[Bon mots]

Right on. Women watch that nonsense like "Charlie's Angels" and even Matrix has women beating on men. This is bad. The first time a woman tries that stuff, she's going to get really slammed, really hard.

I have always trained with women, and always gone easy on them. Otherwise, it would be messy.

The only martial art that might be helpful for them would be Wing Tsun, which was developed by a woman and with the goal of defeating a man. Shorter arms are an asset, the style does not require great strenght or stamina, no fancy face kicks or spinning back kicks. Again, it would only work against an untrained man.

[Rifleman]

The empty hand martial arts are not the answer to the self defense needs of anyone who cannot spend several hours a week at practice or anyone not young, healthy and agile. They are far from useless, but a handgun is enormously more effective for most. And with gun-fu you don't even have to muss your hair.

That said, the poise and situational awareness that the martial arts teach is very useful in a self defense situation.

[Rubber_Duckie_27]

I did Aikido for about a year (loved it, but it conflicted with my class schedule)...I am a fairly muscular woman with a large bone structure, and I still got the stuffing beat out of me. Aikido has a reuptation for being a gentle art, but it's just the nature of the beast that the men would have an advantage.

Most of the men were surprisingly gentle (I wasn't the only woman in the class). They didn't go out of their way to inflict pain on any partner, male or female, but they were easier on a female training partner. There was one guy, though...he was only happy if his female partners were bruised and battered...we hated him with a passion. He was a short, stocky man with a domineering girlfriend, so the other women and I figured he liked to cause us pain to get back at her psychologically.

I'll have to look into Wing Tsun. I'd like to get back into martial arts.

[SauronOfMordor]

Right on. Women watch that nonsense like "Charlie's Angels" and even Matrix has women beating on men. This is bad. The first time a woman tries that stuff, she's going to get really slammed, really hard.

Twenty years ago, I had a female acquaintence with testosterone poisoning (She worked out alot in a Judo dojo, and thought she was hot stuff). She told me at one point that she would kick my butt (I'm 6'4, was 180 lbs at the time). I had decided that if she, as a martial-arts trained person, threw the first punch, I was going to respond exactly the same as I would to a guy initiating a fight. It would not have been pretty for her.

Martial arts builds confidence. The problem comes when it builds EXCESSIVE confidence