It is all well and good learning specific martial arts and self defense techniques, such as blocks, strikes and restraining techniques, but you also need to learn how to deal with different kinds of situation. A large proportion of street fights are not fair one-on-one fights, but often involve groups of people. If you want to have confidence that you are capable of defending yourself against any violent confrontation that you might find yourself in then it is absolutely essential that you know a bit about fighting multiple opponents.
Just knowing the individual techniques is not enough, as some techniques are very effective in a one-on-one encounter, but are completely innapropriate for fighting against multiple opponents. It is also true that even using the same individual techniques, a different strategy is neccessary.
There are a few simple principles that can greatly increase your chances against more than one attacker, but before I describe them it is worth emphasizing the fact that no matter how skilled you are at martial arts fighting more than one person will always be highly dangerous, and you should do everything you possibly can to avoid violence being necessary in the first place.
First off, here is the most important thing not to do: grappling, such as joint locks or other restraining techniques or submission holds are almost always the wrong thing to do. The reason for this is because you are yourself stuck in one place, usually with both hands in use so that it is hard to defend yourself. etting caugght up like this with one person makes it very easy for someone else to come along and take you down.
Above all else you should try to keep moving at all times. Movement will always be important in any fight, but it is even more vital in this kind of situation. What you are trying to do with this movement is to make sure that you only have to take on your attackers one at a time. The perfect position is to have all your opponents lined up in front of you, and although this precise position is unlikely with more than 2 people (with 2 its actually not too hard) you should try to get as close to this as you can. What you must avoid at all costs is having them all in a circle surrounding you. By moving around all the time you also give yourself a better chance of finding an avenue for escape. Always try to 'hit and run', striking as hard as you can once or twice and then backing off and getting yourself back into as much space as you can and in the best position you can immediately.
The second most important thing is not to go down to the ground. If you go down then you are entirely at their mercy, and your attackers can simply surround you and all give you a kicking or worse. Of course you never want to get knocked down in a fight, but against mulitiple opponents you must be especially careful, and their are things you can do to help. Kicking, for example, can be very effective as an attack, but it is a high risk attack when it comes to throws and takedowns - as soon as you lift one leg off the ground you have a much less stable stance - and so it is best to avoid when fighting against multiple opponents. If you do go down then curl yourself into a ball and try to protect your head.
These things are all simple to implement, and although they obviously won't guarantee your safety, they will give you a substantially better chance of coming away from the fight without getting seriously hurt.
