Attack

I found this discussion on Plastic.com. Please keep in mind that hurting 5 year-olds is wrong.

The question: How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?

The specifics:

1. You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.

2. You are not allowed to touch a wall.

3. When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."

4. I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.

5. The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.

6. There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.

7. The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.

8. How many do you think you could handle, and what fighting styles/combat moves would be most appropriate? Do you have any tips/tricks that might be helpful for dealing with likely problems, such as (but by no means limited to) human-wave tactics, ankle biting or eye gouging?

9. Your thoughtful contributions will no doubt be of great service to the community.

Here is one of the responses:

"Wolf Pack"
The children, enjoying the superiority of numbers, may have better luck with a "wolf-pack" technique- surround the adult and attack from the flanks and behind. As the adult turns to address those attacks, the children she was formerly facing can attack as well.

I'm actually having a hard time understanding the presumption that the children should use human wave and frontal assault tactics, because that removes two of the children's greatest assets- nimbleness and energy.

Attempting to draw out the adult, make him swing at kids he can't hit, seems to be the wisest course for the kids. Most five-year olds can run any adult into the ground, so "keep moving" could backfire. A vicious pack of children can harry an adult into exhaustion at very little risk to themselves, and an exhausted adult is easy pickins.

Nature has had a lot of time to develop strategies for lots of small creatures to take down bigger ones. Kids could learn a lot.

-Gary Milner