A character having to quickly learn some kind of martial art for self defense is kind of a cliche. To be more memorable, I’d say you should have your character try to learn the martial art, but ultimately fail.
Indeed. As a teenager, I studied kenpo, and it wasn’t until I got to brown belt that we started learning throws. At which point I wished I had started with a different system that emphasized them more, because I found that the throws came much more naturally to me than the various strikes (kicks, punches, etc.) had.
True, you don’t learn any art that fast.
What you could do fairly quickly*, however, is learn a few basic techniques that are useful, and drill those exclusively until they become a reflexive response to one or two common attacks. This isn’t for trying to win a fight, it’s more for breaking loose and running. One technique for breaking a grip on your arm, one each for breaking grabs from in front and behind, maybe a low kick to the leg to hamper pursuit. If she can break an initial grab, she should be able to escape–dancers have serious legs, and when you add in the fact that she’s a vampire who can’t get out of breath, she should have a substantial advantage over a living pursuer.
Once the basic survival techniques are established, then she can work on more complex and/or offensive stuff. After all, if she doesn’t get killed, she’s got all the time in the world to learn it.
*Where “quickly” is measured in weeks to a few months, depending on how much she practices.
And to make the drills useful, pair them with a useful activity. Wax the car, paint the house, sand the deck, paint the fence. Or, for a vampire, mop the blood, polish the coffin, etc.
…and heads popping up from other cubicles chanting, “Collate…! Collate…! Collate…!”
Do vampires inhabit cubicles?
Taekwondo. It’s fast, it’s effective, it puts the hurt on someone bad.
When I teach self-defense seminars to the general public, we teach awareness more than anything. We include some simple blocks, eye gouges, strikes to pressure points and a low angle kick to blow out the knee. You want to learn more, come to class.
Intro lessons in marital arts are generally a good way to get badly hurt in a real street fight. Even a green belt isn’t ready for the savagery of an experienced street fighter.
Some of the self defense classes are good. Because they teach a basic move to break free and then run like hell. There’s no intent to actually fight an opponent.
I’ve often mused that a good effective (self-defense) martial art would be based on everything that is outlawed in MMA/UFC. Eye gouges/rakes, gripping/punching the windpipe, headbutts, kicks to the groin, elbows to the back of the head, elbows to the spine, etc.
This is exactly what I want her to learn. Her chief enemy is known to wield a knife, and has “a score to settle” with her. She needs to be able to make him unable to chase her as she runs away. She doesn’t need to kick his ass.
[undead]"Hmmm… more roomy than a coffin… internet access… business casual fashion never changes… free office supplies… nobody questions why I never leave… when people disappear, the rest of the flock just think they’ve just been ‘downsized’…
bodies can be shipped out in those locked ‘secure shedding material’ boxes… and they pay me? " [/undead]
Me too, and I agree it’s more “sport” than “combat” which is why I chose that particular martial art to begin with. Many dojangs however, include hapkido and other more practical self-defence components as part of their general TKD class. For example, I believe about 15% of my time in class is devoted to learning self-defence and actual fighting techniques that would be of use if someone attacked me. However all the sparring and related training are for tae kwon do lots of flashy kicks that you would use in a tournament, but not something you’d use in a street fight.
A vampire who uses Krav Manga would be particularly vicious. A vampire who uses tae kwon do would LOOK really cool doing it though.
Yeah, then she is pretty much screwed. Knife is one the most difficult weapons to defend against, much less by a beginner.
However, the krav instructors in my area typically do intro to weapons defense courses once or twice a year as a marketing event and to break up the normal routine of weekly training classes for current students. The full-blown weapons defense is only taught at higher levels, though many of the initial redirects are based on what is taught at the lower levels.
Yeah, the only styles I know of that really start with weapons at the beginner levels are the Filipino stick styles. With Arnis-Aikido, the very first lessons are on disarming an attacker, but the focus is on canes. Variants of the same techniques are applicable to knives, but knives are tricky to deal with; they’re probably the hardest weapon to take away from someone.
Given that the stalker uses a knife, and that the protagonist is a vampire, maybe her training should emphasize target control (i.e. “not getting hit where it counts”). I could see a vampire instructor putting that spin on a style, since most strikes aren’t going to be particularly dangerous or disabling to a vamp. Choosing to take a knife to the shoulder would be better than taking one to the heart, and it would likely provide an opportunity to strip the weapon. (Of course, it’s pretty hard to stab someone in the heart with a knife while they’re fighting back, anyway.)
Well, she’s not taking classes, she’s taking private lessons from a vampire instructor, who is teaching her the things she’ll need to know, rather than teaching her the standard from-the-ground-up methods.