The Real Reason People Think They Can Fight: It's Not Their Fault 

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28% of people: I think a rat could beat me 8% of people: I could totally take on an Elephant Amazing

28% think they can't beat a rat in a fight?

Ive been a prison guard for the last 17 years and Ive seen over 100 fights and been involved in breaking up dozens of them. Heres some things Ive picked up about fighting: 1) No one knows how to throw a punch. In 17 years Ive seen exactly two good punchers. 2) 99% of people have 30 seconds of fury before they get tired and slow down. 0% have over 60 seconds. 3) A persons willingness TO fight is far more important than that persons ability to fight.

Very intriguing theory about our human ancestors trying to avoid hurting one another seriously during a fight. It reminds me of fighting with my brother when we were both kids - the first time we ever punched each other in the face was the last time we had a physical fight - hundreds of fights resulted in no serious injuries, just a lot of bruises.

My experiences with primary school geometry, and jujitsu later in life are basically the same thing. It was a long time ago, I barely remember any of that shit, and I got fucked up by triangles more often than I care to admit.

"I can knock out a blue whale.... More than 6% of people are assholes." Priceless

You know, there's this great phenomenon I have seen many times; I call it "the wingman pull-away". It's when there's a fight brewing between two guys, and their friends pull them apart, each of the would-be fighters muttering, "Yeah I totally coulda taken him". Honor is preserved, and nobody gets hurt. I wonder how far back this behavior goes.

The reason we think of ourselves as good at fighting is because it's a survival skill. You have to believe you can win a fight before you get into the fight. If not you've already lost.

In all seriousness though, I did some boxing training in HS for a year, stepped away for a long time. Came back to kickboxing (though I’ll admit my coach was horrible, and as soon as I realized it I left his gym) for the past 3 years I’ve been an avid Muay Thai practitioner (5 days a week) with the occasional BJJ class. I know I can defend myself, but that doesn’t make me want to go pick a fight with random people. If training has taught me anything it’s been respect, controlling emotions, thinking about what I want to setup, and most importantly…. Some of the most unassuming, nicest and harmless looking people will absolutely whoop your ass if you push them to.

"People who pretend to train on the internet" ouch. Its not my fault i got so passionate about mma during lockdown 😅😂

Plot twist, 100 people were lined up and 6 successfully fought a grizzly bear on the spot and won.

Me: "Yeah, I'm a badass. I can beat a rat". --Rat: "Yo, dude, ever hear of the Black Death?"

Just imagine being an early human in a fight for survival and you decide to just haul off and hit something with your delicate, clawless hands instead of picking up a rock or a stick or basically any other object.

Bald, has beard, knows science. Confirmed, he's the Vsauce of martial arts

Lmao all those fail jumpkicks always gets me 😂

There is no “winning” in a fight. There is only surviving another day. Semper fi earthlings

That intro was deep af bro

"why cant you do geometry?" Listen, I only have 2 brain cells left and they're already fighting each other.

Intro by MikeSmash

When I was a little kid, people would say that martial arts training was useless because somebody will just use a gun and shoot you dead. The sad part is, at that time in that part of the world, it was a reality. You were always afraid to look anyone in the eye just in case they had a gun and thought that eye contact was a provocation.

Tough guys are a dime a dozen in the martial arts. Technicians too. Thoughtful philosophers are rare indeed! In every walk of life! As a lifetime martial artist in my golden years and having seen the fight sorts explode in terms of training and effectiveness it is refreshing to see such sophistication in the mixed martial arts! Well done! @

I genuinely thought I could beat up most people until I went to an mma gym when I was 18 and got completely rag dolled. I’m really glad that happened because I probably would have ended up getting myself killed.

I think your “The Winner of fights doesn’t actually want to kill the loser of fights” is spot on

I used to think I was good at fighting growing up because I got in alot of fights and never lost with 99% of the time knocking the guy out within 2 punches. I've also fought 3 people that were jumping my brother and knocked all 3 of them out with one punch each. Not once have I started a fight but I grew up in bad neighborhoods so either trouble always found me or I was protecting people I cared about. Young and dumb is a good example of my youth. I pulled myself out of that lifestyle and have never had to fight since.

