Right,come on fellow women....

A: Straw man (woman?) argument. Nobody's advocating any strategy that doesn't involve getting away at the first possible opportunity. This is common sense.

B: Suitable for what? The crap about multiple opponents and etc. has already been adressed by people much smarter than either of us.

It's going to take a lot of training to teach a woman how to beat a man period. BJJ is one of the most efficient routes to that goal because it's based on technique over strength and (more importantly, unlike aikido etc.) it actually works.

Noone's talking about submissions and in fact you're missing the whole point. 75% of BJJ is positional control, exactly what woman need in that situation. That being said, if you have some skill in submissions, go ahead and break his arm with one.

Also, not all submissions are complicated. Guillotine choke, for instance, can be taught in fifteen minutes and is a viable response from your back.

First of all, let's address the petit-bouergois fantasies that most assaults on women are going to come from marginalized portions of society's criminal class. Wrong. More likely they are to be attacked by their own husbands, boyfriends, etc.

If you aren't using technique then what the **** are you teaching? Seriously, what? Are you cosplaying as a systema instructor or something?

I've won streetfights with pure sport BJJ. I've survived and come out on top against hardened white supremacists. I am a member of AntiRacist Action, a street level, working class, majority anarchist, antifascist crew. I've seen our women use very very basic BJJ to obtain dominant positioning on Nazi Skinheads and GnP them. Don't make assumptions.

Yeah, because there's nothing in BJJ that involves a fat man sitting on you and squeezing the life out of you. Do you even do any research before you type or what?

Edit: For the dense, i'll go into further detail. Fire-Fist earlier alluded to going to roll with the scary BJJ guys and being frustrated by his/her inability to escape (escape what is not mentioned and points to the possibility that he/she is one of those people who thinks that all grappling positions run together and are basically the same thing). I think FQ is projecting his/her inadequacy on the ground onto others, assuming that just because FQ can't do it, noone can, at least noone who's not a roidheaded macho freak.

A: Noone's submitting anybody. You keep bringing that up, but that's actually a minority of what's taught in good BJJ.

B: That being said, noone's still submitting anybody because we're not letting go when they tap but putting them unconscious, snapping their joints, etc. And before you ask, yes i've done it, yes he was bigger than me, yes I got up and ran afterwards.

C: Finally, "proved useless" applies almost always to other martial arts: Aikido, TKD, Kung Fu, etc. It's very rare that we hear anything like that coming from BJJ. Quite the opposite, usually.

And if he doesn't care if you scream? Seriously, what kind of upper class stepford wives are you teaching that they don't know to scream when attacked? I'll bet that was something they already knew and you are wasting their time.

I wish there was an emoticon for the raw hatred I feel for the cliched survivalist rhetoric you bring up.

 

Knowing what to do and being able to do it are two different things. Most women might feel uncomfortable screaming at any time, add adrenaline, danger and fear and that scream might just need some encouragment.

 

Interesting thread. If I may go back to the original topics:


Q.-How many of you women on here actually train your ma for self defence?
A. I do not. I train Goju and kobudo for personal development...but think it could be of service in SD depending on how one trains.

Q. What do you think you get from your ma that you think would/might work if you got attacked?
A. Targets.

Q.-Do you think the notion of "just run as fast as you can to get out of the way" is a valid one? I mean,obviously there are some situations where this wouldn't be possible.
A. Yes. But, if one is too fat, old, infirm or a slow runner...then one better have a backup plan.

Q.- Have you ever done a self defence course and learned anything of use?
A. I took a R.A.D. course. I went in went some assumptions and a negative mindset...but changed my mind. (excuse the cross-post...I thought it might be helpful.)

http://www.fightingarts.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=15833252&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1



1) Had you have actually been physically attacked or assaulted prior to training? Yes.

2) Have you been attacked or assaulted physically since taking up an MA? No.

3) Were you close friends or a relative of someone who was attacked? No.

4) In general would you say you were a confident person before with a postive outlook before training in MA? Yes.

5) Did training MA improve your self image and confidence? No.

6) Did you ever encounter negative attitudes from males regarding your training in martial arts... eg. boyfriends/fathers/coworkers? Yes and no. Hubby is ex-military and strongly supports the idea of self-defense. On the other hand, he always asks 'Why do you study something you can't use because it will put you in jail?'

7) Would say while you were growing up that your mother was a physically strong woman capable of handling herself in the event of an attack? No.

8) Who was more receptive to the idea of you studying martial arts - your mother or your father? And why do you think they were? Irrelevant. Started when I was an adult.

 

On another note, i've actually taught a few self defense courses... now, don't laugh. when i teach them, a lot of what i talk about is awareness and attitude. and the techniques i later get into are simple ones. i focus a lot on how to get out of various grabs, how you actually throw a punch (i'm always amazed at how few women actually know how to make a proper fist!)... simple stuff like that. I try to keep it to things i know will work, because i've used them.

 

THANK YOU! It is hugely depressing whenever I see a woman make a fist with the thumb in or on the wrong section of the finger or whatever.

Now...

