“The bear hug approach is a good option.”
Beware of her knees, though! ;)
You speak as a man of experience. :^)
The knees are to be wary of, and twice I got caught not paying attention and learned the hard way to quickly spin them around, but as painful as that was each time, it fades quickly and still never brought me to the point that I felt I needed to punch either.
There may be a place and time to have to swing at a woman, but I was brought up right and would never consider such an action without there being a reason to protect myself from imminent death I suppose.
Basically, no reason to swing at a woman unless that woman is getting ready to either maim or kill you, and even then I would probably hesitate due to my upbringing, but more than likely survival instincts would kick in and you have to do what you have to do.
As far as the Ray Rice video goes, no possible way could I ever see that as being justified, and she is an idiot to stay with him.