Both men and women are capable of being aggressive and violent when the need arises.

While it is true that men are generally stronger than women, it doesn’t mean a woman can’t fight a man. A lot depends on social conditioning from childhood. In many parts of the world, parents begin this conditioning in the way their children play and socialize. Boys are given toy guns, soccer balls, or footballs to play and compete in sports.

Girls, on the other hand, are given dolls, dollhouses, “princess” outfits, and toy mirrors and interact with similar girls. This conditioning creates a behavior pattern that is carried into adulthood.

Conditioning, however, works the other way as well. A friend of mine,  an Israeli instructor, is an excellent Krav Maga fighter, and she looks just like any other woman, except she can fight better than most men. She was an IDF soldier, like all Israelis and now trains men and women in Krav Maga. She is a perfect example that women can not only fight men but definitely have a chance of beating men in a real fight. 

Just like women can gain big muscles and strengthen their bodies, they can also condition their minds to fight aggressively and successfully against anyone. The physical and mental conditioning is a result of continuous training in proven, battle-tested fighting systems like Krav Maga. It takes a lot of commitment and consistency to see real results, but as the woman trains more, she gains the necessary self-confidence to continue being committed and consistent, which in turn increases her self-confidence, and the cycle continues.

In New York City, Krav Maga Experts is a gym facility that specializes in Krav Maga training. Here, there are many women from all walks of life, sizes, and ages training and committing to being the best fighters they can be. Just like those female instructors mentioned above, KME has also trained hundreds of female students and instructors to become highly skilled in self-defense, with real-life fighting experience. Both the female instructors and students train equally along the side of men. At KME, the women don’t have a different set of pushups or exercises than the men because it is expected that they can perform equally like their male counterparts. Likewise, the male fighters don’t expect the women to be weaker or less effective than they are. 

In Krav Maga, when you fight, you aim for the sensitive and vulnerable parts of the body. When you spar, you look for an opening in order to successfully strike at your opponent, bypassing his or her defense. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don’t, and that’s part of the struggle. Whether you’re male or female you don’t need an extraordinary amount of strength or power to strike and defeat your opponent, instead, you need proper technique, agility, and speed. 

A female fighter who dominates proper technique remains calm and in control of herself and can overpower a larger and stronger male. And if a man defeats her, it’s not because she’s a woman but perhaps because she needs to train harder and refine her technique. Whether you’re 5 or 7 feet tall, you still have vulnerable parts like your throat, chin, nose, eyes, ears, back of your head, back of your knees, and all your opponent needs to do is strike at these points with precision. 

The power does not come from your muscles necessarily, but rather from the ground and how you pivot, move your hips, and your body, depending on the kind of strike you’re launching. Power is like an invisible force that you shape with proper technique. To move your body correctly and effectively, you need to train consistently to get the results you want. In Krav Maga, you do many exercise drills that force your body to move correctly, whether it’s a straight punch, an elbow strike, a palm strike, a roundhouse kick, a push kick, etc. 

A woman who seriously trains self-defense often enough during the week will no doubt reap great benefits not just in her ability to fight but also in her self-confidence to a level that she will not be afraid of a bigger, stronger man who may threaten her or try to harm her. And it doesn’t have to be a threatening guy either; it could simply be a fellow sparring partner. The point is she will no longer fear, and once the fear factor is neutralized, she can now concentrate on fighting using the techniques she has been trained to use to beat any man of any size and strength.

 
Do something amazing,

Tsahi Shemesh
Founder & CEO
Krav Maga Experts