This is nonsense. I'm an out of shape, physically average 150lb 5'7" male who's been training BJJ for a year. I regularly and easily defeat people up to and over 50 lbs heavier than me. When I get the chance to roll with them, I crushingly am defeated by more skilled female BJJ'ers even smaller than me who also defeat the same 200+ lb males that I do (but even more easily).

I got ippon'd on my head all the time by a tiny med student girl when I did Judo (and she'd throw the big guys too). One of my other Judoka girl friends (130 lbs) can reverse, pin and submit guys twice her size **including a 230 lb Army active duty soldier who trained with us**. Watching her pin him was enlightening. He turned red in the face, couldn't breathe, thrashed about - finally got clock choked.

Grappling works for women. It works great.

 

Yes, i think that's right, as in, train hard, be as prepared as possible.

One of the spin offs from that I've thought about often is maybe people shouldn't teach those self defence courses? I mean, maybe we shold just acknowledge the difficulty of self defence in many situations, and that a great deal of what is taught is useless - unless you're just lucky.

But, I think if a five-week course is considered properly, it can teach useful stuff. Personally, I'd spend most of that time - if I was a woman - learning how to pull away from grabs - wrist, neck, mid-riff, etc., in as noisey and agressive way as possible, with more emphasis on the agression, attitude and energy than on the technique. And then I'd drill mad pad hitting and knee strikes for the rest of the time, with very little thought on actual technique.

*****************************************************

Generally speaking:

Take a look at this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCCVJ4J87LU"]Women's Self Defense - Against a bedroom rape attempt - YouTube[/ame]

What that's missing is first of all the fright of seeing someone in your home... and second, the smack in the face which takes a lot out of people...

But other than that, he's on the right track - the last thing she wants to do is grapple that guy. The basic idea is right - explain it, then drill it with pads and preferably a padded up guy. Add in a few slaps with the pad.

This kind of thing:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN5LZ1hYmwY"]YouTube[/ame]

Well, ok, maybe. But look how unreal the attack is. There's video footage of a woman being abducted like that - but she isn't just held - a guy comes out of the bushes and physically lifts her like a sack to carry her in to bushes. Rather than trying to get hold of a sweaty finger and break it - which isn't as easy as it sounds, she should be screaming, hitting her head back, stamping, and forcing him off with sheer aggression. And the instructor should be moving her about, dragging her in a realistic manner.

Here you have the habitual compliance level of the class infecting the self defence training:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3b5ChP1e0"]Aikido Shudokan - Women's Self Defence - YouTube[/ame]

Good luck to that woman when she tries to do that for real.

Here you have the problem that although each thing might work, the actual attack itself is lacking any realism:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9fpus-a20"]Womens Self Defense - Front choke technique #2 - YouTube[/ame]

Even if someone did, for some reason, double choke you standing up, an aggressive attack froma much bigger man has immense momentum to push you back - it's the first thing that will happen - you'll be violently pushed back by his strength - out of the window goes bending your legs and neat techniques.

This kind of thing:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ros1xrA72T8"]Womens Self Defense - Front Choke - YouTube[/ame]

Again, ti could work, but when you're pinned to a wall like that, you're pinned for a reason - usually to use the wall to knock some compliance in to you. With any kind of force, you hit that wall, especially your head if the oush point is your neck. The next few seconds you aren't going to do any fancy techniques.

In this, everything is in theory right - kick to the balls, elbow to the nose - but she's not even making it work in the training environment:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNEeoWY6yvc"]YouTube[/ame]

That elbow isn't going to stop anyone, and that's IF she remembers to do it, and IF it actually gets him right on the nose. There's no attitude training - she should be shouting - get off, police, back off!

Self defence myth - a crotch shot won't necessarily take anyone down. People have had fights, kicked to the crotch and done nothing. You can hit a man right between the legs and go under his balls and hit him where the legs meet - completely miss the balls. If he's very - well, you know - the balls will be raised even higher than normal... sorry - I know it's delicate - but true. (A knee is better than a kick because the angle is more in to the target area.)

And that's even if you have the timing to get that crotch shot in. A moving opponent is hard to hit accurately - and that's if you can kick. A slow kick may get caught, and then you're in a much worse position.

For actual self defence, there are so many different situations. The main thing in all survival, is the will to survive. Being grabbed out of the bushes in a sudden violent attack requires one kind of defence. Other situations, a smack ont he nose - or a palm strike, even better - can back someone off.

Generally, I believe in aggression, noise, attitude, far more than technique. I certainly don't think short self defences courses should waste too much time on complex techniques. Some useable defences, lock escapes, sure - but the main thing is to scare off an aggressor if possible. And that's a different psychology to male, macho martial arts ideals of submitting an opponent and "owning" them, in my view.

 

I think, like many people with issues, your issues are dominating the issue, and that's not particularly useful. The most important thing in martial arts is first of all that people can talk about it. People might be wrong - like you are - but we shouldn't try to dominate them with aggression, even through words.

 

It depends upon how the course is taught. In short courses, the most appropriate instruction material is situational awareness and body posture along with instruction about the reality of rape, assaults and attacks. What is taught about all three is not nessicarily the reality of the three. Women are taught to fear strangers as though strangers commit most of the above. This is simply not true. Women are by far and above mostly attacked by friends, family members and people they know. The notion that some pervy man is going to jump out of the bushes at them, while it does happen, is not the reality faced by the majority of women.

