It's absolutely weird that you read a question on stackoverflow and the poster is dead

I guess one must get a gun before asking questions here 🤔

In a few decades entire spcial medias will be filled with dead people

@HitWRight
Getting a gun is generally a sensible activity given the present state of humanity.

@SortOfTested only in some countries fortunately.

There are still some where common sense is considered a good trait, not a deficiency.

@Voxera fortunately, yeah

@SortOfTested Especially for women because unarmed defence is pretty pointless, no matter what various courses are claiming. Though a knife is also a good equaliser, provided there's proper training.

@Fast-Nop 'provided there is proper training' goes for both knife handling and martial art/self defense.
I'm a big guy, and back when I practiced karate I was also on the strong side and I've stood across from girls probably half my weight that could easily use self defense techniques against me.

I've also stood across from newbie guyes my own size that had not practiced much and were not able use defense techniques without some guidance.

Being bad at self defense means whatever happens happens. Being bad with a knife means now your attacker has a knife and is probably pissed from being threatened/injured.

No weekend course I'd going to prep you for self defense, sign up and go steadily for a couple years at least.

@ArcaneEye Martial arts have weight classes for good reason, and no mixed sex fights. That's because putting a 65kg woman against a 80kg man would be pointless. Not only that men are taller and heavier than women on average - even with identical weight, the male upper body is much stronger.

And no, "losing one's knife to the attacker" is a typical martial arts legend. It's fueled by stupid martial arts training where the only reason why the fighter can unarm the knife opponent is because the knife opponent has absolutely no clue on how to use it.

And the reason why martial arts practice this useless knife defence training is because instructors either don't know shit or don't want proper training because that would also give away how to use a knife.

One weekend of knife training easily outperforms ten years of unarmed karate. You won't be able to use any of the defence moves that you think will work because they just won't.

@Fast-Nop of course weight matters when you kick, throw punches or want to throw your opponent, which are pretty much the central combat forms of most martial arts. And in the same spirit, men and women have different body mass distributions which also favor men, even within the same mass.

But these things are for competitive fighting, which is such a far shot from the techniques used in self defense that they are hardly comparable.

Sure, you may be able to defend yourself with a knife in shorter time than with self defense, but the moment you don't have your knife, what can you do? And in what part of the world are you going to bring a knife with you to a night out, or when commuting? I know it's illegal to carry one where I live.

Agree to disagree?

@ArcaneEye also, its probably a lot harder o get good training in knife fighting ;)

@Voxera getting proper self defense/MA training is not that easy either...

@ArcaneEye no, but I do see a lot more advertising for MA than for knifes.

Not to mention that in Sweden,l knifes is also illegal to carry around unless you are in working clothes for an occupation that motivates knifes as a tool.

@Voxera After I moved from my childhood town, I've been through quite a few MA places and they are often either focused on some old training dogma that makes no sense with modern understanding of physiology, or the trainers have their heads so far up their asses half of what comes out is just shit...

@ArcaneEye Well yeah, then we disagree. Just be warned that should you ever face an attacker who doesn't hold the knife in the front (leading) hand like in the dojo, but in the other and close to his body, this indicates a skilled attacker. Your only hope is to run away or bring some large, solid object (like a car) between you and the attacker. Don't try dojo techniques.

@Voxera I'm from Denmark and it's exactly the same. Melee weapons training is just generally not accepted in our cultures aside from sports fencing basically :-p

And understandably so - a knife's purpose is to stab and cut, neither is really a defensive action.

@ArcaneEye It's illegal here, too, but I don't care. It's just meant as last resort backup anyway. I cannot defend against multiple attackers unarmed, especially not if they're men 20 years younger, faster and stronger than I am.

But primarily, I use awareness and walk away long before trouble manifests because I have nothing to gain from a fight. The good thing is that with this defence, I can even be outright paranoid because if I'm wrong, I'll still do no harm to anyone.

@Fast-Nop aye, the best self defense is a wary eye and a good set of feet!

@Voxera USA bad?

@aviophile Obselete. Superseded by USB.

@aviophile It has good things to, but personally I would not move there, at least not with the last years development :)