Are martial arts effective self-defence for women?

[Zixinus]

Actually, they might - on the attempted rape I was grabbed from behind, around the neck, and still managed to get free.

I already agreed that its a bad example.

I suppose we could call it a small blessing that most people who opt to do criminal things are usually not among the sharpest tools in the shed.

This is a stupid stereotype. There can be a great variety of intelligence among criminals. They are likely to be uneducated, but there is no guarantee. And uneducated does not necessary mean stupid.
You should not underestimate a criminal in any circumstance.

Is it better to kill or maim an attacker rather than be killed yourself (and let the attacker go on to do the same thing to other people)? Hell yes.

Your is not the duty to kill criminals. But otherwise, I agree.

If you're justified in pulling your gun out, then you're justified in shooting him. If you're not justified in shooting him, then why do you have your gun out?

I donnu, maybe because killing him outright may be unethical? Or maybe because it would be better to stop the strain of violence before it escalates and things get out of hand?

You have the gun. He doesn't. You are in control. Remove that control, and there is no telling what can happen.

Warning shots? Brilliant! Where are the warning shots going? Also, at this point, you're brandishing your weapon, which can land you in jail, regardless of whether you're justified in shooting the guy. If you're going to shoot, shoot him.

Yes, because a bullet in the ground will be just as incriminating evidence as a dead body. [/sarcasm]

How fucking long do you think you need to take a follow-up shot? Most criminals would rather run than try to fight it out.

Or drop behind cover and take out his own firearm. Or attack you. There is no guarantee what a criminal will do when in panic. Which is why you shouldn't shoot: you are in control of the situation and the attackers will be willing to flee. They don't want to get shot and they now know that they won't be getting their prey.
Kill one of them and there is no telling what they will do.

A follow-up shot is obviously quick. However, you it can take long enough for things to escalate.

As opposed to running the fuck away?

What if you are cornered? What if you have no place to run to? What if you can't run because of a leg injury? What if the perps can run faster then you and they have the incentive to do so? What if you are in alien territory and you might run into a dead-end?

The point of self-defense is to keep you and your loved ones safe. If possible run the fuck away, if not, you do what you must.

But the point is, that there are more options then running away or using lethal force.

You misunderstand.

The rule in civilian self-defense firearms use is that you should only draw your weapon when you intend to use it. That doesn't mean you automatically respond to any threat situation with lethal force, it means that you only take your weapon from its holster when you've decided that lethal force is warranted.

No, I assumed that the point of having a gun is to use it as decoration. [/sarcasm]

The idea that you intend to use the gun when you draw it is obvious. The point I'm trying to convey is that drawn gun in your hands can still archive safety for yourself while still leaving you options.

[Edi]

Which perception of your society is the one that is pushed on non-Americans at almost every turn, Mobiboros? I realize NYC has a far stricter approach to things than many other parts of the US, but collectively your nation IS a bunch of triggerhappy gun-toting nuts from a European perspective. People like Kanastrous only reinforce that perception, as does almost all of your export media we see. And I did note it was an exaggeration.

Though when we use the fixed quotes kindly provided by General Zod, my post become more accurate (still exaggerated, but more accurate).

Pushed on Europeans by who?

What do you think? Most of the times any sort of gun discussions come up with Americans, they start revolving around the second amendment and you get the screech brigade coming out of the woodwork yelling about guns being required for self-defense and so on and so forth. In case you completely missed it, Europe gets a crapload of American entertainment media and like it or not, your cultural attitudes reflect heavily in that. In this thread, the only American I saw contesting Kanastrous was General Zod until I posted my generalizations, so if you people aren't going to whack your own morons upside the head and tell them they're full of shit, then you get tarred with the same brush. It seems the only way to get the otherwise passive ones to speak up and then they come in full of righteous indignation and you need to slam through that before getting anywhere. Speak the fuck up before that happens unless you actually prefer your lunatics to do all the talking for you.

Your gross generalizations are simply bullshit. Most people in the U.S. never touch a gun. There are people who own rifles to go hunt animals, some of them are the type of stereotype you're talking about, but that's hardly most of the U.S. In fact most of the more violent gangs in the country are made up of 1st generation immigrants at this point.

I have no problem recognizing that. Just how effectively do you think this type of nuance is expressed to non-Americans usually? I assure, not very well at all.

[Rogue 9]

Even if nothing else, the attacker could also be a martial artist, and at the end of the day even that doesn't matter as much as size and weight differences.

