Professional boxer will take a look at what we do and say we’re not doing it right and it’s not a real boxing. But this is what street fight art is. Now I easily understand what harm can be done to me and what harm I can make myself to other person. This is exactly why I do my best not to apply this knowledge. Within few years I faced only one really extreme situation. We were driving our cabriolet in Nice with my wife. And while we were waiting for the street light, two Algerian guys tried to nab my wife’s bag. I jumped and punched one of them, the second ran away…

Valery Duzhin: I started training quite late in my life. First I came to a Sambo school. And it was a complete nonsense. This huge dude comes to the stage and says, playing with muscles: “Finally I get someone to hit the floor with.” Other guys, around 100 kilos each, were happy too: they got someone to work their technics on. And I realized I have to keep searching – standard learning approach is not for my age.

When a guy like me, not really young or sporty, facings a big man, he’s getting overwhelmed with the physical advantage of the partner. This is why I was always put in sparring with big guys. And I was taught specific moves. With heavy-weight, it’s useless to punch each other – you can as well try to hit a wall with the same success. But if he punches you, you’re in trouble. You have to “pull” these kind of guys on yourself, catch them on their move. There is a certain strategy. Big guys have weak knees, they are heavy, and hitting this area is very effective. He’s coming at you, you let him, moving aside, and then punching liver area or somewhere else, you have to act according to the situation. Or there is a “merry-go-round” move: you roll over the neck and kick the belly with your knee.

Also I remember a good training when we were commanded to curse out loud. You lay down and attacker hits you at your abs from above. And you have to curse each other. It was funny and very offending at the same time, but it was necessary. It is important to stay calm while someone is cursing at you and do moves you gotta do. And when you are cursing the other person you are getting a psychological advantage. Basically, it’s one of the tricks.

Yuri Suslikov: One of the most interesting and unusual trainings was when there were three of us against our instructor. Rules are simple – trainer can punch us in any way. And we can punch him. There was a funny case. After a “start” signal, the light in the room went off. And we were running around the ring, punching and kicking trainer, and he was punching us. It all goes for couple of minutes. Very interesting, incredibly hard and extremely exhausting. Then the light switched on and we realized that trainer was standing quietly in the corner all that time, and we were just punching each other. After this you realize very clearly that in the crowd you can punch your attackers an as well get hit by those who are actually with you. When everyone is punching around, its way more easy to hit the guy next to you rather than guy standing on the opposite side.

THE FIRST FIGHT.

Viktor Lesnoy: I was fighting 3 times. No use to ask me about the first time – don’t remember a thing, everything blurred. I remember the third fight. We had a team of three people, and were imitating the real life situation – how to walk through an aggressive mob when you’re leaving a night club. We were supposed to come from the locker room and go through the entire room (around 25 meters) to the next door without losing anyone from the team. And we have 9 bad guys against us.

We’d been training for a long time, thinking over how to build a group so that we wouldn’t get split up and get out asses kicked apart. It’s useless to fight in that situation. You can try to punch someone when there are 9 of them – but well, you’ll hit one or two but will get knocked out by those who are on the sides. Or you’ll get one from the team lost so two will have to go back and then again you’re all done. We were going wedge. As the biggest fan of getting beaten up, I was walking in the very front. And of course got the most out of all. Then I had two of my team mates walking behind. One was kicking everyone who came by, what the other one was doing I have no idea. I was trudging through, got punched in a head, in the knee, but we went through it from the first time and won – the goal was achieved. The attacking guys were very surprised, they were sure we would stop and give them a fight. None of them assumed we would go through like this. We got some, a lot, but we won. During the fight and after you don’t feel the pain – adrenaline, happiness, euphoria.

Valery Duzhin: To work with punching bag and fight at the ring are two completely different things. You have no one else beside you on the ring – survive as you can. This is extremely important psychological thing: when you face the fact that you can get punched and fall. You’re there now, without police, and you gotta stand up for yourself. When you’re put in such conditions, it’s super cool. It’s like you feel you’re becoming a real deal.