Many of you may be wondering what is the best style or martial art for self-defense? There are many good martial arts schools that teach adaptive self-defense moves that also teach the traditional martial arts. People often ask me what is the best way to learn self-defense. The short answer is to find something you like for the time commitment you want to make, and then follow through.

Almost any martial art will work in self-defense if one practices but it must be suited for the student. For instance if a woman wanted to learn how to fight in two weeks, I would not suggest a formal Kung Fu or Karate school (unless they also taught self-defense courses), but rather a self-defense course. If a woman wanted to learn an art form as well as some practical self-defense then almost any martial art will be good (Kung Fu, Karate, Jiu Jitsu, Judo, Aikido and so on). Here is a short video of a Kung Fu school with a self-defense offering.

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The following story is of my wife (let me call her Sly) using self-defense when she was a kid! I should explain that she came from a large family with a single working mother for most of her teenage years. Her mother was away a lot and the kids went unsupervised. I have edited this account to remove much of the identifying information.

I decided to publish this becuase there are probably lots of young girls living in unsupervised conditions due to single working parents. Sly has been a fighter ever since we met and had to use her wits to escape many times when she was younger. I will publish self-defense stories of people not trained in karate to show that anyone can use their wits to increase their chances of survival! This is written in the first person – I will hold my comments until the end.

Watch out for those peeping-toms!

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What is going on? I have been looking for stories of women defending themselves against attackers and I found a bunch of articles about women punching, hitting sharks and saving puppies and kittens against pythons! I have never had an issue with sharks – I’ve seen a few blue sharks and leopard sharks while scuba diving but I have had an altercation (for me) with a Torpedo Ray.

Jessica Alba reportedly while filming “Into The Blue,” had to punch a shark in the nose that got too close to her – story here. Another woman kayaking off of Australia, had a Great White capsize her kayak and try to eat her. She responded by hitting the shark repeatedly with her paddle until the shark swam away (story here)! Both of these woman let the sharks know there would be no easy meal here! I found a promo picture of Jessica posing for the release of her movie, “Into The Blue.”

Photo from: http://www.320by480.com/wallpaper/?id=1102

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If you are like me and have scuba dived before, you have probably thought about what you would do if a shark attacked! I remember reading about this very issue in scuba classes when I was 16 years old. The instructor told us to go to the bottom and take your tank off to use as a barrier. We were taught to find a crevasse on the bottom to wedge ourselves in until the shark swam away. I don’t know about you but I think the shark has gills (unlimited air supply under water) so my best hope would be for the shark to lose interest.

I used to read Jacques Cousteau books so I could learn about the underwater environment. One method he employed was to make shark billy sticks. I duplicated the shark billy stick by pounding small nails into a small wooden bat, snipping off the edges close to the wood so the shark’s skin would not slip off the end of the bat. I also drilled a hole into the handle of the shark billy stick so I could attach a strap. My plan was to put the shark billy stick between any shark and myself so he would not eat me (If I happened to notice him).

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Three armed men boarded a tourist bus near Limon, Costa Rica, and attempted to rob the 12 retired folks on vacation! In a turn of events that warms my heart, a 70 year-old ex-marine disarmed and put one assailant into a choke hold! The other tourists started fighting back and the other two assailants fled!!! The group was onshore during a stop, during their Carnival cruse in February, 2007. One of the reports is here. 

While it is always sad for a human being to lose his life, the 20 year-old assailant had no business robbing people and apparently met his match by messing with retired leather neck (Marine)! Many younger people make the assumption that old-folk will not be able to fight back, let alone stand up to young punks! I have a few memories of older (I know – I keep calling 70 years, old – in 20 years I will think that is middle age too) folks defending themselves.

I was surprised last year by the band, “The Zimmer’s” that sang, “My Generation” seemingly as a cultural awaking that old folks mattered too! Well here at MySelfDefenseBlog.com, we think that old folks can kick Butt! Here is a short clip of, “The Zimmers.”

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Stories like this keep me writing about women’s self-defense! On Saturday, February 23, 2008 a girl was jogging in East San Diego County near a college. A man leaning against a RV, grabbed the girl as she ran by. He took her down a hill but this brave girl fought back! While the details of the struggle are sparse in this story, she managed to break free and get away!

Picture from here. This suspect I believe was found dead on Tuesday, February 26, 2008.

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This is indeed a sad commentary on our civilization today that girls are not safe! A girl in Japan and another girl in Spain both fought off attackers by kicking them in the nuts! While it is true that there many great places to strike a man, the nuts are one of the easiest places for a girl to kick because bad men think they can just overpower a girl.

I found many examples of kicks to the groin on youtube.com but most of them seemed to be really staged. This one seems to be real to me but the guy might be wearing a cup. The reason for showing this video is for girls and women to see what effect a kick to the nuts can have on a male attacker.  The groin area in men is very sensitive… that is why men protect it most of the time. The thing I will go into more here is when bad guys are side tracked, they make mistakes and are vulnerable!

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