Welcome to Episode #109 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Panic and Pandemonium.”

In self-defense, facing a single attacker is never easy. Now imagine defending yourself from 80,000 people! That sounds crazy, but that’s basically what happened to me.

In this episode, I’ll share the story of a young, inexperienced security guard (that’s me!) who suddenly found himself in a panic during a football game. If you happen to be a fan of the Buffalo Bills, I’m talking about the AFC East championship game that turned into the “Fandemonium” of 1988.

Yes, I was there!

This historic event taught me three important self-defense lessons, which I still repeat to myself to this day. I hope you’ll join me as I repeat them for you, too!

To LISTEN to “Panic and Pandemonium,” you can either:

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To WATCH the video version or READ the transcript, scroll down below.

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Panic and Pandemonium

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

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As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

TRANSCRIPT

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode #109 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

A lot has happened since the last time we got together. Actually, it all happened on the same day. It was my birthday. I turned 52 and I realized there are 52 cards in a playing deck. So I now believe for the first time in my life, I’m finally playing with a full deck.

Second, same day, I started feeling ill. Turned out COVID had finally struck. After two years of dodging our favorite virus, I finally fell to it. And it wasn’t easy, but I certainly feel blessed that it wasn’t as horrible an experience as it was for others. And other than giving it to my wife, I’m happy to say that it went well.

So a little congestion left, but dare I say I have come out of it stronger. But it did lead to the lesson, right off the bat, to do what you can while you can. I was feeling very healthy and strong and virile before I got the virus, and being knocked down that fast, in bed, unable to swallow, just feeling sorry for myself, unable to do as much as I normally do. Boy, that’s rough.

Just remember, we’re always one stroke, one slip and fall, one accident away from having a completely different life. So do what you can while you can.

The third thing, the same day, my birthday, COVID, I hosted a Zoom seminar on takedowns using traditional stances. It was a live seminar on Zoom. Had a great time. And if you missed it, sign up for my email list and you’ll not only know when I release new videos and podcasts, but you’ll be the first to know when I offer the next Zoom seminar.

Hey, maybe you could be there live. That would be great. I’d love to see you there.

All right. Onward. Today’s topic. I’m going to tell you a story, as usual. Behind the scenes, I can tell you, I usually write down two or three pages of notes–points I want to make or details I want to make sure I share.

This one, this is a one-pager. I’m just going to tell you this story. It’s deeply ingrained in my head and I think it will speak for itself. So I won’t need to wax philosophical for very long about this one. I’m just going to tell you this story. Here it comes.

The date of the story, I can give you the date, was November 20th, 1988. I was 18 years old at the time. Now, what happened was, I was working as a doorman at a club at that time. And not a bar, I don’t mean like that. It was a private club in Buffalo where I was born and raised.

The security guard who worked there asked me if I wanted to make a little extra money. And I said, sure. He said they were looking for extra security guards for the upcoming Buffalo Bills football game, which was very exciting. I didn’t have tickets for that game and we’re talking about a championship game.

This would be the game where the Buffalo Bills played the New York Jets for the AFC East Championship. Now going into that game, the Bills, who historically had not been a winning team, had an 8-0 record, if I recall. They were undefeated at least at home. And this was a championship game.

So, the feeling was the Bills are going to win finally a championship right there at home. And of course, from a security standpoint, this is an 80,000 person stadium. At the time it was called Rich Stadium and the capacity was over 80,000 people.

So, they were looking for a few extra bodies in case things got out of hand. Now to spoil the end of the story, let me just get to it in case you already know where this is heading. This is also the date that in Buffalo is now known as Fandemonium. Fandemonium because we won that game and 80,000 people in that stadium went nuts.

But let me back up. We’re about a week out and he said, you want to work security? And I said, sure.

Is there any training for this? No, not at all. All you had to do to be a body was show up at the stadium on game day. I think there was like a one page sign away your rights type of paper and they gave me a jacket. I think there was a baseball cap and I’m on the job now.

Okay, first assignment at the stadium. They put you at a gate where the people enter and the rule was just really simple, no booze, no bottles. They want to make sure you’re buying their concessions inside the stadium and no one should be throwing bottles around. That’s dangerous.

Now, I like rules and I don’t drink. So this was fun for me. And the first lesson I learned was power goes to your head fast. I can see where historically people get out of control once they’re given a little bit of authority. I get it.

Because right away, once I had my shades on and I had my security jacket on, I’ve got a job, and now I’ve got all these people coming in and we’re patting them down. I really enjoyed that job. And I could feel though, I became self-aware, like, take it down a notch. You’re enjoying this a little too much.

I will tell you, however, each of the gates had a big plastic garbage can. And those cans got full of six-packs, flasks, bottles, an occasional forgotten pocket knife. People try to play around the rules, get around the rules, which is why security jobs have a job, security people.

Anyway, so that was the first lesson. Don’t let power go to your head.

Still be a compassionate human being. You can still do your job in a humane way. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. Now we’re going to skip ahead because really there was nothing else to do. Get everyone into the stadium safely and now the game’s on. And nothing’s going on because everyone’s in the stadium watching the game.

So basically all we had to do, this was the best part of the job, was enjoy the free ticket to the game. As long as you could find somewhere to stand, you could watch the game. And I did.

Now we get all the way towards, let’s say, five minutes before the end of the fourth quarter, or the end of the game. They bring us all down to the tunnel field level and our real job is now being explained to us. Here’s the job–

Again, there are 80,000 people in the stadium. How many security guards are there? Well, there sure as heck weren’t 80,000 of us. So I don’t think there are even a thousand of us. I can’t even tell you for sure if there were 100 or 200. But it couldn’t have been more than that.

So the ratio is nuts, okay? This is not a fair fight. But the job is given to us as follows. Here’s what we’re going to do…

We’re going to walk out on this field with a couple of minutes left and we’re going to form a perimeter around the football field. We’r