# self defense seminars



## bluewaveschool (Nov 9, 2012)

My other instructors and I have been talking about ways to get out into the community and get people interested in our school.  One thing that has come up is the idea of having some female self defense classes.  However, I see a problem - I can teach how to get away from someone trying to grab you, but I really don't know how to teach avoiding being in that situation to begin with.  This isn't something I want to dive into unprepared and look foolish at best, and give very bad advise at worst.  Is this an avenue we should pursue some proper education in, or should we skip it and focus on cub scouts and such?


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## Bill Mattocks (Nov 9, 2012)

I can't answer your question, but I think it's excellent that you're concerned about it.  Hopefully others who have more knowledge in this area can offer you some good advice.


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## WC_lun (Nov 9, 2012)

I wish more instructors shared your concerns when it comes to teaching self defense.  Rory Miller has some good books that will give you a good idea.  Do NOT teach any self defense seminars until you are confident in your advice, including ways to avoid bad situations.


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## jks9199 (Nov 9, 2012)

bluewaveschool said:


> My other instructors and I have been talking about ways to get out into the community and get people interested in our school.  One thing that has come up is the idea of having some female self defense classes.  However, I see a problem - I can teach how to get away from someone trying to grab you, but I really don't know how to teach avoiding being in that situation to begin with.  This isn't something I want to dive into unprepared and look foolish at best, and give very bad advise at worst.  Is this an avenue we should pursue some proper education in, or should we skip it and focus on cub scouts and such?



If you want to do something like this -- whether for adults, women, or kids -- absolutely get the right training and guidance.  There's a lot of things that you want to get right.  One comment: stop and look at the self-defense techniques you want to teach.  Would they work on someone half-again your size, with much more upper body strength?  Because that's the reality of most women in a self defense situation: they're dealing with someone AT LEAST half again their size, much stronger... basically, your "nightmare opponent."


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## Aiki Lee (Nov 9, 2012)

As a martial artist and a person who works with suriviors of domestic abuse perhaps I could share somethings with you. 

1. Like jks9199 says keep in mind the "nightmare" opponent in the size differentiation and also the fact that since most victims have been attacked by people they were close to like relatives or boyfriends that may have terrorized them for a while.

2. Keep the physical aspect very simple and utilize only 2 or 3 different tactics. I personally always go for teaching a "high/low" striking strategy and to seek space rather than fight against the attacker's strength.


3. Some people become very timid in SD classes, but most get passed it when you ask them how they would hit or yell if their children were in danger. 


4.Keep in mind the types of attacks women are more likely to face such as slapping, hair pulling, being pinned to the ground, kicked while on the ground, held down against her will, dragging them somewhere, ect.


5. Perhaps seek out your local DV shelter and ask to speak with a supervisor to get information on what they tell their clients to do and see how you can add that in.


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## bluewaveschool (Nov 9, 2012)

As to the size issue - one of my black belts is a a female, 5'5ish and about 100lbs less than me.  Not only has that helped dealing with size difference issues, the majority (all but 1) of my adult students are... female.  Having a woman show other women how to stop a grown man seems to help them believe that they can do it themselves.  So we do pull them aside sometimes, and work things that... well, I'm not going to teach a 9 year old.  We've figured out some things that work well, and some things that are just too hard to pull off that we THOUGHT would be great.


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## jks9199 (Nov 9, 2012)

You may want to look into existing programs that you can become certified in, like RAD or Model Mugging.  There's more outlay to get the certification -- but you have the advantage of a packaged program that you can use.


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## chinto (Nov 9, 2012)

for the avoidance, consider this home work assignment for them. go to a safe public place in daylight, then think like an attacker, a predator. how would you ambush some one? where would you do it? with what kind of attack?  then talk about how you would evade the opportunity to be that victim. 

 simple things like NOT HUGGING WALLS, or WALKING RIGHT NEXT TO PARKED CARS! ( invitation to a knife or unarmed attack, especially corners of alleys and where larger vehicles like vans are parked.) Not parking where you have to pass through very dark cramped places, looking in the back seat of the car before you get in and under it as you are approaching it from a distance.      emphasize awareness.


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## bluewaveschool (Nov 9, 2012)

Those look like good programs, but those do require a bit of money that we certainly don't have.  And considering anything we offer, we do for free, we wouldn't even be able to recover the cost should we try and sink money into something.  More research is being done, to figure out what we can offer given the resources we do have available to us.


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## rlobrecht (Nov 11, 2012)

The school I attend did a female self defense seminar a few years ago. In addition to the seminar itself, he had a few related vendors come set up tables. 

A few I can remember are:
A local police supply store selling pepper spray

The police department community affairs officer 

A women's shelter

I think there were 6 or 7, but since I wasn't there, I can't remember what else. 

