I am a firm believer in gut instincts. Anytime I try to ignore them I end up regretting it. The other night I was locking up the dojo and I felt anxious. It was a windy night and the house and dojo were creaky.
I proceeded to lock all the doors and check the windows but I still had an unsettling feeling. This led me to think about womens self-defense. I have been a participant in many and even taught a few sessions. The first part of the self-defense class deals with awareness. I believe that awareness is a major part of self-defense. At beginning of the class a laundry list of items are read that would seem to be more common sense than anything. A few examples are: lock your doors, keep your car window up, park in well lit areas, don't be distracted when walking alone, don't be overloaded with packages, have your keys ready when you approach a car, vary your routine and in general be alert.
After everything was locked up, I decided to turn on all the exterior lights. I then went back to the dojo and took my favorite pair of kama off the wall and headed back to the house. I thought about a few self-defense scenarios and then fell asleep.
Thankfully, the night was uneventful. I am glad that I took the extra precautions before I went to sleep. I found my information on women's self-defense and read over the list just as a reminder that I need to be physically and mentally prepared.
1 comment:
Excellent post.
You know a lot of martial arts instructors when prompted to do a self defence course would be scrambling for a handful of the best, most lethal but also most simple to learn techniques.
In my self defence course, I tried to deal with the inability of most people to adequately strike a person who is threatening them. Either from not knowing how to strike to having the fear of striking and hurting their attacker!
One of the biggest things about women self defence in my mind is to make sure that each participant has made an internal decision to protect themselves and have given themselves permission to use aggressive force against sexual violence. This is priceless - and yet some people are oblivious to it. Faced with an aggressor they are just not prepared to do what it takes to survive or escape.
Colin
Basic Taekwondo Perspective on Self Defence - How to Be Effective when Fear Strikes
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