Back To Article Brief
Back To Article List
WOMAN VS MAN
Author: Robert W. Young
A popular debate focuses on whether women should practice the martial arts and, if they do, whether they have any real hope of defending themselves against a man.
This is far from a trivial discussion. If the techniques taught in martial arts classes do not function when an average woman tries to apply them on the street, that means most of the women and many of the men who are learning the martial arts for self-defense may be wasting their time.
To help readers arrive at some conclusions, Black Belt examined the issue of whether women can defend themselves with typical martial arts techniques and, if so, which techniques they can depend on in a street encounter.
For expert advice, we went to Los Angeles-based fighter Mimi Lesseos. Hers is a name you may not recognize, but after reading this article and studying the photos, we believe it is one you will not soon forget.
Lesseos started judo at age 6 and went on to Greco-Roman and pro wrestling. She competed as a professional fighter for 12 years. “My first professional match was at 16,” she says. “Then I got into kickboxing, and I’ve done some taekwondo because the last seven years of my professional fighting were in full-contact shootfighting in Japan, Peru and Europe. That was the hardest martial arts [training] I have gone through. It was full-contact, anything goes.”
Lesseos, who was known as “Magnificent Mimi” on the pro wrestling circuit, has also trained with grappling legend Gene LeBell for the past 15 years, and with sambo and fullcontact karate expert Gokor Chivichyan for nearly as long.
She insists the following principles and techniques—simple to learn and simple to execute—will help any martial artist in a street fight.
TARGETS AND WEAPONS
“The most important things for a woman to remember when she’s fighting against a man in a dangerous situation are to keep calm, keep cool and hit his most sensitive spots,” Lesseos says. “And do it direct and as hard as you can. You want to put him down with the first blow because you won’t have a second chance.”
The groin, eyes, nose, neck, shins and knees are among the targets most vulnerable to attack, Lesseos says. “Hitting the body is not useless—if you know techniques and if you know how to punch and how to drive it through. But if you don’t know the techniques and you’re an average woman who doesn’t have much training, you should probably go for those sensitive spots. Just hitting the body, trying to get in a shot on his side or chest or even in his face, won’t be too effective.
“For an average woman, punching wouldn’t be the wisest idea unless you are punching in the groin or straight into the throat because men are [usually] stronger and bigger,” Lesseos continues. “You can also break your fingers or hurt your knuckles while you are trying to punch him, and then he’s got you.”
Lesseos advises women to consider striking with the palm instead of the fist. “When you’re hitting the nose or other areas, the palm absolutely [works],” she says. “If you have your fingers straight up and you hit straight into an area, it’s a little more effective than a punch.”
ELBOWS AND KNEES
Many self-defense experts claim women should not count on striking with their elbow because it is too much of a shortrange weapon to use safely. “If you try to throw a wild elbow, it’s not going to be effective,” Lesseos says. “You have to be in the right spot with the right [distance] because when you have your arm bent, you have to be very close. I don’t recommend a woman on the street try to throw an elbow.”
But if you are in that right position, an elbow strike can be very effective. “If somebody is holding you face-to-face and your elbow is available, strike right at the nose or cheekbones,” she says. “Do it as hard as you can. Then you can damage his sight and sense of equilibrium.”
The knee is similar in that it works best when your attacker is very close. “It is a bit more effective than the elbow because the man is directly in front of you and face-to-face; he’s fighting against your upper body,” Lesseos says. “You can strike with your knee to his chest or face, or you can bring your knee into his groin.”
But can a knee strike delivered by an average woman do any real damage? “God yes,” she says. “Absolutely. I’ve been knocked out with a knee.”
LOCKS AND CHOKES
“There are a lot of technical holds a woman can use while grappling on the floor,” Lesseos says. “If a man has you down, you can go into leg locks, arm locks, head locks or front face locks. Those are extremely effective.”
She advises all women to take a grappling class. “I respect very much karate, kung fu and the punching and kicking arts, but when a man has you down, you cannot punch or kick effectively because all your training is standing up,” she says. “Grappling helps when you are down because that is the primary position they want to get into.”
It usually takes six months to a year of regular grappling practice for a new student to get comfortable with the basic techniques, Lesseos says. “You not only have to learn the techniques, but also go through the actions so you can feel what kind of pain you are putting the other person in,” she says. “It’s good to have somebody—your instructor or sensei—apply the pain to you because you can squeeze somebody and put a tiny bit of pressure on, but the next inch can break his shoulder. So it’s good to feel how much you can take; then you know whether you can go that extra inch when you’re applying a lock.”
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL
The mental portion of a woman’s selfdefense training plays as critical a role in success on the street as the physical. “When you’re using these maneuvers [in a real situation], go all the way,” Lesseos says. “Don’t just try to hurt him; try to break something.
“A woman who hasn’t built herself to the [strength] level of a man should strike to kill—or at least with the intention of severely damaging the person she is fighting, instead of just hurting him,” she says. “If you’re going to fire a gun, fire to kill. You have to put him down so you have enough time to get up and run.”
To increase your chances of success against a man, it is important to train with weights, Lesseos says. “I myself have a lot of strength and can pick up a 260-pound guy even though I’m 130, but I can do that because of not only weights but because of working out my legs doing grappling maneuvers —which works muscles you can’t work with weights,” she says. “If you work on weights and take a grappling class, you’ll have double the strength.”
MASCULINE AND FEMININE Women who are training to develop their strength and martial arts techniques need not be overly concerned about losing their femininity, Lesseos says. “I am the baby of five. My mom put the boys into judo and the girls into ballet. Since I was the baby, I got to do both. I kept my femininity because of the ballet, but I’m still all woman.
It’s very important for a woman who fights and trains to stay feminine and vulnerable—but know in her heart she can kick butt.
“I want to start a new path for women to go down,” she continues. “In the past, many women I competed against became hard and very masculine. They wanted to prove to the men that they could be a buddy and be in with them.
They allowed their femininity to dissolve.
“But I was always the one who wore dresses. A lot of the girls frowned upon that. But that’s just me. To have both sides—the masculine and the feminine—is very important for women.”
To get across this message to a wider audience, Lesseos has brought her fighting from the ring to the screen. She retired and started her own movie company, Stepping Out Productions.
“During my fighting career, I was doing movies, but they were exploitative,” Lesseos says. “They couldn’t see beyond my fighting to hire me as a true actress with a big role. I knew I was much better than that, that I could do any part and be a Demi Moore who could kick butt.”
It took three years for Lesseos to write the script for her first movie, Pushed to the Limit. “It was based on a true story about me and how I got into wrestling and full contact,” she says. “Of course I had to ‘movie-ize’ it a bit.”
To finance the production, Lesseos was forced to sell her house. And during filming, she ran out of money and had to to Japan to compete. “I took a competition with Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling and won,” she says. “That was the last fight I did.” ...
|
Choose your martialarm
|
|
|
Martialarm Testimonials
"This is the answer to the only problem I had in my martial arts training, 'How to effectively test a technique?' I can now experiment using full power which I could never do before with my normal training partner." L-Baxter"After training in the various martial arts systems for over 22 years and thinking I had seen it all I was extremely surprised to train with your martialarm product. It is truly excellent and proves once again simple ideas are the best." F-Barrasong
"I just started to train in Karate and also Wing Chun. I wanted to train as much as possible but there are only two classes per week. Since I bought the martialarm I now train everynight! This is great for a beginner who wants to train alot!" J. Evans
Looking for other martial arts training dummies?Purchase the Wooden dummy, Versaflex, B.O.B. training partner and boxing bags.
|