In this brief scrap I was being whipped by my youthful protégé Brett until I took his stick. This type of stick fight ends when someone quits or loses their stick. Disarms are treated differently under different formats.

The technique is simple but takes some pain tolerance. I have successfully done this against harder strikes with heavier sticks as well. You shoot out a stiff arm, an empty loose hand, from your shoulder to the top of his head, which—when you duck your chin—will permit your arm to act as a guard for your head. Unless he does a tip dump, or is very tall, or can fan with the stick at high velocity, he should not score on that side of the head immediately.

The best part about this is that when the stick rips into your elbow or tricep it will naturally deflect into your lat muscle, which is thick on just about everyone. You then 'snake' your arm around the stick and twist back over your left hip as you smack the guy with your stick, or your traffic cone, depending on where you are in your defense of your Pakistani gas station.

Brett got too close to me and had his head too far forward. Teens lack the hand strength of an adult and should not clinch up unless they are larger. He needed to use his stiff arm and footwork to make space and keep whipping me, which he did a year later, after which Craig said, "James, it looked like he was coming to get his money."

However, even in the later un-filmed bout—which was nastier and longer—I managed to run him down and clinch up. I wager the next time it won't go my way as he's nearing six foot tall and 150 pounds.

The important thing to remember as the big man, or any one getting hit with a long blunt object, is to sell off any body part you need to avoid taking the head shot, and try and take it on the tricep of an extending arm so that you can snake it away. In a street situation where you have no weapon, spear his eyes with your conned fingertips while you twist it out of his hand with your other arm.