I am sort of mixed when it comes to learning self-defense. Martial arts are usually just that-arts. self defense is a little different-it USUALLY requires you to disable your aggressor long enough to retreat. I studied martial arts of varying disciplines for the vast majority of my life-and, I would say that they have VERY limited use in real world scenarios. One major flaw of martial arts is that your attacker rarely, if ever, is standing still, waiting for you to do something. Another is what has been referred to as pigeon-holing; you get used to the mindset of "if this happens, I do this"-this rarely works out. One thing I took away from years of it WERE the binding and groundfighting skills. When it comes to jointlocks, a lot of them dont work on people-which is scary if you are trying to use only one lock on someone, and it fails. Smooth transitioning is usually the way to go-but I digress.
When we were in Cuba, we had the opportunity to work with some Israeli guy who taught us Hagganah (I likely spelled it wrong). The concept was simple; disable your attacker through extreme violence, and block out your own pain. Sure, we learned a lot of cool techniques-painful disabling blows, strikes, and pressure points. Most was designed to cause permanent, serious damage (mind you, this was in the Army, and if the attacker is dead, he cant get up to hit you again!!). It was also focused on pain management-almost every neat little strike we learned, we did on each other (a little gentler, but enough to inflict pain), so that you understand how effective it is. The 3 weeks or so I spent in that course, I learned more than in 10+ years in martial arts. There wasnt any fancy moves, or yelling, or anything; it was simply "shrug off the punch to the face, get hold of your aggressor, and incapacitate him as quick as possible".
Now, it isnt for everyone, and I am aware of that. It certainly isnt self defense, nor was it marketed like that to us. It was a fast way to end a confrontation-if it lasted more than 10 seconds, you were doing it wrong. It also had a lot to do with setting your mind on your task; dealing with the pain, not getting tunnel vision, and working through exhaustion (we would normally do a couple mile's running, with various mind exercises on the way, before our class). The whole course was enlightening, to say gthe least-but, again, not for everyone. There is a very real chance you will kill someone-thats what it was designed for. Not to aid in your retreat, not to allow you time to call for help-to incapacitate your attacker so he simply cannot get up to hurt you.