Does anyone know any girls who can 'kick ass'?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Sans weapons if a woman knows a martial art or is suitably enraged there is no doubt she could probably injure or otherwise deter a a full grown man from casually harassing her, but in most cases this is seen in situations of a structed martial art grapple or where a man is not taking her seriously and is not prepared to be attached.

Just as a casual observation over the years, in friendly playing around, I have noticed that women can have extraordinarily strong legs. I’m 6’3" and I have dated several 6’ and taller, quite strong women, who could probably have kicked me silly if they were so inclined, but in horsing around on the couch I noticed their upper body strength was not even 1/3 to 1/2 mine and I’m talking about powerful, athletic women giving their maximum. Now granted I’m pretty powerfully built but so were they from a female perspective.

Men and women are built quite differently with respect to bone size and density, muscle size etc. In real life if a woman and man of equal weight, height and with both in good condition got into a serious fight and it went to the ground, as 90%+ of serious “I’m going to kick your ass” scraps between matched combatants do, the woman, regardless of martial arts training, would normally be at a very serious disadvantage because of upper body strength disparities.

Unless a woman can engage a man of equal size in a rules dictated, structured marital combat situation or the man is
toying with her and not prepared to really fight (and she is) it would be almost impossible in a size, weight and condition matched fight for a woman to defeat a man in a femini a’ mano “real” fight.

42

I’m 6’ 200 pounds of bone and muscle. I played football in High School and Boxed in College, and I fear no man, and count myself pretty high up the curve on the toughness and badass scale.

At 5’8" 115 pounds or so, there is lttle question that my wife can kick my ass in a fair fight.

She took Judo in California for 15 years, and it apparently wasn’t that wimpy feel-good Judo either. This was the real thing (her nose has a cute little curve to the left that she never got fixed where it got busted.)

She’s an excellent athlete with killer instinct and ungodly reflexes, and in her case it more than makes up for the significant weight and strength advantage that I have.

Normally I’m a terror against women her size, though.

We’ve wrestled around and let me tell you, when the Angel of Death starts bending joints in directions they don’t go, or casually cuts off your air supply, it doesn’t matter if your ten feet tall and crap thunder, you cry like a bitch.

I’ve thought about it, and figure that my best and only chance in a real fight would be to hit her with a running block at full speed, and hope that the momentum, inertia, and force of this battering ram attack would take her out.

Fortunately our disgreements over leaving the seat up haven’t come to this yet. But, you never know.
So, to answer the OP:

Your average male has a significant weight and strength advantage to a women. It’s one that an average women is going to find impossible to overcome.

But, there are some pretty damn athletic and well-trained broads out there, and I think their purpose is to show us guys what tough really means.

43

astro:

Bullshit. I probably have my wife outgunned 4 to one on upper body strength.

You do not want to grapple with her.

It’s not her muscles you have to worry about. It’s her hands.

She’ll use her legs to pull you in so close that your strength doesn’t mean anything because you can’t get leverage, and then if she so chooses her hands can wander causally about your body ripping sensitive body parts off or pushing into things like kidneys eyeballs and jaw joints.

You defend against these and suddenly you realize that she’s trapped one of your limbs in a really really bad away, or worse yet that she’s choking you to death with your own forearm.

No. If you grapple with somebody who knows what they’re doing, the strength advantage becomes almost meaningless.

44

Having playfully wrestled with (at maximum effort on their part), but not having fought women in real life I’ll take you at your word regarding her ability to do this. I guess where I have trouble with this picture is the ability of someone (no matter how well trained) with only 25% of my upper body and limb stength being able to manipulate and trap my limbs and choke me out when I could simply pull their arms apart from whatever hold they had per my the wrestling example.

There is some judo related art (forget name at this point but it has some Brazilian connection) that addresses the “to the ground” grappling mode of real life street fighting as the primary type of fight they train for. There is a local, very high ranked, martial artist I have known for several years who converted to this form as the most effective martial art for winning real life fights and he now teaches this martial art which relies, IIRC to a good degree on choke out holds. Even he, who is in superb condition, has stated that if an incensed opponent massively out classes him (he is very strong but quite slender) in upper body strength he had best get a shovel to hit them with, in that as maintaining the integrity of a hold long enough for it to have effect is very difficult in those circumstances, which is why it is important to tire a larger, stronger opponent out before applying the choke holds.

I’m not a martial arts maven so I will accept your assertion at face value that there are truly unbreakable holds that a significantly weaker opponent can initiate and maintain, however, I have been involved in a few “to the ground” scraps in my time and in a real pounding, crushing head banging brawl I still have trouble seeing how someone with much less upper body strength is going to maintain
the integrity of choke out hold, but this just might be my ignorance of technique.

