How to eliminate the number 1 advantage of the attacker

Right now, assuming you don't have any martial arts or self defense training, there is one main reason why attackers would probably be able to be successful against you (and kick your ass real badly), inflicting pain, injury and possibly death.

This number one reason is this: You do not possess a trained or conditioned response to a physical attack against your person.

We live in a civilized world, and we do not expect physical confrontation on a daily basis. Thus, when we are attacked, we need to come up with a response on the spot. We don't have any automatic responses programmed, so we need to evaluate the situation, make judgement calls, and then somehow try to get out of it without having to resort to violence ourselves.

This is an extremely difficult task to complete, under extreme stress and clear and present danger to life and limb. We don't really stand a chance in a scenario like this -- yet it is typical for most violent encounters, muggings, beatings and killings.