This is true, but only in that it takes a disproportionate amount of training to make up for size differences. I've seen small women school the shit out of much larger, stronger men using various martial arts, but they were very proficient fighters and it's not a guarantee. Distance is indeed saftey, even if it's a bit of 2x4.

Did these small women know the attack was coming? Of course a well-trained smaller person can beat a larger person who isn't trained when in a controlled sparring match where she's aware of her attacker and her attacker is following rules. Getting attacked with surprise at night is a totally different animal.

[Napoleon the Clown]

The woman is wrong, and it could easily get her killed.

However, if someone is in really good shape, has the fighter instinct, and knows how to fight properly, they can indeed compensate for even a large size difference. Example being a featherweight boxer. If the boxer is ranked, he's probably going to be able to drop the 300lb linebacker. But that comes from extreme conditioning and knowing how to throw every ounce of bodyweight into every punch, every muscle in his body adding that extra bit, no matter how little room he's got. And speed. I forget the athlete, but he was big and strong and had a pretty good idea of how to fight. He fought a few no-name chumps and got cocky. When he ended up fighting a ranked boxer half his size, he went down in about thirty seconds.

Keep in mind, the nastiest boxers have almost always been guys who have fought on the street before going into boxing. They've got a huge advantage in a fight from that. Hell, look up videos of boxers getting into fights on the street for an example of how effective it is to know how to fight.


Anyway, karate isn't the best martial art out there by any stretch of the imagination. Keep in mind that most of the stuff you find in the US (and likely most of the stuff in Europe) will be largely competition, where they teach stuff that looks pretty. Don't get me wrong, it can be better than nothing so long as you remember it doesn't make you invincible. But there's a lot of far more effective schools of martial arts out there.

And when it comes down to it, the dirty fighting is the most effective actual fighting. Smashing up knees, gouging eyes, going for the groin, a hard hit to the solar plexus, strikes to the throat... When it comes down to a real fight, nothing is off limits. Bite a chunk out of someone, rip your attackers fucking nuts off, break his nose, whatever it takes to give you time to get the fuck out of there.


Talk to this woman's sensei so he can disabuse her of the notion, if really needed. If nothing else, he needs to tell her to not be stupid. As so many people have already said, the biggest part of effective self defense is to avoid the situation if possible.

[Vehrec]

The problem with fighting dirty is that it's impossible to practice eye gouges, knee breaks, elbow breaks and other such moves that do massive damage. You can practice some joint locks that lead into joint breaks, but this conditions you to hold back and not complete the move. Sometimes this doesn't matter, Elbow locks and armbars are hellishly painful and can communicate the 'I'll break your arm' message fairly well, but Knees are a much trickier proposition. Look at the number of severe Sambo injuries and compare it to BJJ injuries.

For most casual self defense enthusiasts, it is impossible to attain a level of unarmed combat skill that will allow you to combat anything other than an unarmed single attacker. B.J. Penn, Mirko Crocop or other world class fighters might be able to take on 2 or three unarmed fighters or a single armed opponent, but you don't live the martial arts and cannot expect to prevail in such a situation. Knives, guns and other weapons are massive advantages. However, I do not believe that using one of these weapons on an attack is always wise, nor is it safe.

[aerius]

The problem with fighting dirty is that it's impossible to practice eye gouges, knee breaks, elbow breaks and other such moves that do massive damage. You can practice some joint locks that lead into joint breaks, but this conditions you to hold back and not complete the move.

This is why man invented the Red Man Suit and other such training aids, with the proper protective gear you can practice full power knee stomps without breaking the guy's leg. You can go wild and do everything short of eye gouges without seriously injuring the guy in the suit.

[Broomstick]

I think the saving grace in many situations, what makes even minimal self-defense training useful, is that in many instances the attackers aren't trained fighters either - for example, they may be relying on simply brandishing a knife and generating enough fear to make their victim submit rather than having any clue how to effectively use the weapon. A small, semi-trained woman can overpower and escape from even a large male attacker who isn't trained and isn't expecting resistance.

You can't count on that scenario, however - which is why the FIRST step in self defense is avoiding the fight in the first place.

[Sea Skimmer]

Except you are missing the worrying possibility that if the guy grabs you unexpected he can also take your gun and point it at you, no amount of macho gun bullshit will help you if the opponent points your own weapon at you. A weapon he wouldn't have if you didn't carry it.

If an attacker takes you that much by surprise then they could fucking do ANYTHING to you, including simply punching you in the back of the head before dragging your body behind a tree to be raped and then lit on fire. Having a gun is hardly making things worse at this point. The reality however is that if you are conceal carrying a firearm the attacker isn’t going to be able to get your gun before you can draw it because they don’t know you have it, and what’s more you can simply have a locking holster which almost totally negates the possibility of an attacker pulling the weapon out. That’s the whole damn reason we have locking hoslters.

