A Brawl that Forced Me to Consider Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)

-The scary part was I conducted a perfect knee bar on him when I have no basic knowledge of grappling or jujitsu


Through out my 7 years practicing martial arts mostly Muay Thai, I've been told countless times by martial arts articles, self defense documentaries and sometimes experienced martial artist that the self defense techniques regardless of the style, are all useless when it comes to a real street fight. With this warning deeply stuck into my principles of martial arts, I often remind myself to avoid any unnecessary fights, not to be a hero by using what I have learned to defend myself and only practice martial arts for sports and fitness. Conversely, after a bloody brawl on the early morning of the 24th of February, I truly underestimated the capabilities of my martial arts as it have defended me very well and for that, I felt like a fool. What even surprised me, was the fact that I defended myself fairly well during the ground attacks with the choke hold and knee bar I performed despite the fact that I hated grappling or jujitsu for I was never good at those. After that morning's brawl which showed me that I had the potential in grappling, I then considered taking up Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

It all happened the night before when I was having a nice friendly steam boat dinner with my Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Japanese friends at my apartment's common lounge. Seeing that our 1 week of reading break was soon to be over, all of us vowed to extend our time together until the following early morning. After our dinner at the common lounge, we cleaned up and washed the dishes. Seeing that we still had a long time more before we called it a day, one of my Hong Kong friends, Cindy suggested that we should drink. Having experience the bad side of drinking more that once, I felt a cold chill down my spine as my instincts told me that something bad is going to happen due to our decision to drink that night. Yet, I knew I was thinking too much and it would be rude to counter Cindy's suggestion; so, I went with her plan. Cindy popped open a brand new bottle of Raspberry flavor vodka while Shelley, another Hong Kong friend of mine brought a carton of apple juice drink boxes with her to mix it up with the vodka. Everyone drank a lot accept me as I dare not indulge myself in heavy alcohol ever since the incident where I was drunk. My roommate who was with me started drinking a lot and because of that, he began to feel tipsy. Knowing that he was a better drinker than me, I was not concerned about him. Shelley later suggested a game of King's Orders to accompany our happy hour.

The game functions through a deck of 7 cards (depending on how many people is playing. I had 8 people including me back then, so we used 8 cards). Each cards have its specific numbers ranging from 2 to 8 and a King card. The cards are then scattered throughout a table with its number hidden and the players are obligated to pick a card. The lucky person who picks the King card can order any numbers (the other person with their respective card numbers) to play out an act. The game was indeed funny with all sorts of dirty orders given out by the King; there were times we were told by the King to kiss each other or played out some weird sexual positions. There were moments where I loved the game especially when I had some of my cute or pretty female friend told to kiss me or play out a dirty act on me; conversely, there were also time when I hated the game a lot when I had to play out a love scene with my Taiwanese guy friends all because the King's order. The game's fun was then compromised by my roommate who was getting drunk from the drinking he had. He went on saying stupid stuff and he consistently interrupted the game with stupid suggestions and comments. The worst part was, my roommate tried to sexually harass my female friends like a typical fucking old pervert and because of that, they had to consistently avoid my roommate only to end up getting chased by him. Most of the time, I had to make sure he was next to me or he would end up saying or doing foolish things.I was irritated a bit by his perversion but seeing that he was drunk, I fully understood the situation and I tried to be more patient. During the next round of King's Orders, it so happened that my roommate and I were chosen by Maaya, who turned out to be the King for the round, to play out a sexual position. According to Maaya, my roommate and I had to play out a "doggy style" position on the couch which managed to get everyone laughing wildly. Seeing that I wanted to get this over quick, I laid over the couch with my stomach facing the surface of the couch before telling my drunken roommate to "nail" me. As he was high and totally drunk, he jumped on my back violently and continued humping on me; everyone was excited and they were laughing at our great acting. However, I was in deep pain as my roommate was so rough. As he couldn't control himself, he started shouting, "Yeah, motherfucker" at my ears while he continued to hump me. He then, grab whole of both my kidneys and squeeze them which forced my reflexes to automatically throw him of the couch. Seeing that he couldn't think rationally, he taught I was trying to fight with him; therefore he grabbed whole of my denim jacket and pulled me down to the ground together with him as he fell before igniting a violent brawl.

