Most people have the wrong perception that being heavier and taller is an absolute advantage in self-defense.  In some cases, it can be a deciding factor on who wins and who loses. This is why professional sports such as boxing and taekwondo do not allow contestants belonging to different weight divisions to fight.  It would be an unfair advantage indeed for a heavyweight to fight a flyweight.  However, there are some instances even in real life where size and strength don’t matter in self-defense. Here are reasons why:

Weakness
Being tall and heavy might have its visual intimidation factor but it can sometimes be a disadvantage in terms of agility, speed and flexibility.  Being smaller and lighter can allow you to move faster and be lighter on your feet.  Used correctly, these ‘weaknesses’ will allow you to size up your opponent more accurately and use your perceived limitations to your advantage.

Technique
In certain martial arts, such as kung fu style martial arts, trainees adapt a certain fighting style depending on their abilities, skills and physical size. A smaller trainee, for example, may opt to use the monkey style of fighting while a taller trainee might use the crane style. This is so that their innate advantages are maximized.

Knowledge
True, being smaller in size and clearly disadvantaged when it comes to strength can often affect your mindset.  Imagine being 5’8″ and weighing 160lbs. and facing off with an opponent who is 6’4″ and weighing 235lbs.  A situation such as this will be enough to make you tremble and run for cover.

However, if you are equipped with the right set of knowledge regarding your disadvantages and how you can turn them around to fight back, you will be able to prevent an attack, fight using the right moves and actually overcome an opponent. Without this knowledge, you won’t have any idea what to do with the innate power and advantage you have in terms of your relative size and strength.

Training
True, size and strength don’t matter in self-defense but being able to fight off a bigger and heavier opponent is not automatic. At least, not for everyone. This is where proper and sufficient training comes in.  With the right training, you will have the skills and ability to use your body in the right way and to find the points in your attacker’s body where they are weakest.  With the right training, your attacks and counter attacks will be well-calculated and accurate and there’s a low likelihood that you could hurt yourself.

pointed kubotan image

Tags: self defense knowledge, self defense technique, self defense training

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Self Defense Discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.