Most attackers have no training and are looking for easy victims, not for anyone who fights back. Resist effectively and you will prevail, even if you are smaller.
At that point, Herron had already gone public with the story of her harrowing run, telling ABC News that she used her self-defense training to defeat the attacker by scratching his face, “hitting the side of his head,” and ultimately locking him inside with a carabiner until police arrived.
If you are fighting someone who is both well-trained and determined to harm you in specific, you are probably doomed no matter how large or well-trained you are. But that is maybe 0.01% or fewer of attacks. Most are just opportunistic ambushes like the one Herron experienced.
You’d be just amazed how quickly someone lets you go when you poke both thumbs in their eyeballs as hard as you can.
It’s not advertised anywhere but I know this from Krav Maga classes: the best thing they teach you is to get over your natural aversion to truly fucking someone up by using tactics like I mentioned above. The good ones aren’t (mostly) going to teach you crazy kung fu garbage that is actually worthless in a real fight, but rather the above.
That is where their value lies.