The most important thing I learned across my ~30 years of training (various incantations of self defence) was to keep my 110 m hurdles skills top notch. Running

The most important thing I learned across my ~30 years of training (various incantations of self defence) was to keep my 110 m hurdles skills top notch. Running away is always the best solution long term. This is also what I insisted on with my teen children. They were training since 4 years old and the rare times they got into a confrontation they said sorry and left. 10 minutes of humiliation is better than a life long death. There were very rare cases when either me or them had no other way than fight (a total of maybe four cases). The fight was over after 3 or 5 seconds, with the adversary trying not to choke on his teeth and looking for his testicles while hopping. It was fast, brutal and nobody was proud of that because it could have ended with a bad strike or a knife in the stomach. Real fighting is dangerous.