“You used to do geometry when you were younger, but you’re not gonna come over here and figure out this hypotenuse” Gold

"Who gets the sturdiest, child birthinest babes" pure gold, bro!

Precisely. A Japanese friend asked me what was the martial arts from native brasilians, and I told him that native Brazilians from the past usually fought with all sort of weapons, from bow and arrows and wooden sticks and stone swords. Hand to hand fight is a modern invention, besides variations of wrestling.

I have some experience with fighting animals, living on a farm with a livestock guard dog and stuff. I can tell you that people can beat most animals in a fight, (alone), although if you run into a wolf or a dog in the wild and it's alone it's going to run instead of trying to fight you. Bears and Elephants and Moose or whatever are obviously going to wreck a human though.

I am so glad someone finally pointed it out in these terms. We werent meant to fight like MMA and martial arts. And I love how he points out the old "if you dont use it, you lose it", which is true in all things we do....except eating and getting fat. We will always be good at that.

Fighting is connected to self worth? That'd explain why I know I suck at fighting...

I like how he put civilized in air quotes

In the words of Shadiversity: "Get stick!"

I have to add, I love the way you describe conflicts in real life, particularly form the caveman era. I once had a poor judgment kid (I was 21 he was around 17) who was in gangs and likely in drugs, constantly asking for a fight, he was trying to make a reputation for himself as bad@ss. I always managed to avoid such since honestly, he didn't represented much of a treat to me physically. One day, i saw him in the street, he was recovering from being literally destroyed in a street gang fight and was wearing a cast in his broken arm. He began insulting me and calling me out to fight him (I didn't). How stupid mentality is that one? Already an arm broken? I could have easily finished the job on him,seriously injuring him or worse. What drives people to do these things? I have no clue. Your comments on how we all would be dead if we fight this way back in the beginning of humanity, describes perfectly my attitude and philosophy over confrontations. To me, anyone trying to hurt me is a life threatening scenario. I need my body to live, I have no intention to hurt nobody nor fight, and I tend to concede some liberties like taking insults lightly etc in an attempt to avoid physical conflict. Once it gets physical to me it means kill or be killed, when people realize this in my actions, look, behavior, they usually back off and that's perfect with me. I don't care about proving nothing to no one. Great talk. Best regards

I love that only 60% said they can beat a goose lol, 40% of people think they are weaker than they are or never met a goose. Chances are the people who said they can't beat a rat or a cat think the animal would run away before they can really fight it.

Oh and, gosh, fighting a BEAR ? People don’t realize how even when we were cavemen NO ONE ever took on wild beasts alone. Too effing random and dangerous. Even if you deal a deadly wound to the animal, in the meantime while its losing blood it can absolutely tear you to bloody shreds. I remember 2 incidents with boars. One with my mom’s father. We were driving to a golf course. My granpa had an old Volvo, that had a steel frame. A boar sprung out of the bushes, and granpa couldn’t avoid it. The car hit it right in the ribs. The car died right there and then, engine eff’d up beyond repairs. The boar was stunned for about a minute (while we stayed in the car, still stunned and absolutely not wanting to discuss insurance with a wounded boar) : then it bloody WALKED AWAY. Hunters found it dead nearly 50 kilometres away from the spot we hit it TWO days later !. Second incident traumatized me for years. I was 16, and went hunting with local hunters in the vinyards around my grandfather property (our wine is Chateau de la Soujeole, look it up ! ;). ). Anyway. We were about 12-13 people trying to flush a boar, and the dogs managed to track one. Thing is, the boar escaped running way ahead of the dog pack. It surface out of the forest near our car park. There was my father, me, and another hunter. While the boar was stressed out, it looked like it wanted to get away from us. My dad and i hopped onto the back of a pick-up truck and my father loaded his gun. But the hunter who was with us took a knee and aimed at the boar. The fucker charged. It was maybe 30-40 metres away from the hunter. The guy took the shot while the boar was charging, and hit it SQUARE in the forehead. IT DIDNT STOP IT. The boar caught up with the hunter while he was standing up and trying to hop on the pickup truck. My dad caught one of the guy’s arm and i took the other. As we heaved (he was somewhat overweight. Not enormous, but big) the boar got level with him and gave a slash of his tusk. The guy yelled out but at that point we thought it was just a headbutt (with the panic and shit). When we heaved him up onto the back of the pickup we saw our hands were full of blood. The guy had a long gash along the thigh and his abdomen was opened, his insides held only by the slashed fabric of his clothes. To this day i remember seeing that guy’s insides. The boar fled as the dogs were getting closer, and as soon as it was gone my father yelled at the other hunters for the keys to the pickup. Another hunter came to hold pressure onto the wounded guy’s belly, while i was holding pressure onto the gash on his thigh. We drove him to the hospital and he made it. The day after we learned the dogs had caught up with the boar, and two dogs got disemboweled pinning it. After it was killed, they kept the skull of the boar to offer it to the hunter who got wounded. The skull was fractured at the front and the bullet was stuck there. The hunter kept it as « trophy ». But to get back to the point : if anything that should remind stupid keyboard warriors that animals are TOUGH as fking nails.

