the kbocked down person, pile up on the protagonist. Yes, they don’t use any special moves, they just get on top. That’s it.
If you’re talking about grappling then yes. But most fights in movies don’t go there because it looks boring. If you’re grappling and everyone grabs a limb and dog piles that is pretty hard to beat.
Yes, i meant real world, and the real world IS boring. You wanted to kick around, but instead you’re just held, and then they can do anything to you, in a really “unbalanced” manner
That’s how most actual fights I’ve seen play out; just a bunch of people rolling around on the floor in an uncoordinated mess, except for the one guy that got sucker punched at got knocked out.