Can a Woman Whoop a Man?

You would expect me, a krav maga instructor, to answer that in the affirmative. Krav Maga is designed to work for everyone…no matter how small of stature, how much strength they have, how athletic they are, and no matter what sex they are. I teach a lot of self defense for women seminars, have written a book on the subject, read everything I can on the
subject, etc. so I think I’m qualified to speak on the subject. Popular or not, here is my opinion…

I do not wish to offend my female krav maga instructors and students but I do believe that in a stand up fight, there are very few females who can fight a man and win. I know a few who I would put money on, but only a few. I have a female affiliate in the Chicago area that I do believe could. She is mean, nasty, tough as nails and has better skills than I do. She is in the vast minority! A man is generally bigger, stronger (especially upper body strength), quicker and, thanks to testosterone and the way we are raised, meaner. When thinking about teaching women self defense I have to imagine my nightmare attacker. The dude weighs 70 lbs. more than me, is way, way stronger than me, is way faster than me, is way more aggressive and has trained one hundred times more than me. His best punch to my head will for sure knock me out and has a good chance of killing me. My best punch to his head is just going to piss him off and he’ll come at me even harder. Pretty damned scary to me! This is the starting point for a woman learning self defense. My nightmare attacker is her likely attacker. I certainly wouldn’t go toe to toe and spar that attacker. My only hope is to do major damage quickly and run like I’m on fire!

Krav Maga will help even the odds a bit, but still won’t make a female the favorite. I thought of this blog after leading some instructor trainings with a few females who, because of their martial arts training, honestly thought they could win a fight against a man. They were both fairly small teenagers but, unfortunately for them if ever attacked by a man, black belts in their art. Everyone had told them how great they were, they break boards with their kicks, they train many hours a week, they spar often and yet, they wouldn’t have much of a chance against a male attacker. I told one when we were doing a drill to get off the ground, that she didn’t want to be there. She told me that she could take the guy who was running the drill with her on the ground, that she had tapped him a few times in the past. He was a six foot two, two hundred and twenty pound guy. I just stood there shaking my head in disbelief that she didn’t know the difference between a nice guy in class taking it easy and letting her train and that same guy being enraged and blitzing her to the ground, beating her with his fists and knees. Another woman (a high level martial artist but a fairly small lady in her mid 50’s) was very upset with me when I flunked her during her krav maga testing. She made the comment “if this were for real I could whip every man in here.” This absolutely stunned me. There wasn’t a guy in the room she had even a small chance against. This false security of a martial art and others telling her how awesome she is will get her hurt if she is ever attacked for real. She won’t be trying to do damage and flee, as she should, because she had been taught to believe she can whip large, enraged men.

There are very few techniques that a woman can hurt a man with. Knees and kicks can be effective. Fingers in eyes, head butts, stomping the Achilles, crushing testicles and a few others. Doing these under stress, exhaustion and with the adrenaline dump against an enraged, scary as hell, blitzing attacker who is punching and kicking is the hard part!
I absolutely believe that Krav Maga will make you safer…a lot safer. I just want to make sure that you are training to escape, not win. If you are ever attacked the only thing that is going to work is to go off with hatred and rage, to go forward hitting targets over and over with all you have with the end goal being to escape. Run!

A few comments on this subject from my video blog argued the point by telling me they know of high level BJJ female practitioners who tap out lower belt level men often. Well, in BJJ it is against the rules to punch, elbow, knee, kick, attack the groin, crush the groin, gouge the eyes, stomp the Achilles, stomp the knee, stomp the skull, bite, thumb the eye, headbutt, slam, use a weapon, hit from behind and run away, grab the hair and slam the head into a wall or the pavement, or have multiple attackers? A sport with rules is totally different than a scumbag going ballistic with the intent to harm.

Weapons…the great equalizer. I know of a lot of ladies who carry pepper spray and tazers. I’m all for them if the person carrying them practices with them. They are not magic. To pepper spray someone and stand there will get you hurt. Spray, kick them in the groin and run to safety (to safety, not away from danger) is a better strategy…a strategy that needs practiced. Tazers (which have only a 50% success rate) will lock the attacker down for thirty seconds. How far can you run in thirty seconds? When it lets loose of him he will get up and continue his attack. I’m a believer in knives and handguns, they even the odds for a woman. To carry one of these and not be extremely proficient by spending hours and hours of training will get you hurt. Again, they are not magic. You must learn, under pressure and the adrenalin dump, to access, hold, control and use these weapons.

Back to my point. If ever attacked by a larger, stronger male there is only one option that has any chance of saving your ass in that situation. That is to go forward with all the hatred and rage you can muster, become an animal. Spit, cuss, claw, bite and smash targets (eyes, throat, groin, knees, Achilles) over and over…always looking to escape. If that is the only thing that is gonna work for you that is what you better be putting your training time into. BE SAFE!