[Warthog]

If I recall correctly Wing Chung was actually designed for women to defend themselves against men. However Jeet, being derived from Wing Chung, Boxing, and Greco-Roman Punkration would probably be best.

That's incorrect, the foundations of Wing Chun may have been laid down by a woman but it is a style which anyone can use against anybody. It's one of the styles that is better suited to women because it doesn't require significant physical training as the style focuses more on speed, small movements and force deflection as opposed to brute force styles. That's not to say there is no physical training involved we simply develop and use different muscle groups. For instance tricep development is favored over biceps and back muscles are strengthened over shoulders. Jeet Kune Do may have been based on Wing Chun, but Lee only ever learned the first form. It teaches you the basics, but doesn't go into footwork or any of the more interesting techniques.

I've been learning Wing Chun now for 5 years and one of the most common misconceptions I've seen is that martial arts training promotes a sense of invincibility. This misconception is then reinforced through training where you are trained to hit softly or not at all, so you never go through the one of the biggest influencing factors in any fight, pain. My master is a bit old-fashioned so while he pulled his hits he still hit me hard enough for me to know that the mistake I'd made could have been fatal. And there have been enough accidents where I've closed unexpectedly and copped a stronger hit. Those can floor you and keep you down while you just run through which bits of you do NOT hurt. Students are used to not being hurt when fighting and are used to fighting in a safe environment where you know the people coming at you to a certain extent.

Fighting is always the last resort even for good martial artists, which I am not claiming to be. Getting beat around by little old asian men puts some humility into you. If I can't talk my way out of it, I'll run, and I'll scream for the cops the ENTIRE way. I'm not trying to prove I'm a bigger man than whoever's trying to start something. I'm looking to stay out of hospital. And it's not like I'm a little guy who can be easily intimidated either being 6ft tall, it's just that even for trained martial artists there is a risk that you will get injured. The only time I'd actually fight is if my friends and family were threatened, and even then I'd probably only try to delay them long enough for them to get away, then I'd foot it too. And I'd fight dirty too, and boy do I have a long list of things I'd do before I'd resort to fighting cleanly.

[J]

The guy actually came running a significant distance to mug you? I would think that if I were planning to mug someone, I'd walk quietly and nonchalantly close to them before I made any overtly threatening moves.

I'd guess he started charging me from around 10 metres away so it wasn't like he was running across a football field, I don't know why he started that far back but it's a good thing for me he did. A little luck never hurts.

[aerius]

I think the saving grace in many situations, what makes even minimal self-defense training useful, is that in many instances the attackers aren't trained fighters either - for example, they may be relying on simply brandishing a knife and generating enough fear to make their victim submit rather than having any clue how to effectively use the weapon. A small, semi-trained woman can overpower and escape from even a large male attacker who isn't trained and isn't expecting resistance.

You can't count on that scenario, however - which is why the FIRST step in self defense is avoiding the fight in the first place.

Muggers come in several varieties, you have the guy who relies mostly on intimidation to get the job done and who can't fight for beans. Next up is the bar room brawler type who relies on fast & furious violence to take you out of the game, he can hit you hard & fast but doesn't have much technique, but he doesn't really need any since if the victim's getting wailed on s/he likely isn't going to be able to do much. The most dangerous is the guy who's got a few basic moves down cold, he's practiced and done them countless times and has them engrained in muscle memory. He can blindside and floor the victims before they can even blink. Many of these are ex-cons who've learned their trade in prison, run into one of them and you're toast unless you're very lucky or very good. Thankfully, there aren't too many of them around.

[Darth Wong]

Except you are missing the worrying possibility that if the guy grabs you unexpected he can also take your gun and point it at you, no amount of macho gun bullshit will help you if the opponent points your own weapon at you. A weapon he wouldn't have if you didn't carry it.

If an attacker takes you that much by surprise then they could fucking do ANYTHING to you, including simply punching you in the back of the head before dragging your body behind a tree to be raped and then lit on fire. Having a gun is hardly making things worse at this point.

It is if, like this idiot woman and her martial arts, it makes you overconfident and encourages you to take risks that you would not otherwise take.

[TheFeniX]

Except you are missing the worrying possibility that if the guy grabs you unexpected he can also take your gun and point it at you, no amount of macho gun bullshit will help you if the opponent points your own weapon at you. A weapon he wouldn't have if you didn't carry it.

