The concept presented by Vunak is to position yourself to face and take out one attacker only at first (or you may simply find yourself in a situation where they cannot all come at you at once) Vunak presents the concept of taking out the closest attacker with something like a pre-emptive head butt and straight blast. If someone's in my face I'm taking them out of commission immediately if I can. If they attack first instead of "bracing" or posturing in-your-face I have heavily trained in an explosive low body shot-front kick which WILL take a man out of commission. As long as I have about 4 to 5 ft distance that is. At that point, whatever is done to take the first guy out, you have to flow and take out the next guy with whatever works. You must keep the pressure on.
The ancient battle of Stirling bridge is a perfect example, using hand to hand warfare as a lesson:
The Scottish clansmen (about 5,000) including leaders Sir William Wallace and Sir Andrew Murray were on the North end of a 2 mile long bridge over the Forth river, hiding in the forest very close by.. the invading English were at the South end, with approximately 50,000 to 100,000 men. The Scots waited until the right moment, when the English were just beginning to issue out of the North end, the Scots quickly surprise attacked and cut them off. The Scots, through superior fighting skills, size and strength per man compared to the English (attributes) and the fact that only one or two men on each side could fight at the clash point, prevailed utterly that day and slaughtered at least 20,000 English and maybe a lot more . It was a total rout, the English never could bring their longbows into play, and the English were chased all the way South to York. My clan, MacGregor, was there on the bridge with Wallace, hence my interest and knowledge.
If the Scots had sat there and let 5,000 or more English get out onto the North plain, they would have been swarmed. They pre-empted, just about the only way to survive a mass attack.
Bruce did not believe in confining combat into rigid "rules". He believed in what worked, and he would definitely , as a "chess player" martial artist, want to game out a way to defeat any type of attack. I believe Vunak has caught the essense of this in the "mass attack" tape, but just like anything else, whether you can pull it off in the real world depends on YOU and the exact scenario you find yourself in and how many are attackiing you. I think all other things equal, facing two attackers would not be even close to facing 3 or 4.
Having said all that If I'm mass attacked it's probably time to use my concealed pistol, since great bodily harm may ensue if I go the unarmed route. Anything can happen no matter how great a fighter you are. If I don't have time and some creeps at the bar or elsewhere SURPRISE me, and I don't have time to draw first then I'll put these concepts into play without telegraphing. The crucial key is to get the first blows in, with great pressure/momentum, keeping one guy between the others and you if possible, as a shield. Dumog can be helpful for this.
Another analogy of an ideal mass attack result: If you've ever seen a male African lion attacking a hyena pack you'll get the picture.. the first hyena dies under that explosive attack, and the others run. This is the ideal scenario but a lion does not have to kill just one if a second hyena gets brave
Vunak does recommend immediate retreat after the encounter. That's just common sense, they could recover and continue the attack or reinforcements could arrive.
Putting on my SCA helmet now, for the incoming tomatoes
