People start martial arts for different reasons, and most likely self defense is on top of their list.

What we often see in the movies might be deceiving, and only if you fought for real or maybe in full contact tournament you understand the chaos of a real fight is completely different compared with what you see in movies.

I had my own share of experiences, when after a few years of training, I have fought bigger and stronger opponents, and not all the techniques worked anymore. The moment you realize that, it comes to you as a cold shower!

When I think about self defense, I always imagine more than one opponent.
Now, the question is: can you really do something in this case, or do you just have to run?
This is assuming you can run and there is no one else you need to care for.

Defending against multiple opponents is a very controversial subject in martial arts and many schools pretend they will teach you just that.
My advice is to be very careful with this affirmation, since it is a lot more complex than you think.

We often practice this defense against multiple opponents and most of the time is ugly and very chaotic.
In my opinion, beauty and reality rarely come together in a fight.

Below you have an example of this exercises we practice in our school.
Of course this one is choreographed and the attacks are known by the defender.
It is the first step to get used with the idea of multiple attackers, and when we try with random attacks, it doesn’t look that pretty anymore.

However, life is not always pretty, so better get used with that!

PS
The person practicing sabaki no kata in the video is a former Ashihara Karate World Champion and K1 Champion, therefore, I am confident he could do it for real.