Tag: women’s self defence

Womens Self Defence Blogging Carnival

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Welcome to the Blogging Carnival for Women’s Self Defense. This is part of a series of blogging carnivals set up by Colin Wee of Joong Do Kwan. I am honoured to be the host for this particular carnival.

Any self defense situation can obviously be very serious, but women’s self defense can carry the additional burden of sexual assault and rape which men don’t usually have to contend with. This can leave emotional scars for a lifetime which affect a women’s self image, self esteem and her ability to make and maintain healthy relationships in the future. It goes beyond the normal fears that men face.

Unfortunately this carnival has not been quite as well supported as the previous blogging carnival where the subject was Anti Bullying, which was hosted on Colin Wee’s blog.

Nevertheless, I would like to thank all those who have taken part and have contributed. The contributions are listed below and I recommend them all to you.

 

Blogging Carneval by Traditional Teakwondo Ramblings

Womens Self Defense by Tracy’s Kenpo Karate

Women’s Self Defense, Circa 1947 by Cook Dings Kitchen

Women’s Self Defence: Developing A World Class Offering, by Colin Wee

Women’s Self Defence - Blogging Carnival by Going My Way

Thoughts On Women’s Self Defence by Soo Shim Kwan

Women’s Self Defence: Why It’s Different by Bunkai Jutsu

PS: Just as a curiosity, the word defense/defence is spelt differently in different parts of the world. The American way is “defenSe”, the British way is “defenCe”.

Womens Self Defense: Why It’s Different For Women

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Women’s self defence requires extra considerations to men’s self defence. Sometimes they will face the same issues as a man, such as mugging or possibly a same sex fight. But with women there is of course the issue of sexual predators which is not usually a consideration for men! For men, it is most likely to be either a mugging or a dominance fight (“macho” men trying to show who is toughest). Dominance fights do occur between women, but are far less common.

So what different considerations would you need for a sexual attack?

Firstly, it will be of course be very close quarters. Many dominance fights can be close quarters, but they tend to go for head locks and controlling limbs. With a sexual attacks, the attacker will more likely be trying to pull his victim front of torso to front of torso. He will also most likely try to get her on back. Either way, there will be little room
for strikes and kicks will be next to impossible.

People often say, “just kick/knee them in the b**ls”! Easier said then done. Firstly, the attacker will be aware of this counter, so he is not going to make it easy. Secondly, he will be trying to get his legs between hers to pry her legs open; if he succeeds then so the opportunity for this kind of counter will be impossible.

Obviously if a woman can use a pre-emptive strike to a vulnerable target before it gets to that stage, she may be able to get out of the whole situation much earlier. But assuming that for whatever reason that a good pre-emptive strike has not happened or has not been successful, and the attacker has his victim on her back and is on top of her; what options are left open to her?

Should a woman actually end up in this highly vulnerable position, the best bet is to use hands to vulnerable targets like eyes, ears, temples etc. The attacker may well try and force kisses on her in which case she could bite his face. Instinct is always going to tell a woman to pull her head back away from the attacker and that is what he will be expecting. But if she does the opposite and thrusts her head forward for a bite, she could catch him off guard. Rather than just biting and letting go, if she can secure a grip with her teeth and hold on, they she can cause a lot of high level prolonged pain. Bites are often under rated in self defence.

It may make him more angry, but enough pain will distract him from his sexual desires. It will also make him the one who pulls back, giving openings for elbow or palm heal strikes and possibly a window to escape!

Another strategy is to appear to give in and co-operate. It will be counter instinctive as every fibre of the women’s body will be one of disgust to allow the attacker to touch her private parts. But this could take him off guard allowing her the opportunity to counter when he least expects it.

I did hear a story of a lady who was attacked by a rapist. After an initial fight which she was losing, she said something to the effect of “OK, OK, if we’re going to do this, lets do it properly and stop the fighting”. The guy relaxed thinking he had won. She then started fondling him. She then squeezed his testicles very very tightly. She was able to escape leaving the guy in a crumpled heap.

It takes a lot of courage to attempt that as well as having to overcome your own feelings of nausea; but it can be very effective. In the heat of the moment and with adrenalin limiting the brains normal functions, many strategies and ideas can be forgotten about; so it will help to drill these tactics under some kind of pressure.

Blogging Carnival: Womens Self Defence

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Following on from the recent Anti-Bullying Blogging Carnival, hosted by Colin Wee’s Blog: Joong Do Kwan; I have agreed with Colin that I will host the next blogging carnival. The theme this time will be “Women’s Self Defence”.

If you are interested in participating, please register yourself and your blog with Colin Wee on his registration page.

The basic format of the blogging carnival is that all registered martial arts bloggers will all write about Women’s Self Defence. Postings should be prepared in advance, but all published on the SAME DAY. This day will be Saturday 14th July 2012.

I will be providing the HOSTING for the blogging carnival, so a few days before the launch date, all the links to your posts should be forwarded to me. I will list all entries on the Carnival Hosting Page with link backs to your posts.