45

Maybe he means that it’s not the fact that she’s holding you in a choke hold and you can’t get free, it’s what she’s doing with her other hand (or foot) that kind of takes your mind off getting your arm free.

Just a thought.

Interesting thread.

46

astro:

She pulls you in, really close, body to body, and then works at you by atacking specific areas (I guess to move you into position.) Then all of a sudden she clamps down on something and its enormously painful or distressing.

At that point, I panic and struggle wildly.
But as for the strength, picture trying to punch somebody that’s hugging you tightly.

One time I struggled and got an arm down with the hope of thumbing her in the side.

But, as I used all my strength to push it down, she just suddenly gave into it and I ended up with my face in the ground, her legs pushing into my body. My arm was coming out between her legs, and being bent in the shoulder in a way that a shoulder was never meant to go.

She could have held me locked in that position with two fingers. All the strength in the world meant nothing, as all she had to do was lean back a little bit to tear my shoulder out of its socket.

I’m not sure I could duplicate the position, but I firmly beleive that a kindergartner could make King Kong cry for mercy that way.

It seems to me that once you have a joint locked, strength doesn’t matter. A lot of the holds and chokes that she uses seem like they are set up in a way that either she can directly control the amount of pain and pressure or that if you try to struggle that just hurts it or sinks it in even more.

Trust me, if she gets her hands on a wrist or an ankle, locks a joint or sinks in a choke, that’s it.

You talk about being able to tear your arm free, but when it’s locked in, the only direction of freedom that you have is against your neck. SO yeah, you could use your strength to tear your arm free, but not unless you ripped your head off doing it.

It’s frustrating as hell.

47

Astro writes, <<Having playfully wrestled with (at maximum effort on their part), but not having fought women in real life >>

Don’t you realize some women playfully wrestle to lose? I do, most of the time; it looks like maximum effort, but it’s definitely not going to go for any tender bits, because I only wrestle with guys if I have other intentions <veg> which are no good if I win and they’re cradling things and going “ooh, ow.”

Corr “Oh, dear. I’m trapped. Help, help. More to the left, please.”

48

I would like to second Scylla’s analysis heartily. Though I have not studied jujitsu or Brazilian jujitsu, I have more than a passing acquaintance with western unarmed combat, particularly the Marozzo Pressas. Although I am considerably stronger than I appear, standing only about 5’7" and weighing about 145 lbs, I can assure nonpractitioners that leverage, concentration, and committed action are vastly more important than upper body strength.

The key to almost all western (and probably eastern) techniques is the avoidance of direct opposition of force. The harder someone presses, the more of his momentum I can gain by redirecting the force elsewhere by means of grips and simple body avoidance. Furthermore, upper body strengh pales in comparison to the sheer power of hip torsion. If I were receiving a solid punch from someone much stronger than me, I would parry with my forearm and step in immediately in order to press my hip right up against his. Even if I were able to achieve only a light grip on his elbow or wrist, I would be able to control his body completely by rotating my pelvis right into his. This would offer me several lovely opportunities for an elbow or shoulder lock, a headlock, a choke hold, or even assorted strikes to vitals.

Women, naturally, can take advantage of these opportunities as easily as men can, given sufficient training and will.

MR

49

No. I’m talking about women applying serious force. For whatever reason the women I have dated tend to be fairly strong and aggressive or otherwise robust physically and into (in a good way) physical challenges. Many seem to have had the odd fascination of determining just how strong the man they are with is (even the most ladylike) possibly because I was the strongest guy they had dated (to date).

And now you tell me it was all foreplay! (sound of Astro smacking hand on forehead). Come to think of it most of these “pit your might against me puny man” grapples did wind up with me being held in a nigh unbreakable grip (of sorts).

50

In most cases a person trained in a fighting method with fare well agaist someone who is not. I tip the scales at 145 pounds, stand five foot nine, and can dish out some serious punishment to anyone fool enough to mess with me. I don’t have overwhelming upper body strength but can kick people into next week. I can punch well and have been told hit like a truck but that is probably due more to speed and skill than brute strength. In short, I can relate to women when it comes to fighting.

Scylla’s wife sounds like a holy terror. Not only does she posess the skills, she does not seem to have any reservations about putting them to good use.

I have trained a few women who turned into capable martial artists, messing with them would be at your own peril. Going toe to toe in a punch out is a bad idea for anyone, I prefer to cripple opponents and taught the same to my students. People who can’t stand pose less of a threat.

Lola and I have a friend, she’s my height and weighs around 190 - 200 pounds. She hits harder then most guys I know and is ambidextrous. She also has no qualms about seriously hurting the deserving assholes who have messed with her. If she ever decided on taking any serious instruction she would be even more of a terror.

