Have your girlfriend to roundhouse kick you in the groin then get back to us.
Absolutely. Of course, that depends on what you mean by ‘fight’ and ‘win’. No amount of training is going to guarantee a win for anyone but I know at least two women in the five foot tall range who could seriously hurt anyone who didn’t bring their A game to an attack. If you’re talking two people squaring off for a fist fight - I’d put my money on the bigger guy. If you’re talking about some idiot grabbing a woman because he thinks she is easy prey - He would probably regret grabbing a well trained woman no matter what her size.
I used to watch* Smallville*. In one episode, Lana Lang, who weighed about 90 pounds, was threatened by some frat guys, so Lex Luthor had her hit a heavy bag for a few minutes. For the rest of the series, she would fight guys twice her weight, and usually knock them cold with a couple of kicks.
Somehow, that was harder to believe than Clark’s superspeed and heat vision.
Well, since the OP said “…a smaller, trained female…”, there is this episode. Ow! That kick to the testicles looks like it would hurt! :eek:
I think the problem with the fists of fury woman beats hulking brutish man is that in these conversations in the past you have people who are very, very invested in the concept of a “trained” person being able to handle themselves in almost any hand to hand fighting scenario against a untrained person of larger size and strength.
Several years ago I had asked a local expert who teaches Brazilian judo “to the ground fighting” how that played out with drunks . He is a muscular, slender man who has been teaching martial arts for over 20 years. He told me that if he was ready and had room to maneuver he can handle most situations with larger people, but there comes point where if someone outweighs you by a large margin their sheer mass is going to difficult to deal with especially if they are drunk or enraged and you cannot get a decent grappling hold on them. He said the bottom line was to avoid fights with big, strong drunks and retreat if possible.
In a controlled situation with rules I’m sure a trained smaller, weaker female fighter could strike and retreat repeatedly until the larger person falls or possibly even in a street fight with room to maneuver they might be lucky and get a head shot and possibly knock the person out with a kick, but in the normal crowded indoor bar/lounge or residential indoor scene where these confrontations might take place IRL the trained smaller, weaker woman is in serious trouble if the fight goes to the ground.
Force = mass x acceleration, and tiny fists can deliver a huge payload.
Takes more than a few minutes with the heavy bag, but it’s a skill anyone can learn.
Prior experience with balance and flexibility is a bonus, ballerinas make great martial artists.
Has there ever been a verified one-on-one street fight where a trained woman defeated a man? I’ve never heard of it happening, not even once. Compared to thousands upon thousands of stories of men beating up on women in various ways.
The closest I have heard is unverified, self-serving claims by feminist types that they fought off male attackers. I’ve also heard and seen situations where men backed down and/or were restrained by bystanders.
Looks to me like it’s just a Hollywood/feminist fantasy. That combined with the incentive of martial arts dojos to oversell the value of their services.
Also use the big guy’s greater momentum and higher center of gravity against him. Make him keep overbalancing himself, he’ll eventually put himself down and possibly not know how to take the fall without hurting himself.
Or, lure him outside during a meteor shower. His larger size makes him more likely to get hit than you. Area = length x width.
Unfamiliar with the principles behind Judo?
Has there ever been a verified one-on-one street fight?
In other words, what do you consider verification? Police reports? Video? Eye-witness testimony in the press?
I don’t know if you’ll consider these verified but:
- A woman with kick-boxing training confronts a bag-snatcher, gets a broken wrist for her pains, but leaves him screaming on the ground with a broken leg. Police back up description of his injury:
- A Russian woman knocks a bag-snatcher to the ground, kicks him in the face and recovers her valuables. Their appears to be a degree of training behind the kick. After she leaves he seems to spend a long time on the ground considering his life choices.
And two that don’t seem to involve training:
- An Indian woman beats up a robber and hands him over to police.
- Texas mother has car hijacked, deliberately crashes the car, beats robber till he flees, then runs him over. Some might say that’s not really fair, but the whole point is about how women would fare in a no-rules situation. They get to break the non-existent rules too.
I studied martial arts under female instructor. She was small and soft and curvy- and completely lethal.