If he grabs you unexpectedly, then how would he even know you had a weapon in the first place? A concealed handgun is, in fact, concealed. Provided you spent the money on a proper holster (which you should), the gun should never enter the equation unless you want it to.

If anything, cops fight at a bigger disadvantage because the perp can see where the weapon is located with a cursory glance, unlike a concealed weapon. And if a private citizen is walking down the street with an exposed pistol on his hip, getting robbed would be the least of his worries.

It is if, like this idiot woman and her martial arts, it makes you overconfident and encourages you to take risks that you would not otherwise take.

As said, this does tend to be a problem with some CCW holders. They view their handgun as the ultimate edge in self-defense. It's this bullshit macho attitude that may one day ruin it for the responsible gun owners. At least in Texas, getting your license is a fairly involved process unlike taking a few martial arts classes. Spending 12 hours in a classroom (which is the focus more than accuracy) then having a fairly comprehensive test on the subject does help. We even had a good stint on conflict resolution.

One funny part was the Instructor asking "You're walking down a dark alley at 3am, and three figures move to accost you. You are armed, what do you do?" He got a long list of answers from people there ranging from "running" to "draw my weapon and tell them to back off."

After hearing them all, he calmly asked "What the Hell would any of you be doing in a dark alley at 3am?" I hope most other CHL instructors are half as good as he is/was.

The problem isn't with the tool they decide to use in these situations, be it gun, knife, mace, kung-fu. It's, like you said, about the attitude. People need to focus on the right mental attitude for self-defense before they move onto the physical aspects. But these are the same people who are most likely difficult to reason with in any walk of life. They are the people who don't let you train them on how to use a dangerous device, push you out of the way, and end up injuring themselves or others. They don't think things through and they tend to find being taught shows weakness.

[Ted C]

If I recall correctly Wing Chung was actually designed for women to defend themselves against men. However Jeet, being derived from Wing Chung, Boxing, and Greco-Roman Punkration would probably be best.

If you mean Jeet Kune Do, yeah, that'd be great, but it's definitely not a martial art for beginners or amateurs and requires a lot of determination and raw toughness simply to survive the training. I've heard of guys coming back from their classes with black eyes, never mind sparring matches or fights.

I've taken JKD and never had any injuries in class; what kind of training these guys doing?

I find that JKD is a very practical style for self-defense, though. In my classes, we went straight to practical moves, and most of them don't require you to be extremely flexible and athletic (although I'm sure the higher-level skills would). The basic also include techniques for kicking/striking range, trapping range, and grappling.

And the instructor will tell you up front that if you're confronted by someone with a weapon, you're probably screwed, but still teach you something you can try if you're desperate.

[Broomstick]

Except you are missing the worrying possibility that if the guy grabs you unexpected he can also take your gun and point it at you, no amount of macho gun bullshit will help you if the opponent points your own weapon at you. A weapon he wouldn't have if you didn't carry it.

If he grabs you unexpectedly, then how would he even know you had a weapon in the first place? A concealed handgun is, in fact, concealed. Provided you spent the money on a proper holster (which you should), the gun should never enter the equation unless you want it to.

see my rather lengthy prior post.

If the assailant grabs you from behind with an arm around your neck, drags you backward into some bushes, and starts attempting to remove your clothes he will find that gun because at that point it is no longer concealed by your clothing. He's got you down on the ground, choking you, you're partially naked and NOW he has your gun.

THAT is how he will find your weapon.

[Next of Kin]

You see, this one woman I know proudly said she no longer fears jogging alone at night on the paths through the woods near her house. I immediately declared this to be asinine, but she was adamant that she was perfectly protected, and started going on about the responsibility of controlling the phenomenal power supposedly inherent in karate, lest she kill random rapists by accident, I suppose.

So considering that I don't know anything about the actual effectiveness of martial arts in the real world, what would someone who knows what they're talking about say to a young woman who said something similar about her ability to fight off surprise male attackers? Is the difference between men and women simply not equalized by martial arts, or is a trained female martial artist really more than a match for muggers and rapists?

I'd say your friend is off her rocker. Part of being a streetwise person is to avoid dangerous situations (like running in the local park at night!). Ask her if she is being instructed in kickboxing, clinching, grappling, joint locks, etc. All are more useful than katas in streetfight. Katas have their application but doing them alone won't get her anywhere further than a martial arts kata or point sparring competition.

