Self Defense for Young Girls

[cjam]

The martial arts thread got me thinking. Are any of these martial arts good for teaching young girls a bit of self-defense? I'm looking for something to give the kids a bit of a fighting chance of getting away from a bully or even an adult if the need arises. What age should they start?

[meemee]

dunno. 12, 13? teenage years? ever?

before that i dont want to encourage dd to fight back. i want her to go to the authorities.

i just hate the idea of teaching her to hit. even in self defence. i actively teach her not to take the hook and become emotional. but to stay calm and cool.

i think we can do quite a bit in defensive tactive? when to know to recognise danger and move away.

however right now she is trained to use her voice. and has been since she was 5.

[serenbat]

we started "kung-fu" at age 6 with a wonderful female and took for five years and switched to another style with a male instructor but their were several females that also taught that she was able to interact with---he was great

I think it has to do with finding a good instructor (female really helped us) and the type of MA you do- we liked kung fu- we did fan boxing that was wonderful as well, my DD stayed with KF for over 10 years (lessons) and did some in college and still does, it's far more about the mental and later it got into the physical - she did once put a 185 lb male down and she was 80 lbs at the time


the mental is what it was all about for us, both instructors pushed that very hard

you need to find someone that really knows what they are doing and talking about- as I mentioned in another post, it is not an activity, it is a life style approach and that is where the mental plays the role

you can do a beautiful fan "dance" and people think, oh that is so nice, like ballet, what they do get is it an art of killing, history is what needs to be learned along the way or it won't make much difference what you know if you don't know how to use it

[CarrieMF]

Judo isn't hitting it is throwing & hold downs. It is a self defense MA.

The longer you're in it the higher your skill level, but at younger ages they can learn skills that would help in self defense.