Dave Grossman in "On Killling" points out that most killing happens in war once the enemies back is turned. It appears to be something deeply part of our psychology.

Having trained people (with previous martial arts backgrounds and newbies) over the course of my life, I can honestly say that I have encountered no one who demonstrates any natural fighting abilities. We all have to be trained.

Man this is one of he most important videos on the internet… thanks for this.

on a side note, it is always good to know how to defend yourself and fight if you need to. I'm always a fan of people talking it out and walking away, maybe even a handshake or hug instead, it's just that .01% of people who you must fight

Doming things with rocks was probably our most viable means of lethal attack during most of our evolutionary history.

I boxed very diligently in high school. I took about six years off and recently started going at it again, not very often admittedly...I’m very aware of how many people there are who could absolutely blow my teeth out. I’m 80lbs overweight and I was never that good to begin with. With that in mind, I also know that if you have no training and aren’t substantially bigger and stronger than me, I’ll slap you silly. The most practical value of learning these skills, in my opinion, is being able to predict violent behavior and outcomes well enough to avoid violence. I know that the drunk homeless guy who wondered into the open mic I was hosting isn’t actually going to hit me even if he keeps shouting in my face. I also know that if he did hit me I’d be okay. The net result of this is that I was able to continue talking to him for the half hour it took for him to leave on his own. If I had panicked or taken him at his word when he threatened me, I would have ended up in an unnecessarily dangerous and embarrassing scrap with a guy who probably just wanted to be warm for a bit.

4:30 fun fact, one of the reasons why gladiators fought with little to no armor in chests and thighs and plenty in extremities was, that gladiator houses got compensated by the organizer if a gladiator perished. There was no compensation for wounded and crippled gladiators. So a mortally wounded gladiator was more worth for his owner than a gladiator with a broken knee or missing fingers.

"You couldn't figure out this hypotenuse" Me, an Asian: just use some trig; follow the sine identity rule and find a right triangle plug in the angle and the opposite and adjacent and boom

Experience wins fights 💯 . All that training goes out the window when you get into an unexpected fight . The more familiar you are with the atmosphere of a fight the more control you have 💯

As someone who has being attacked by a dog... Never mess with dogs... You might win, but it would suck either way

The only thing any training in any thing I've ever trained taught me was, I'm not as good as I believed, and there is always someone better than me.

i'm pretty sure the 6% who said they can fight a grizzly was just trolling

I think the point about knowing how terrible you are at fighting is less about self-worth and more about a (false) sense of security. If you realize that when you walk down the road there are people who can just fold you up without any risk to themselves (except being caught by police and going to prison) then walking down the road feels much less safe.

"I'm an asshole" I felt that.

I did not click with the expectation of positive masculinity talk. Super Props.

I love this! Reminds me of one night working the door, and this guy outside wanted to assure his friend that he could fight in case guys messed with them. "Don't worry man i do BJJ, i'm a blue label." Ah yes the johhnie walker school of bjj 🤣

BEAUTIFULLY EXPLAINED

Every situation is different. You could fight the same guy 4 times, and handle him pretty easy. If ya let that get into your head, get a since of overconfidence, the 5th time, he will have your ass. I've been on both ends of this. Never underestimate someone. Also fear will increase your adrenaline, and a guy that's afraid, with nothing to lose is dangerous. You never know the experiences of someone your facing off against. What's in their head, what they're thinking. A lot of people are all bluff, and usually the loudest guy is the weakest guy.