Good luck with your seminar. 


Rick


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 13, 2012)

My opinion is that if you don't already have some in-depth understanding of self-defense issues and applications, then it's probably a mistake to do some quickie certification just so you can offer a class.

Part of the problem with that approach is that you would end up with a very superficial knowledge of the subject - barely more than your beginning students would have.  To put in perspective, imagine some other school in your neighborhood decided that Tae Kwon Do would be a marketable product, but the instructor had no background in the art, so he took a few weekend seminars covering the TKD curriculum up to yellow belt and started offering beginning TKD classes? What would you think of the school? How far could the instructor go before running out of things to teach?

Now, if you want to learn more about avoiding dangerous situations and other related self-defense material for the sake of sharing it with your TKD students, that's a totally reasonable goal. Read Rory Miller's books, go to seminars, talk to LEOs and people who have been in bad situations, figure out the best practices and share them with your students. Just be honest about the limitations of your knowledge and don't set yourself up as an expert just because you have a black belt.


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## bluewaveschool (Nov 13, 2012)

Tony, can you clarify what you mean by in-depth understanding of self-defense issues and applications?


Also, I should point out that I'm NOT looking to offer any 'how to beat the crap out of an attacker' type deal.


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## Tony Dismukes (Nov 14, 2012)

bluewaveschool said:


> Tony, can you clarify what you mean by in-depth understanding of self-defense issues and applications?
> 
> 
> Also, I should point out that I'm NOT looking to offer any 'how to beat the crap out of an attacker' type deal.



Offhand, I'd include things like:

Lifestyle habits to avoid dangerous situations
Recognizing different sorts of dangerous situations and understanding how to exit them or maneuver safely through them
Knowing how to carry oneself so as to be an unappealing target for predators
Learning how to read people so as to recognize dangerous individuals, understand them and what sets them off
Controlling ones ego and temper so as not to provoke or escalate bad situations
Verbal de-escalation skills
Escape and evasion skills
Understanding legalities regarding use of force
Knowing how to behave in the aftermath of an attack, including dealing with emotional issues and talking to law enforcement

I'm sure there are more considerations that I'm not thinking of at the moment, but you get the idea.  I'm leaving aside aspects such as actual physical fighting technique and mental/physical conditioning, since those should ideally be included in your martial arts curriculum.  (If your martial art curriculum is primarily geared towards sport or cultural tradition, then you should add appropriate physical techniques for real world violence to the list.)

When I say "in depth" I mean that you know more about the topics listed above than you could conveniently convey in an hour or two of lecture.  when I say "know" I mean that your information is based on experience or research from reputable experts, not pulled from random internet sources or your imagination.

I've picked up enough self-defense knowledge over the years through personal experience, seminars, books, and conversations with experts that I feel comfortable keeping myself safe and tossing out the occasional useful tip to students or friends.  I don't know that I would count myself as sufficiently expert to run an ongoing self-defense class for women, especially since the dangers a typical woman faces are somewhat different from what I (a 6'4" man) have to deal with.


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## bluewaveschool (Nov 14, 2012)

Thanks Tony, I appreciate that.  It's the things you've listed there that I don't have a lot of experience/knowledge in.  The physical fighting technique I've got.  And while we were looking at one time classes for groups, with the goal of simply teaching how to get away, seeing the gap of knowledge I need to bridge is larger than I thought makes me see that right now, we're not traveling this road.


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## szorn (Dec 16, 2012)

bluewaveschool said:


> My other instructors and I have been talking about ways to get out into the community and get people interested in our school.  One thing that has come up is the idea of having some female self defense classes.  However, I see a problem - I can teach how to get away from someone trying to grab you, but I really don't know how to teach avoiding being in that situation to begin with.  This isn't something I want to dive into unprepared and look foolish at best, and give very bad advise at worst.  Is this an avenue we should pursue some proper education in, or should we skip it and focus on cub scouts and such?




Get some specialized training. This is one thing I frequently talk about and it's a pet peeve of mine. If you don't have the training or personal experience to address many of the student's concerns there is a chance that what you teach could increase the potential for injury or death to the student should they find themselves in a violent situation.

There are many excellent self-defense programs out there that offer certifications. Yes, there is a fee involved and you may have to travel to do it bit it's well worth the effort and you can be sure that what you are teaching to your students will provide a positive and empowering experience. You will know that what you offer will help them should they ever need it. You never want to have to hear about a student being injured or killed because what you taught them was lacking or just plain wrong.