I will send you a link for the Carnival Hosting Page too, which you should include at the end of your post. For the readers it will provide a lot of interesting links and reading matter on the subject of Women’s Self Defence. For the bloggers it will provide link-backs to your site (which helps your Google rating) and a lot of traffic from other high ranking martial arts sites.

On the day of publication, all bloggers should promote the Carnival Hosting Page through their own networks (blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc).

So if you’re interested in taking part, don’t forget to register with Colin Wee.

Women’s Self Protection & Raw Power

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I have written before about women’s primeval survival instincts which featured a video by Black Belt Hall Of Fame member, Melissa Soalt, otherwise known as “Dr Ruthless”.

The video below also features Dr Ruthless teaching self protection to women, most of whom are completely untrained in martial arts. Although this video does not really include anything dramatically new, I think it is good (especially for women) to remind ourselves how powerful women can be with the right motivation and a real will to survive no matter what the odds.

As I mentioned in my previous article, society can teach women that they are the fair sex and weaker, sometimes giving the impression that they should not even try to fight back if attacked. Woman are often taught that they don’t stand a chance.

However, just take a look at how much raw power untrained women can generate when they keep their heads instead of panicking and when they ignore any inappropriate social conditioning that might affect their personal safety.

Most predators look for an easy target. Even lions look to isolate a weak, old or injured buffalo from the herd; then don’t go for the strong young bull with the great big horns. Why? Because they don’t want to get hurt themselves, why would they?

A street predator (mugger/rapist) looking for a victim is just the same. They select a target who they think will not put up much of a fight. If it does become a real fight however, often they’ll back off as that is not what they are after. Even though women generally may not be able to win an all out fight against a man, what is often overlooked is that most street predators are not looking for an all out fight. Making as much noise as possible (like in the video below) is also a deterrent as the attacker knows that this will attract attention, which is the last thing that they want.

Of course this may not work against a drunk who is just looking for trouble and not thinking at all; but a mugger/rapist is more often sober and calculating and can potentially be even more dangerous. So if he calculates that this target is too difficult or that the target will attract help from others, then they might just flee the scene.

So . . . . . respect to the ladies . . . . . give yourself more credit.

Women’s Self Protection: Primal Instincts

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I come across this video below from a Facebook friend. It is from the woman’s self protection perspective. One of the main things that I liked about it is that it makes the point that self defence is a primal instinct, which we all have the capacity for.

When severely threatened we can all resort to the most primitive and basic animal instincts, which is savage, brutal and barbaric. Civilisation has taught us to control such instincts. In many cases it even teaches us to bury them completely. This is especially true of women, where they are encouraged to be feminine (which is considered exactly the opposite of getting down and dirty and in a fight).

Things have improved over the years. As a kid I remember that the role of a woman in an action film was to get into trouble, scream lots and be rescued by the male hero. Nowadays women are portrayed as far more capable and independent . . . . . . . and rightly so.

Women in martial arts used to be a tiny minority. They still are in the minority, but they make up a bigger percentage today then when I first started back in the late 70’s. Although perceptions have changed and many prejudices have been overcome (still more to go), many women still have this cultural conditioning which bury their primal instincts.

Some years ago, I helped a friend, Wayne Badbury (from Kamon Wing Chun) doing a self protection course for women. I was one of the stooges to be hit. I had a kind of crash helmet, cricket shin pads and body armour. It was like an early primitive version of the FAST Defence. I had to provoke the women into an emotional response and then be hit. I have to say that I was quite amazed at how hard some of these women hit when actually emotionally aroused (with fear). I would not have liked to be hit like that without the protection and most men would not have been able to withstand it for long.

I hope I don’t offend anybody here, but these women in the emotional state hit harder and were more scary than a lot of female martial artists that I’ve trained with. Most times that I’ve sparred with women, I’ve felt obliged to tone it down a bit (masculine cultural programming). I will say that this is not always the case. I remember once trying out a new club and being partnered to fight a female 3rd Dan. I thought “OK, take it easy”, but the second we started she jumped in and hit me reverse punch. “OK”, I thought, “I’ll go up a gear”.

Now some people may think that I’m sexist, but that same lady 3rd Dan later admitted that she too had to tone it down with most other women. Now don’t get me wrong, I not suggesting that the guys should be laying into the women and knocking them about, far from it. What I am suggesting is that if women can overlook some of their social conditioning, they’ll find they are much tougher then they think they are and are much more capable of physically fighting of an attacker then they think they are.

One of the most primal functions of a woman’s body is child birth. Most men could not take that level of pain, yet many women do it over and over again. Women have far more depths and capacity then most men give them credit for. For that matter, they have far more depth and capacity then most women give themselves credit for. Having the will to fight back (if necessary) does not detract from feminism (as some social conditioning may have women believe). In fact many men actually have more respect for and are more attracted to a strong willed & spirited woman.

Ironically, many women would without hesitation fight to the death to protect their child, but not for themselves. Don’t let social conditioning set you up to be a victim.