Archive for the 'Self-defense' Category

Stories like this warm my heart although my kids are grown – I don’t like to hear about men messing with kids! Kids are supposed to be safe walking to school. The story here is about a girl in the marching band walking to school.

I don’t know about you but when I was in the band – I had to lug my trombone to school. In this case the girl in the marching band had her baton with her! One guy grabbed her coat from behind in an attempted robbery.

In this post I’ll talk about the girls self-defense as well as ways to use some ordinary objects as weapons. Here is a video I found of a girl with a baton. I’m not sure if it was this kind of baton or one of those large ones you see in the old time marching bands. Notice the amazing control this girl has of her baton.

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I have been watching too many youtube women’s self-defense videos and reading the chatter on the web lately and seem to keep finding a familiar theme. An alternate universe where karate instructors seem to be pumping up the egos of women, trying to pretend they can go toe to toe with men!

Now before you (if you are a 21st century woman) start screaming at your computer screen, let me assure you that I know women CAN defend themselves against men. But do I think just because a woman has attended a self-defense course and generally buys into equality, that she understands what she is in for?

I may have worded this a little too strongly but please understand that I think realism should be injected into any woman’s fighting strategy… rather than the dribble that I see so often put forth as empowerment for women (in the form of self-defense)! I spoke to my step-daughter to try and get an understanding of why equality is bandied about so freely when speaking of self-defense and she told me that for some women – it is more important to “feel” that women are equal to men in every way.

Ok here is what I am going to do in this post:

• Point out how to overcome a stronger attacker
• Point out that women have to use strategy (i.e. surprise, explosiveness, run, awareness, or weapons to win)
• Women in the martial arts can overcome a size/strength advantage by superior skill.
• That many men attacking women will strike hard to disillusion a woman – make her more complainant.
• Woman should expect to have to fight for their lives – become an animal if they expect to survive!

I hope I have not lost you but let me open with this video and then I will go into more detail. The good news is if you are a woman – YES you CAN defend yourself against a stronger, larger man but you will have to be smart about it!

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Imagine you are a 15 year-old girl, after just getting your allowance on a mid-summers day, walking over to your friends house. On the way you suddenly notice a guy opening a car door and running up to you! What do you do? This is one of the defining moments in any one’s life – how they will respond to danger. I wrote a post about this here, that describes what feelings a person might have and how do deal with the fight or flight response.

In this post I am going to tell you about four recent stories of girls having to fight or run away to safety! I have noticed Internet chatter about karate instructors recommending to just kick the guy in the nuts and the girl will be safe! What? I would like to say that no matter how good I or any other blogger out there is, we cannot teach fighting skills over the Internet.

The only thing I hope for is to somewhat explore an issue or two in any one post! This means that if I say a girl should gouge the eyes out and try to run away – I am not saying that is all that it will take to get away! Who really knows? It depends on how badly the attacker (the bad guy) gets hurt or surprised. If you really want to know how to escape an attacker – go take a self-defense class at a minimum! With that caviot, here is a picture I found  a funny photo on flickr of a scary guy attacking a girl (he is not really a bad guy)!

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I have been reviewing photos for use with this post and I was amazed by the number of high-kicks that people upload. I saw pictures of two people sparring where both where trying to kick right next to each other – kicking each other in the head! My first reaction is why? I mean the easiest way to win when one person kicks high is to take a half-step back or to the side and kick the groin! That is still a legal kick in most point karate matches.

One of my former students, Jim Martinez, had a knack for scoop-kicking my nuts whenever I would throw a high kick on him while sparring. It got to the point that I really started questioning the effectiveness of high kicks! More on this later but in this post I am going to explore some low kicking options, how to throw them and the probable results. I will of course talk about low kicking in self defense. I found this photo on Flickr here that seems to demonstrate a low side thrust kick to the knee or shin.

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I have been reviewing historical fighting videos on youtube and I was tempted to use the Spartans as my example but I am opting to use a scene from the movie Gladiator to explain my points. First off have you imagined some situations where you might be at a disadvantage if you were attacked?

What if you and your buddies took a short cut through an ally and all of a sudden were accosted by some thugs? Would you break rank and say – every man/woman for him/herself? Yes most of you would get away but think of the unlucky blokes that were not that fast? Yes your conscience would be ok because you called the cops as soon as you were safe but what about explaining to their mothers, wives, fathers, or husbands why you left them behind?

I will explore some situations where you might have to come up with a plan and then take you through some ways to come out ok. Here is a video of some gladiators that were about to be killed by some Roman warriors in the arena.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you knew you either had to fight or give up something? Most you you that have learned a martial art have been there – maybe the reason for learning. I had one experience when I was in the 7th grade walking to the store on a nice summer night.

I was approached by a couple of kids asking me where I was going. I told them I was going to the store. They asked if I had any money and I said no! They approached menacingly and I ran the rest of the way to the store! I will finish this story as well as talk about what fear is and how to deal with it. As you know if you are frozen with fear – you will not be much good in a fight. I found this picture entitled, “Fear of the dark” here.

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A story reported here, about an 18 year-old-girl walking home at 1:30AM was grabbed from behind! Talk about a scary situation! Reportably the girl felt a knife at her side as the guy threatened her. She defended herself with a kick! The story does not go into a lot of details but I will focus on why kicking is an ideal defense for a girl and some strategy along with application tips. Here is a picture of High Kick Girl in one scene of the movie trailer.

High Kick Girl

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I have always had dogs growing up and most of the time they were big dogs like German Shepherds. The dogs always went where I did and I don’t remember having any problems with wild animals. Dogs like that are protective but I always demanded that they listen to me.

I think that many breeds of large dogs can make good companions for children and adults. One trend I noticed when I was growing up was a large number of Doberman Pincher’s owned by guys that wanted to be tough. Now I like Dobermans but I don’t like owners that try to make them mean. The same trend has continued today and even more irresponsible pet owners, evidenced by people getting attacked.

I will not focus on the bad owners and mean dogs in this post but rather what was and is still right about owning dogs! Dogs are loyal and protective of their owners! Here is a short video of how one dog protected a girl. I will talk about the ways pet dogs are helpful and how they can continue to be Man’s, Woman’s, Girl’s, and Boy’s best friend!

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