I have 2 2nd degree black belts that were very hard to attain. And I never want to have to be in a real fight. I have been, but I don't want to. 100% of physical fights are potentially deadly. And You're right. Way too many "back in the day" guys out there. I'm very aware of the atrophy of my skill as I age and am not training like I used to.

Anyone who has actually fight trained with real fighters know what the word humble means. The more you learn the more you realize your own mortality. Totally erasing your ego is the best way to look at things. Only then can you see the truth within yourself.

Someone who genuinely can fight is someone who, when asked the question "can you fight?", answers by saying "yes, because I can keep a cool head after getting punched in the face".

War is a very recent development. War wasn't a thing for a long, looong time because of the reasons you pointed out in your video on a 1v1 fight. We need eachother to survive.

I think another factor is that there is a disconnect between the your ability to imagine performing certain physical actions and your body actual being able to do those actions. I’ve started boxing recently and I can visualise the perfect punch, understand how to do it, what it should like, how my body is supposed to move to pull it off etc. but I can’t perform it because the practice just isn’t there yet. I have not internalised the movement through practice and have the necessary mind-body connection. This goes for when I used to practice BJJ and MMA. After having viewed hundreds of hours of fights and drilling the moves in class, I can certainly visualise how to do it. As a result, I think I’d be good at a street fight because I can visualise what I am supposed to do and the perfect way to perform the moves (hit him hard, take him to the ground, get mount and then restrain him or beat him) but it is 100% guaranteed I would be bad in a street fight because I can’t even do these moves in class.

"Or heel hooking me." Tony Ferguson "This is number one bullshit."

The REALLY crazy thing is these people saying they could win against these apex predator animals without weapons. Weapons are the ONLY reason humans are apex predators. I am a pretty dangerous person, physically speaking. I am confident, with good reason, in my ability to kill human beings in fistfights (if I for some reason had any impetus to do that at all, but that's pretty insane). I KNOW your average person isn't as strong as me, and I KNOW they don't have the same physical toughness or quickness I do- I still know that even animals that are actively afraid of conflict like gorillas COULD KILL ME in a fight. Let alone a grizzly bear. Anyone who thinks, "Imma choke out a grizzly bear" is fucking psychotic.

somewhere out there is a video of some Russian dude(very intoxicated) deciding he was going the throw hands when a bear wandered into his campsite. He lost his head. Literally, one swipe, removed from his spine. I think the other campers had the sense to run for the cars.

My experiences with fighting is basically non existent, I'm 6,4 and pretty jacked, but the only thing that most of the time prevents a fight is what they *think* I might do to them. I on the other hand am standing there thinking stuff like "If that escalates, I'm *so* *fucking* *dead* ", which at times is really not a good feeling, but I just don't see the point in training something I never needed anyway.

I was thinking the same thing. One way to visualize this is school fights. School fights involve dragging people to the ground and a few hits here not boxing type fights because those types of fights have rules and are 'ineffective' to put it some way in real fights although strength acquired in boxing is necessary in fights. Also, I realized that the person who wins a fight is not necessarily the strongest although it is important.

4:05 when I was a kid I got into a few fights. I was almost always at a disadvantage (outnumbered) and I can tell you that you that I was surprisingly boxing-like. You hit someone hard enough that they back off, and then you deal with the next kid. From 3 seperate occasions, in none I let myself taken down and in each I did damage with my fists. Now I had done some judo to help me with balance, but to maintain standing while fighting (at least when not 1v1) is an instinctual thing.

I know you like to think of yourself as this super down to earth knucklehead realistic martial arts coach, but you clearly have some SERIOUS knowledge and an innate ability to transfer that knowledge to us viewer and your students in a way that goes beyond combat sports coach. Great content as always

Some people have done crazy things like flipping a shark with their bare hands, so oddities like that can push the belief and delusion that someone can beat a grizzly bear with their bare hands. I think the percentage of people that believe it may be way smaller than 6% tho.

