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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5556283" data-attributes="member: 54877">I think you are doing your own, otherwise excellent, point a disservice with that paragraph. It is true that there is a point at which muscle mass equates to more weight and less flexibility, but this point is very high compared to the range. Melee combat is wits, speed, accuracy--and if it goes on for a bit, endurance. Speed is directly related to muscle mass, and also relates to the power delivered. Past a certain point, speed complicates technique when defending against, too.  In melee combat, in reality, women suffer an incredible speed penalty compared to men, on average. This penalty will be most felt when the combatants are at their peak physical conditioning. As they age, the men will lose some of this edge (though it will always be an edge), and will have to compensate with better technique, as the women have already been doing. Of course, some men will know this, and will have already sought every edge to use against men with comparable speed.  If highly developed muscles is a flaw, it is psychological for the male more than some physical demerit due to overdevelopment. I don't have any trouble believing that many males could rely on their muscles too much and/or shirk technique development thinking that it was unnecessary. And the "macho" attitude has led to many famous last words. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I know a lady pushing sixty who fences epee, and sometimes fences "A-level" male fencers in their 20s. (That is, male fencers in their prime, with skill levels just shy of Olypmic contention.) She has medaled in the world championship in her age bracket. Frequently, good male fencers do things so fast that she can't even see the move, and she has been fencing 40 years. OTOH, when they take her lightly, she can negate that speed, and it drives them nuts, often resulting in them losing several touches before they get it together. If she had a 25 year old males' muscles with her skill, she'd be an unstoppable machine. There is a big stink in international fencing right now because a transgendered female (if that is how you say it--now female, formerly male) is competing with just such an advantage in muscle mass. An no, fencing is not life and death melee. It is far more advantageous to women than real melee combat would be. You aren't allowed to shield smash someone in fencing, which would be practically brute power.  I would say that a great deal of the edge that women possess in any such life or death physical contest will often boil down to having effectively been through harder training due to physical limitations, being underestimated at times, and any psychological edge such provides. But it is all still dwarfed massively by skill and muscle development directly related to gaining/practicing that skill.</blockquote>

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