The fact of the matter is, men who are teaching these courses need to stop thinking in terms of normal sexuality. They tend to hand out idiotic advice about clothing and talking to strangers as though it is nothing more then some guy thinking you are cute. That rarely plays a part in the equation. What does play a part is how much you apper to be a victim.

As with anything, ideal would be a long term course that covers many senarios. However getting women, especially women who- how shall I say it- are committed to certain myths about females- such as a smaller opponant can never get away from or defeat a larger opponant, to commit to such an extensive course is difficult. Having a woman in the instruction team is also important. Especially if she is on the smaller side.

Short courses need to focus on short topic; situational awareness, body language, the basic punch (which by the way, the hammer fist is the most effective for self defense teachings, for some reason I could always get women to do that who would never get an effective punch going), some simple grabs and escapes. We taught some basic grappling moves like the reverse and the heel to kidney kicks. Unfortunately, the level of comfort that comes with long term rolling doesn't come in a simple class, but you do what you can.

 

I think this is the right thing looked at the wrong way. Smaller skilled opponents can beat bigger lesser skilled opponents in any field pretty much. But one of the things rarely considered in self defence is that a real fight is very different to training. It's different emotions, feelings and events.

Sure, those women can submit you. But when the assault comes, with a smack in the face first, and a real opponent who will really hurt you if you don't comply, it's a very different story. That's not to say that her ground fighting, bjj isn't going to help her. Obviously, if you can get aot of that kind of trainign in, then that's good. Question isn't, though, can bjj work - of course it can - it's whether she can make it work, not on the mat, but in a really dangerous, terrifying situation where she's being hit.

However, again, I'm talking about those courses not where people are already skilled, but where they learn the basics of surviving an attack. Sadly, one of the main issues that skews these conversations is the "my style is the best in the world" argument. Is that really the important issue?

 

Yes, MMA or full contact striking training would be an excellent supplement to get them used to the differences in a struggle when strikes are coming.

Like making the straw men, I see.

Here's how it goes: You say that groundfighting wouldn't work for women's SD because it's strength dependent and yada yada. You get called on basically making a bunch of anti-grappling nonsense up. You try to distract by saying "it's not about whose style is best!!?!! amirite?" No, not going to cut it.

And as for those short courses - as I'mKira said, a guillotine choke from guard takes about 15 min to learn. This is about the same amount of time it takes to learn how to swing a half-decent cross.

 

By not taking rhetorical advice from a 15 year old perhaps?

 

Well, you may have confused me with someone who is anti-grappling. I'm not - and I have no need for straw men in my arguments. Sadly, in martial arts, one of the primary driving factors in how people disseminate, interpret and recieve information is "what style I do". I don't really care whose style is the best. If you go back and check, I'm talking all the time about short courses run for very average women, of varying ages and fitness levels.

Ground fighting is excellent, but self defence has many variable issues. One is that self defence is about surviving an attack, not winning a fight. So even if groundfighting is the best thing in the world for winning a fight, that wouldn't make it the best thing in the world for self defence.

What has been pointed out, which is very useful, is that groundfighting experts, obviously, are the people to come up with strategies for what to do when you actually have been put on the floor and a person is on top of you - and that's an excellent and invaluable area of self defence. But anyone who reccomends to any woman that their best option is to start wrestling with a guy, take him down and choke him out has, in my opinion, more thought on the promotion of their art than on people's safety.

Sadly, we even have to go through this discussion, rather than what would be really useful - i.e. recommendations of actually useable tactics that people can use when on the ground with a much heavier, stronger opponent on top of you. And if the guy has a knife - is wrestling and rolling about really a good idea?

As for MMA - again, it's the right thing seen from the wrong perspective. Self defence needs are needed by many kinds of people, many of whom aren't ever going to do MMA - not ever. Old people, lots of women, lots of men - average people who aren't going to spend hours doing MMA training. Well what about them? They need different tactics, options and training. The very last thing we should do is deviate it in to a "my style is the ultimate style for all situations"... because what we're talking about isn't people who are going to learn a style - it's people who need some realistic information and options.

Information has to be considered - like, Kira asks me "what if the guy doesn;t care if you scream?" - but that's the wrong perspective. The screaming is to hekp you survive, not win. The screaming and shouting is to attrract the attention of other people, and to make your attacker fear the attention of other people. People can be attacked or killed because they were too embarassed to knock on a stranger's door. Those kinds of tactics, thinking, don't require much training - they require preparation and awareness of what to do.

When you take it to what to do if you are grabbed, again, you have to keep it to realistic, simple, doable, rememberable options.

Probably, most of these self defence courses should never even be run, because if they weren't, then maybe people would be forced to take a more realistc view of their personal safety - like, of instead of thinking jiu jitsu is going to carry you through any violent encounter, buy Mace, and a rape alarm, and make sure you always have them handy.

 

I think it's more a combination of 'rhetorical' and being 15.