51

Feynn writes of a friend,

So here’s my question. It seems pretty obvious that most of the male posters here knew that they were going to grow up to be bigger than most women, and stronger in some ways. It’s also pretty obvious that most of them were raised with at least a minimal ‘code of honor’ i.e. don’t hit women, don’t pick fights with someone smaller than you, etc.

Is the reason that a strong, capable woman would be a ‘terror’ that she hasn’t been raised with that code of honor? Admittedly most of the posting here has been about women defending their personal safety from an attacker; are most men made nervous by the idea of someone physically able to kick their butt, who doesn’t play by the same rules they do?

Heck, that’d make me nervous.

Corr, who accidentally almost strangled someone with a thigh lock during some friendly wrestling

52

My girlfriend, while not having got into fights with anybody per se… has absolutely outmuscled boys on many an occasion.

She even came in 2nd in the “Strongest Person in High School” contest… losing first after losing only one event. (This was against all the Football teams’ strongest people)

She’s a keeper for her soccer team. She’s surprisingly fast and mobile. Plus, she routinely wrestles me to the ground. (I’m 6’1’’ 260+ lbs) Granted she’s not a 98 pounder… but at the same time she’s not a huge 200+ pound beast either.)

She can definately kick some ass.

53

Good evening friends,

Sunflower (Mrs. Longhair) is five feet tall, and weighs about a hundred pounds. She couldn’t do any of the things posted so far, but she can hit a softball tossed ten yards or so in front of her 3 times out of four with her Browning Hi-Power 9mm. she says that nothing quells the violent urges of a mugger or rapist quite like a sucking chest wound.

54

I could kick absolutely no one’s ass. Fierra weighs thirty pounds less than me, at 110 pounds, and is stronger than me in several ways.

As opposed to a the judo/kickboxing/martial arts experts put forth here, however, I would try to kill someone who threatened me without too much concern. I guess that makes me dangerous in my own way.

55

Somehow, I missed longhair’s post. What he said. :wink:

56

Well, I’m really not nearly as much of a badass as I like to pretend I am, but I’m glad at least one person bought the act! And I’ll be sure to punch you when I see you next, just to keep up the illusion–besides, I owe you one (or a bunch) anyway.

57

My aunt about 25 years ago ended up tossing a bunch of security guards around a hospital. Now there was a definate factor that allowed her to do it as well as she did - she is manic depressive and was at the height of the “manic” part… and the guards were trying to restrain her. She’s just over 5’ and “well-padded” but not huge by any means, so theoretically one big guy, maybe two, should have been able to handle her. Unfortunately for them, it took 5 or 6 and a couple were thrown across the room. I think this would be one of those dis-allowed exceptions to the question, but lucky for me it wasn’t specifically mentioned.

58

A lot of people are talking about the male ‘code of honor,’ the way that men are trained from childhood not to hit women.

This is, of course, true, and I wouldn’t dream of denying it.

But don’t forget that women are trained from childhood not to hit ANYONE. For many women, one of the hardest things in martial training is learning to hit. I remember myself, time after time, moving for the strike, meaning to hit, then pulling back automatically before making contact. It was hard conditioning to break.

A few people are talking about women’s tendency to fight dirty. That may be because women fight for different reasons. Boys fight to prove something, for bragging rights, as a macho thing, and they fight ‘clean’ (sometimes) because they are trying to win and prove something. Women are less likely to enter a fight- when they do, it’s often to protect themselves or people they love, and they do whatever it takes to win.

Just a few thoughts.

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They tend to have men who are more then 200 pounds and an awful lot of football players.

Marc

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I’m not sure about this “girls have an advantage cause they will fight dirty thing”. I’ve been in street fights in a couple different cities. In a bar fight there is some sence of looking cool and following the rules is almost as important as winning, there is also a sence that nobody is going to get hurt real bad or die. But when somebody jumps somebody else in an alley I haven’t seen a whole lot of agreement on rules. They will sure as hell aim a kick or knee at the balls. Any experienced fighter will protect this area very carefully. Also rocks, bricks, lumber or whatever else is handy will come at your face. I’m not sure how a fight can be dirtier than that.

I’ve been in discussions about this subject several times. I’ve been told I come off as chauvanistic, but I am really concerned about some of my female friends. The thing that really scares me is the line " You’ve never seen me when I get pissed, I go psycho". I have heard this line from many girls who trully believe that they could take an attacker simply by being pissed. In a flat-out fight for survival size and muscle mass is very important. If some guy is the type who is going to attack a girl, then he is probably a psycho who has been fighting his whole life, And I simply don’t see many girls being able to fight that type of guy off. (Not many guys are able to fight that kind of guy off either).
If someone really is an expert martial artist, then that is something, but don’t let a couple classes, and winning a sparring match with a 48 year old accountant in your class give you over-confidence.