This is good, and good advice.

Taking the initiative in such situations as Gia faced is almost always the right answer – punching first. Because I don’t have the luxury of using my size (I’m small but fast), I do the same thing.

Taking real self-defense classes is one of the best things I’ve ever done. And it also makes you less likely to be attacked as it changes how you walk, how you speak, your entire appearance. In other words, you look like someone a criminal would not want to fuck with.

No, it’s not a superpower, and no, it doesn’t insulate you from all attacks. But just like anything, it’s another tool that is useful. And I think it’s particularly useful for women.

About real fighting, though: most people, even those who spar, have never really been punched or kicked. It’s a whole different experience from sparring.

If you have a sparring partner you trust, I recommend you at least once go beyond sparring and feel what a real, unrestrained punch feels like. It’s a whole different thing altogether.

In a real fight, yelling also helps. Not screaming. More bellowing. It freaks people out. Anything to get an advantage, and that will give you one.

And any faux-feminist who says that teaching women self-defense is victim blaming doesn’t even deserve to fucking be in the conversation.