[Adam Reynolds]

My dad is a cop in California, a couple of interesting bits of trivia regarding handgun carrying that he learned in the police academy. 15 percent of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty are killed with their own weapon. I have no idea what the statistic is for civilians but it would most likely be much higher.

Also, if someone thinks that they could draw a weapon and fight off an attacker, there is a rule that police officers follow. Within 21 feet of a knife armed attacker he can close and stab you before you can draw your weapon and fire. Anyone who thinks they could draw a weapon while surprised by a possibly armed attacker is an idiot.

[Lusankya]

When I did judo, they always said that the biggest self-defence advantage it gave was that it made you less likely to panic and freeze up. (With this leading to you being more likely to be able to run away.)

Aside from that, they never suggested that it had a practical application.

[JCady]

My dad is a cop in California, a couple of interesting bits of trivia regarding handgun carrying that he learned in the police academy. 15 percent of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty are killed with their own weapon. I have no idea what the statistic is for civilians but it would most likely be much higher.

It's actually much lower.


Police are at risk because they have to get close to handcuff an suspect, wheras a civilian in a self-defense situation will rarely if EVER try to get close if he has half a brain -- shoot the attacker, let him run away, or maybe hold him at gunpoint until the police arrive.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm in the gun crowd, and I damn well think I have a right to be, considering,

1. This is America,
2. I am seventeen times more likely to be murdered than the average American.

Martial arts are not useful against groups, which is a real consideration these days considering some recent and particularly savage events.

[Napoleon the Clown]

I'm in the gun crowd, and I damn well think I have a right to be, considering,

1. This is America,
2. I am seventeen times more likely to be murdered than the average American.

Martial arts are not useful against groups, which is a real consideration these days considering some recent and particularly savage events.

Martial arts aren't as effective against groups as they are against a single attacker, but it's still better than nothing. (See any number of videos where a really good fighter gets attacked by a group of people and takes them on rather successfully). Obviously, that doesn't mean you shouldn't run like hell even more quickly if outnumbered. But being able to quickly incapacitate someone increases your odds of surviving getting attacked by a group.

Guns become less useful when attacked by multiple people, as well. Even if you've got 16+1 or more magazines, you've still gotta have time to get a shot off. I'll grant that seeing a gun will probably scare most attackers off, and seeing their buddy get shot will subdue even more. But if it doesn't, you've suddenly got an even worse situation on your hands. If even one picks "fight" over "flight" you'll have an immensely bad situation on your hands. Hearing a gunshot may drive away witnesses, which could make things worse. Though it probably would result in a much more rapid police response.


I would assume that you're that much more likely to be murdered largely due to the contents of your announcement in ARSE?

[aerius]

Martial arts aren't as effective against groups as they are against a single attacker, but it's still better than nothing. (See any number of videos where a really good fighter gets attacked by a group of people and takes them on rather successfully). Obviously, that doesn't mean you shouldn't run like hell even more quickly if outnumbered. But being able to quickly incapacitate someone increases your odds of surviving getting attacked by a group.

Good old boxing works, as seen in this video, but he would've been screwed if the bad guys decided to swarm him instead of coming at him one at a time. Also note that the bad guys were severely outmatched, they were just throwing haymakers while the intended victim was taking them out with crisp accurate punches.

[TithonusSyndrome]

If I recall correctly Wing Chung was actually designed for women to defend themselves against men. However Jeet, being derived from Wing Chung, Boxing, and Greco-Roman Punkration would probably be best.

If you mean Jeet Kune Do, yeah, that'd be great, but it's definitely not a martial art for beginners or amateurs and requires a lot of determination and raw toughness simply to survive the training. I've heard of guys coming back from their classes with black eyes, never mind sparring matches or fights.

I've taken JKD and never had any injuries in class; what kind of training these guys doing?

Whatever it was, it surely wasn't entry level martial arts. I may be mistaken in assuming that it was entry-level JKD, though.

[Next of Kin]

Good old boxing works, as seen in this video, but he would've been screwed if the bad guys decided to swarm him instead of coming at him one at a time. Also note that the bad guys were severely outmatched, they were just throwing haymakers while the intended victim was taking them out with crisp accurate punches.

That was quite the good clip! Those punching bags could have avoided getting their clocks cleaned had they kept their hands up to protect their faces.

[weemadando]

...Not to mention by not charging straight at him and frequently tripping over their own fallen buddies. That's a case of a pile of useless dickheads taking on someone who is clearly a trained fighter. His stance and the short, sharp, accurate punches give that away.

If even one of those guys had a knife though, he'd be fucked. Which is why the best situation is to win the fight by 100m and still accelerating.