Steve


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## szorn (Dec 16, 2012)

Tony Dismukes said:


> My opinion is that if you don't already have some in-depth understanding of self-defense issues and applications, then it's probably a mistake to do some quickie certification just so you can offer a class.
> 
> Part of the problem with that approach is that you would end up with a very superficial knowledge of the subject - barely more than your beginning students would have.  To put in perspective, imagine some other school in your neighborhood decided that Tae Kwon Do would be a marketable product, but the instructor had no background in the art, so he took a few weekend seminars covering the TKD curriculum up to yellow belt and started offering beginning TKD classes? What would you think of the school? How far could the instructor go before running out of things to teach?
> 
> Now, if you want to learn more about avoiding dangerous situations and other related self-defense material for the sake of sharing it with your TKD students, that's a totally reasonable goal. Read Rory Miller's books, go to seminars, talk to LEOs and people who have been in bad situations, figure out the best practices and share them with your students. Just be honest about the limitations of your knowledge and don't set yourself up as an expert just because you have a black belt.



Actually, any of the major self-defense certification programs like FAST, Model Mugging, etc are several days long and include self-defense information that is often not taught by martial arts instructors. The material covered if far from superficial. The thing to remember is that these organizations specialize in self-defense and surviving violent situations. Whereas most martial artists just specialize in their chosen art. I generally refer to the term "subject matter expert".  A martial artists is a subject matter expert on their specific art whereas a self-defense instructor (at least the good ones anyway) are subject matter experts on self-defense. You wouldn't go to a foot doctor to get treated for a cold nor should anyone seek out self-defense from standard martial arts school. 

To put things into perspective, Model Mugging has been teaching people to survive violence for over 40 years, specializing in this specific area. This is longer than many "masters" have been involved in their particular martial art. So, if I was seeking out survival I would look for a Model Mugging certified instructor before a general martial arts instructor who claims to teach self-defense.

Steve


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## WingChunIan (Dec 18, 2012)

bluewaveschool said:


> Thanks Tony, I appreciate that.  It's the things you've listed there that I don't have a lot of experience/knowledge in.  The physical fighting technique I've got.  And while we were looking at one time classes for groups, with the goal of simply teaching how to get away, seeing the gap of knowledge I need to bridge is larger than I thought makes me see that right now, we're not traveling this road.


Good call. If you aren't confident in what you're teaching it will show through anyway and will probably backfire in terms of your original goal. I'm sure most would agree that it's highly unethical to teach something that you aren't competent in and I applaud your honesty in recognising the gap.
If you do decide to get into the self defence arena there are plenty of good books and dvds etc out there along with seminars, workshops and courses. My advice would be to take caution, there is a lot of BS around and people tend to hide behind psuedo science to make their offering sound different from the next. My advice would be to pick one of the simpler, tried and trusted self protection theories that have stood the test of time and live it for a while.


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## chinto (Dec 21, 2012)

an exercise we did in the dojo seminar we gave was to have the students to to some where they shop or what have you, observe with the idea of how they would ambush some one. for robbery or worse.  look for the things they see in people who they think might make good victims of such an attack.  Then they would explain what they would do to prevent or negate that ambush being effective or even better not able to happen!  It seemed to really make them much more aware of the risks and dangers in places they had not thought about. It also made them think about what might make them look more like a victim or more like some one to leave alone.


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## Uncle (Dec 21, 2012)

Honestly one of the biggest and hardest things to teach people is monitorning themselves and their environment on a consistent basis. Part of growing up in an environment full of drug dealers and at least half of the highschoolers packing knives was being aware of who is around you, what your capabilities are, what you have on your person, and what your physical and social environment is. 

I still check the area around me before I turn to unlock my car and even then I'm still looking AS I unlock my car. This healthy level of paranoia is one of the hardest things to teach people. All the striking, grappling, andconstantly do are secondary to constant awareness of yourself, others, and your environment.


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## seasoned (Dec 21, 2012)

Uncle said:


> Honestly one of the biggest and hardest things to teach people is monitorning themselves and their environment on a consistent basis. Part of growing up in an environment full of drug dealers and at least half of the highschoolers packing knives was being aware of who is around you, what your capabilities are, what you have on your person, and what your physical and social environment is.
> 
> I still check the area around me before I turn to unlock my car and even then I'm still looking AS I unlock my car. This healthy level of paranoia is one of the hardest things to teach people. All the striking, grappling, and-constantly do are secondary to constant awareness of yourself, others, and your environment.


.

 Good points. I liken it to driving a car "defensive driving", takes practice. Also, determine your personal space and monitor it.


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## wingchun100 (Feb 11, 2014)

It's great that you are considering this. I want to run a self-defense course of my own someday (when I can open my own wing chun school), but I want to be HONEST with people. I want to let them know training for one hour won't be enough to embed those techniques in their muscle memory. I don't want to be a scheister.


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