content: There is a lot of truth in this. Especially bcs this guy, if he were self defense trained, certainly had enough warning to get his shoulders up and turn away or even enter once the nog approached.    In self defense (SD) fighting - which is different from sport fighting - it is crucial to get the shoulders up to the ears and chin behind the shoulder for the entire length of the fight, which may be just 20 seconds, so no biggie. And become skilled at fighting into and out of a high guard position, learning to hit not just the face but all over the head, top, back, sides, and front. To attack all of these targets, we need to develop suitable hitting hands, not just knuckles: hammer fists to the head from high guard, outer edge of the forearm from high guard swinging down and across the neck and head as they come in for a waist grab, and open hand hitting are all good, along with knuckles of course. And elbows too, I almost forgot. Big movements. Use the lats. Rotate the upper body. With open hand hitting, there is some skill required, but for a start practise hitting a punching bag with a "stretched palm" - hold your hand up and pull back your fingers so that the palm is stretched like a trampoline. Important point: we form the "trampoline" of the stretched palm just before making contact. So the hand is relaxed along its trajectory until just before contact, when the palm stretches. This is great for hitting all over the head without hurting the hand - strike under chin, along jaw, temple, mastoid process, skull, all good. Extend (protract) the scapula as you hit.     That is how you should train for everything you do in SD because you have to be able to hit from all kinds of positions and because, defensively, you have to assume you will also be attacked from behind by his mates. When it comes to SD, it is very hard to defeat you if they can't KO or get your waist and dump you, or soccer kick you to the head as you stand. That is the big three to focus on.