Look man, all I'm saying is that if a goose rocked up to my house, I'd be pretty confident I'd win like 50 percent of the time

2:10 Fighting can't really be compared to geometry because it uses your body and your mind, while geometry is strictly mind. It's closer to basketball, which uses your body and your mind. Both your body and your mind remembers fighting once you hone it so much that it becomes instinctive. Also, geometry (for most people) is rote memorization rather than true understanding. Those who do truly understand geometry (or anything else that's based on logic rather than just memorization) will be at least somewhat proficient in it 'til the day they die.

What trips me out is going through those weird chinese reels and the comments are like "this guy could beat anyone, skill is greater than power" and the mf is as big as a toddler and is slapping a fish. There's this weird social idea that we've been fighting like we do now since the dawn of man...when like you said, most of the instances in where humans would fight each other or humans vs other animals, it was almost 100% not in the favor of the human to risk dying over quite literally nothing...that and "fighting" back then was literally just using whatever appendage you can to let everything else know you don't want to be fucked with and not die doing it. It's funny to see all these people that think there's some "ancient chinese secret" to fighting in general and think they can fight because they watched a guy kick a heavy bag for 30 seconds.

Damn, this ended up being a lot deeper and a lot more profound than I thought it was going to be.

I like how you self reflected at the end but still brought up your og point 👌🏽

"Unless you're making a RU-vid video." I almost spit out my coffee.

One of the best ways to avoid a fight in a social dominance situation is to convince everyone that you are good at fighting. It seems most people understand that instinctively on some level.

You’re talking about tribal inner conflict, while leaving out tribe vs tribe conflict aka warfare.

This was very very very well thought out. Blew my mind.

I came for the tactical tips but stayed for the pure entertainment.

I don't doubt that there are people who can kill a fang/clawed beast before they bleed out but... WHO THE HELL thinks they can barehandedly kill an *ELEPHANT* 😆

That intro totally smashed my mind man!!!

Awareness of personal limits is crucial. A pilot ignoring his personal limits will die and kill innocent people; a surgeon who is not aware of personal limits will kill an innocent person and will go to jail - sooner or later.

Nice impersonation!! My thoughts on fighting. My martial arts training gives me a better chance than I would have without it.

But lets be honest if any high level martial artist try to fight any grizzly bear, lion, any predator will lose 100% of the time unarmed. Like he said we will tell that guy with the clip board anything so he can leave us alone

The way I've always looked at most fighting sports is it's like you're training your body to be a racecar. On the track, in a competition full of other racecars, you accelerate fast, you're aerodynamic, you're agile, etc etc. But at no point in the competition do you actually attempt to murder someone on purpose (though NASCAR is full of intentional crashes from what I hear) And off the track, on normal roads, your sports car might have the chance to outmaneuver some cars, _sometimes,_ but most of the time, you're driving at the speed limit, like everyone else, and, like someone without a weapon, your car is likely not all that crashworthy. There's a reason why soldiers don't go to war in sports cars, there's a reason why they don't have to learn competitive boxing. And you, in the civilian world, will never need a sports car or competitive boxing skills. Against anyone stupid enough to want to hurt you bare handed, light grappling training will give you enough of a leg up for self defense without a weapon of your own, and even then your first resort should always be to run away and, failing that, to always have a weapon on you if you're scared of being attacked.

Also Mike you should check out this scene from the boxing anime Hajime no Ippo where one of the characters punches out a grizzly bear 😂😂😂

i love fightin losing or not i just love it.

A new word has been added to your lexicon... "Childbirthingest" babes😂🤣😂

I could totally fight someone who's just as out of shape as me who's also never trained properly before. We"d just do it poorly and probably stop after the first punch because it hurts so much.

I looked it up a while ago: a male gorilla can reach 180 kg, and a male grizzly can reach 360 kg. How can anyone think they could beat them ?

In Cave man times if you did not know how to fight or defend yourself you were worthless? No you don’t have to fight, you don’t go looking for wild animals, unless you hunted. There was accidents back then like there’s accidents today ( broken bones) now why does everyone believe mankind wasn’t instructed on how to hunt and survive? Wars came much later. One thing many don’t know is man was more useful of his mind early on than today.

