[BOOTSTICK]

I got news for you, I don't care if some 110 woman has a dozen black belts hanging around her waist, this martial arts stuff is 100% pure garbage. In real life { not the baloney some martial arts instructor hands you} when a 110 lb woman is punched in the face by a 250 lb man she is going down, and not likely to get up. The martial arts industry is in the business to take $$ from the naive, it's as phony as some clown breaking a stack of concrete slabs with his hand {requires no special skill, just a basic understanding of physics}. I remember the day I was over my brothers house and some martial arts instructor was there and how he was bragging he could disarm someone from 10 feet away, well I bet him that I could borrow my neighbors paint ball gun, and if he could disarm me before I shot him, I would pay him $1000, and if he couldn't he would pay me $1000 , needless to say he declined the opportunity.

[Mr Rogers]

You set up two straw men.

1 - No one on this thread has said a 110 pound woman has a decent chance against a 250 lb man. That is why there are weight classes. However, my 120 pound daughter did once put her 135 lb date face first on the floor of the mall after he decided to play with her tits (ended the date, BTW). And my wife has bloodied the nose of an instructor (academic) who asked her for sex (she didn't tell me about it until several years later).

2 - there are martial arts studios (majority, IMHO) where they take your money & teach nothing of value. That doesn't mean that punches, throws and locks do not exist, or cannot be taught.

[MarkL]

From your tag-line, can I assume that you're in KC? If so, you might want to check out the work that Bob Thurman does. He's got classes where he teaches "street fighting" for self defense, rather than "martial arts."

I can't vouch for how effective his classes are, but Bob "Thunder" Thurman was one of the best in full contact competition.

There is a huge difference between competition MA and defensive fighting. And the most important thing that anyone can have, more so than a gun or any sort of MA training is SA... "Situational Awareness." While MA training or having a CCW is helpful in defending yourself, if you're in a situation where you can't act to defend yourself, you've already lost.

Mark