As the both of us were rolling over the floor going at each other, I knew that my roommate was berserk and he wasn't reluctant to hurt me badly, therefore I had to defend myself or risk becoming the victim of his drunken madness. Here came the surprising part: since it was a ground fight, I automatically knew that grappling was more effective than striking, therefore I performed a knee bar on my roommate the moment I caught whole his left leg. The scary part was I conducted a perfect knee bar on my roommate when I have no basic knowledge of grappling or jujitsu. My other friends knew that the fight was real, so they tried to break the both of us away before I snapped my roommates leg. As we were seperated, my roommate somehow got loose and he continued pounding me while I was still lying on the ground. Immediately, I performed a center shield technique I learned from Muay Thai in order to cover my face from his punches. As he landed the next punch, I caught whole his punching hand and immediately threw both my inner thighs around the back of his neck to lock him in. I then forced the back of his neck down with my remaining hand. I clearly remembered how to do this lock hold as I've seen my favorite Kung Fu actor Donnie Yen doing something similar in his recent action movie, Flash Point (talk about how educational TV can be); like before, I was surprised that I executed this defensive technique perfectly as my roommate was choking for air. My other friends tried breaking the both of us again and this time, they succeeded. As we got up, I immediately removed my jean jacket and tossed it to the ground before getting into my Muay Thai stance. Eric, my Taiwanese friend was holding me back off telling me to calm down while Randy who was another Taiwanese friend of mine, held my roommate back. I decided to let it go but unfortunately my roommate didn't have the same idea as he didn't hurt me badly. Consequently, instead of physically attacking me, he mentally and verbally assaulted me; that was a clear example of psy-ops (psychology warfare). He began saying that I was pretending to be a Caucasian simply because of the fact that I'm a Chinese who couldn't speak Mandarin which fucking annoyed me deeply. All along, I have been experiencing this same shit from those fucking Chinese educated pricks and Chow Mien speaking chinks in Malaysia, hoping that I will not experience the same thing in Canada, only to have that problem resurrected by my fucking roommate. That fucking skinny weirdo with his bloody perversion got me boiling even further when he told me to return to my 3rd world country, Malaysia. I charged at him only to be restrained by Eric and Cindy who reminded me that he was drunk. That piece of shit was walking free around the common lounge insulting me in Mandarin and every time I tried to reach him, my friends held me back. Knowing that I couldn't reach him because of my friends, the only way to get him was to strike him from my stationery position. As he was insulting me further in Mandarin, he was unaware about the close distance between the both of us that placed him in a dangerous position. Knowing that I was in a kicking distance, I immediately unleashed a strong rear teep trong (front kick in Thai) to that bastard's gut at the horrors of my other friends. That fucker was pushed back but he was still standing which shocked me as I knew that my kick was just child's play to him. Immediately, Eric restrained me like usual while Shelley warned my roommate to shut the fuck up. Instead of trying to deliver the favor, my roommate continued running his mouth with vulgarity. He then insulted my Muay Thai art and he said it was inferior to Chinese Kung Fu; everyone knew I was pissed so they demanded my roommate to shut up. He then said "fuck your mum" in Cantonese to me and I know that was his death wish. I chuckled in anger and I told him to said it again at my face and unsurprisingly (seeing how stupid he was) he walked closer to me which was at a punching distance before repeating his insult to my mother. As he opened his mouth, I immediately launched a devastating mat throng (rear punch/cross in Thai) at lightning speed to his nose. As my knuckles landed hard on his nose, it also shattered his glasses at the same time. "TAKE THAT YOU, MOTHER FUCKER!", I screamed as loud as I could the second I hammered his fuck face with my fist of fury. He was immediately pushed back and blood started pouring out from his nose. Randy held him back further and informed my roommate that he was bleeding. My roommate then screamed in Mandarin saying that I smack his nose which felt orgasmic to me; Randy immediately rushed him to the common kitchen to wash the gushing blood from his nose while Eric held me back. That punch was for my mum and I really hope that the bastard will think twice before cursing my mum again. The girls calmed me down and Eric told me to take a seat. Shelley who saw my cut knuckle ( the one which I delivered the cross) insisted on having them bandaged but I reminded her the one who was going to need the bandaging was that bleeding asshole in the kitchen. Although I was pissed at that bastard, I was also pissed at myself for showing how barbaric I was that morning to my friends. On the other hand, I was truly proud of the fact that I defended myself properly with my Muay Thai skills and surprisingly, the grappling techniques that I once dislike for being complicating.

After that morning's brawl which showed me that I had the potential in grappling, I then considered taking up Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). I then talked to Cindy online later on in the day to express my guilt for showing how barbaric I am. To my surprise, she said such barbarism from me was essential as I was trying to defend myself, not to mention my roommate was out of line for saying all those hurtful words. The brawl between my roommate and me taught me a lot of things; first of all, it taught me that the claim of martial arts being ineffective in the streets is a fallacy. It also taught me that drunk people can be stronger than usual (apart from being foolish which cost them their blood) as the kick I delivered to my roommate' gut seemed like a child's play to him when by right it was suppose to send him flying, and the cross that I landed on his face which was suppose to knock him out instantly only made him bleed. Finally, it taught me that ground fighting is very important yet mostly neglected as it can be exemplified by the fight I had with my roommate on the floor and my dislike for grappling techniques. The most amazing thing about the fight was it showed me that I had potential in grappling seeing that I instantly knew how to execute a knee bar and a choke hold without thinking at all. Even though I won the fight, I sustained cut knuckles from delivering that hard cross and also a sprained right leg from all the "humping" my roommate gave me. It was surprising to note that my idiotic roommate apologized to everyone for his behavior, especially to me for saying all those hurtful stuff, immediately after Randy fixed his nose at the kitchen. Although I forgave him, I will never forget that incident as he finally revealed his true impression about me thanks to the alcohol that got him drunk...and honest. I'll be keeping an eye on him and making sure that my Muay Thai is in stand by mode...just in case.