You have to have exactly zero knowledge about fighting to think you are actually good at it when in fact you're not. Seeing just a few videos on the subject (for example how a basic training looks like) you just know that if you do not train, that anyone who trains will kick your ass, it's that obvious. However, any untrained guy have some chances against another untrained guy :)

Every thing is a weapon a bite really hurts.

Okay, I know this will sound like absolute bullshit but hear me out here, I did win a fight just by looking at a guy one time. He tried to start trouble (probably because I'm a large fellow, how could he know I'm a gentle giant) and he had a bunch of friends with him, wanted to look tough I guess. After unsuccessfully trying to bait me into a fight, to the point even his friends were telling him "He's not going to fight you man." he hit me as hard as he could in the chest to zero effect then started flinching like I was going to swing on him. I just hit him with my best "What the fuck was that?" look and saw all the fight drain from his body as flight took over. And that's it, they let me and my dork friend walk by without any more issues and I don't think I ever saw that guy again on that bridge. Without having to land a single blow I crushed their very will to fight and I would argue that was a true victory. Funny in retrospect because it was nine guys with skateboards and other possibly blunt objects, I wouldn't have stood a chance had I chosen to fight, much less my pal with scoliosis. I think my Sensei would have been proud in that moment because my training was telling me not to strike back and it worked.

I heard from an older fighter: There are 2 people type when the adrenaline kicks in a fight, when an attacker approaches: the first one who is not willing to hurt others (this is the type that no matter if he/she never learned anything or studied martial arts for years without serious sparring and realises this in the few seconds before the fight that he learned how to HURT people but he/she is not willing to do it because the restrictions of society, and parental advice) this type of people will became the ultimate victims if they start to fight...so it's considered wise to use the adrenaline to run and not thinking...run fast as possible...The other one is the opposite, he/she apply what he learned, or instinctly go berserk and dont care if it hurts somebody, eventually kill somebody in a hard situation...These are really deep inner psychological things and really hard to rewire them, another bad thing is that a lot of dojo don't care or dont talk about this...stress test aka sparring is a good thing and every dojo should do it especially those who think their style is "dangerous", you need to feel the pain, and you need to know how to cause pain, this is how survival works, i guess...but as ol' Sun Tzu said: “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.”

Very interesting. Yeah, I’ve mention to a number of friends who have inquired, I’m not a bad-ass. I just happen to be one who has trained for many years, learning a set of millennia-refined techniques that concentrate much of its practice on the evasion of incoming “projectiles” (fists) and their connective supplier. And, while guiding such incoming projectiles, my training also allows me to redirect and manipulate said projectiles and their supplier - along with the supplier’s balance and control - so as to render him entirely impotent, and at the same time delivering a number of my own projectiles until the object of contention is incapacitated via “overwhelming discomfort” and/or until such time as he is put into a state of complete and total unawareness. That system of manipulative technical skill is called Kung Fu San Soo.

When it comes to fighting it’s always our pride speaking.

(A squared + B squared) = C squared. I can still get that hypotenuse bud.

Your channel is awesome. Zero to gain from fighting. Legal ramifications if you prevail; debilitating physical damage if you don't (or do.) Or bad enough for me would be simply the humiliation of getting pummeled in a social confrontation and having it uploaded online and floating like debris in the abyss of social media for all eternity as people observe with snark and laugh-cry emojis. As someone told me when I was a confrontation-prone 18 year old, there is always somebody meaner, tougher and more determined out there, with less to lose who would like nothing more than to make a belt notch out of you. Living in warrior culture Los Angeles, I'm very cognizant of this.

I always thought people who think like that either very young or stupid, glad to watch an entire video regarding these people.

The reason why I tell people I can fight, even though I definitely can't, isn't ego or self-worth. It's because if I imply that I'm a threat, they might be less inclined to start something. Saying "I'm very easy to rob" doesn't seem like a smart thing to say to someone, not the kind of knowledge I want getting around, even if it's true...

"if we let childrens fight..." Bullshit, when I was a kid we fought with sticks and throwing stones. Wrestling was too much of a struggle to get good at.