She would have destroyed any male student, and we all knew it. If anyone ever tried to grab her off the street, he’d be maimed at the very least.
She would not have hesitated to remove an opponent’s eyeball if the situation required it. Grabbing her would be like picking up a strange cat.
Can it happen? Sure. Is it at all likely? No.
Size matters. A lot. You need a very large disparity in skill level between a smaller female and a larger male before the female can expect to prevail in a real street fight. And the kind of man who attacks women is likely to beat the average man of his own size in a street fight as well.
It is possible for a trained female to escape the attack of a larger male, especially if she makes a lot of noise, or if the attacker is not really committed to the attack. If the attacker wants to kill you/rape you/beat you up providing it isn’t too much of a hassle, then you have a pretty good chance. Rape attempts, for instance, are more common than actual completed rapes.
I expect that most of the reports of women beating up men come under the “man bites dog” heading.
When I taught women’s self-defense, my rule of thumb was:
[ul][li]In three hours I can teach you to repel 10% of likely attackers[/li][li]In three months I can teach you to repel 30% of likely attackers[/li][li]In three years I can teach you to repel 50% of likely attackers[/li][li]Unless you are world class, that’s as high as it goes, so you better practice your escapes[/li][/ul]
Regards,
Shodan
Somewhat reliable corroborating evidence.
Perhaps not a decisive victory, but that does seem to confirm that a trained woman has a decent shot in a fight with a man.
That one looks fake to me. Are there any news reports?
Did it ever actually happen?
These self-defense classes don’t teach women how to put a beat down on an attacker and ‘win’ a clean fight. They teach things that aren’t allowed in your typical MMA matches. Groin hits, eye gouging, using anything as a weapon, biting, scratching, stabbing, elbows to the nose, hair pulling, etc. to buy themselves a second or two to get away.
Except for eyes and maybe groin there is nothing on that list that would stop a larger untrained man from simply smashing their head into the pavement until they stopped.
Untrained is a big deal. A lot of people freeze up when suddenly confronted with violent situations; on that ground alone, I’d bet on the trained person over the untrained person as long as the trained person can move and the untrained person isn’t Superman.
Past that point, though, size and strength count for a lot, and willingness to grab a weapon from the environment and ability to open the fight from surprise count for more. I think it’s obvious that even an untrained woman can beat up a trained man if she opens the fight by stepping around a corner and shoving the guy into traffic.
Also, are groin shots a good idea? Adrenaline’s been enough for people to literally not notice small-caliber gunshot wounds; I’d not imagine that you could reliably incapacitate someone like that in a blood-pumping life-or-death fight. I’m not an expert, of course.
All this depends on “win” and “fight”. Are we talking about dudes squaring off and yelling “you want a piece of me bro?” at each other, and it ends with their buddies grabbing them and pulling them out of the room?
Or a guy gets pissed off, grabs a beer bottle, walks up behind you and bashes you in the head without warning?
Or a guy gets pissed off, goes and gets his buddies, and they all surround you and beat the living crap out of you, five on one?
A lot of “fights” depend on surprise and killer instinct. Get in the first blow with a weapon, preferably before the other guy knows that they’re in a fight, and you “win”. The other guy is down and can’t mount an effective defense, and then you can do whatever you want–rape them, rob them, bash their head in, walk away, call the cops, or what have you.
And what’s the goal of the violence in the first place? Often the two sides will have different goals–one wants to rob or rape or torture or show off, the other wants to survive. If you get away from the rapist alive and with only minimal injuries then you win and he loses. Or do you need to do a victory dance on his head while taunting his buddies before you consider yourself a winner?
All that is a long winded way to say that violent people have some goal out of the violence that may not make sense to you but makes a certain amount of sense when looked at from a particular point of view. Some guys would literally rather be dead than look like a punk in front of their buddies. Some guys don’t care if they live or die. Some guys enjoy seeing other people in pain. Some guys want money. Some guys want to show off. Some guys like to talk shit. Some guys like to fight. And some people carry guns or knives and/or like to start fights by surprise. Or rather, they don’t want a fight, they want you dead or incapacitated.