I noticed that there are tons of SD classes for women these days. I wonder how effective these classes are. Does anyone know any statistics or research? If you are a women, did you ever have to use what you learned in class? Did it work on your attacker?
My advice has always been: No, they aren’t much good, rather than learn how to jab with the elbow or cram a car key into the eye it’s much more useful and important to learn to not be a potential victim, for instance, do not walk into a dark parking garage at 2a.m.
I took a single-evening course, and enjoyed it. I’m not actually very likely to be attacked, but hey, you never know. It was useful to practice hurting people; since I’m pretty much completely conditioned to not hit people, it’s difficult to do it if I have to.
The instructor did say that he has heard from some women who took his course and were later attacked, and managed to get out of it. (He teaches martial arts for several places in town, and used to teach in LA, so he’s got a lot of old students.) Of course, such stories are anecdotal and used to encourage the clients, so not all that valuable, but on the whole I’d rather have taken one than not. Like knowing CPR.
I’ve done several of these and I’d second BMalion. The most useful class I took spent a fair amount of time each lesson about avoiding that type of situation in the first place. The rest of the course was three or four basic moves (e.g. how to punch) drilled repeatedly to make sure you could do it well, and the legal aspects of self-defense and weapons.
The other classes included judo (those were too much of a sport to be practical in a real fight, without years of practice) and some that taught the carkeys in the face, and other tricks, which frankly are fairly useless. They seem to be more about improving confidence than actual defense.
The only one that, in my experience, was any use for actual self-defence in a practical situation was the first class, which worked effectively.
BMalion, is there some reason I can’t learn how to not be a potential victim and how to gouge a guy’s eyes out? Is it one or the other?
How not to be a potential victim? Does that include not walking four blocks from your house at 8:00 in the morning? Cause that was when and where I fought off an attacker.
I took one once. . .I quickly realized how useless it was when I got home and asked my husband to grab me so I could practice breaking holds. I could do it in class when it was with strangers who barely wanted to touch you, but with a bigger man who was actually holding on (and still didn’t want to hurt me), I was useless. Now, maybe if I was actually being attacked and had adrenaline on my side, I might be stronger, but I don’t think the course was that valuable.
No, probably not. But I’m not sure why there’s the need to be snarky, no one is saying people only get attacked or mugged or raped in areas that are thought of as “high risk.” It happens everywhere, and a lot of times you can’t do anything to prevent it.
That, however, doesn’t change the fact that walking around in certain back alleys at 2 am in the morning is something people in general (guys can get mugged and beaten) should avoid.
I’ve said this before, but the point of my self-defence class was not really to learn how to fight at all, but to learn the self-confidence to be able to fight if we should have to.
Women are still often raised to be soft-spoken and demure, and not talk back. We were basically taught to SHOUT loudly, to not scream “help” as it’s silly, but to point to people if we could and say “You! Call 911! You! Do this!” etc. Also to shout loud and clearly: “I’m being attacked! I do not know this man!”
Stuff like that. Obviously it won’t work all the time but the key words were enabling and empowering. I know they sound like PC words but I can’t think of a better description for it.
Well, the first can be learned quickly, the 2nd takes years and lots of physical training and dedication.
Disclaimer:
I’m not a Dik Mak master, but I have taught a couple of self-defense classes, strictly as a volunteer, and I am not a black belt, though I’ve studied martial arts and I’ve been in a couple of touchy situations…YMMV.
The main problem as illustrated by jbarro’s post, is that the average man is several times stronger in the upper body than the average woman. Without a gun (requiring lots of training) or being a combat veteran with the Israeli army, the average woman even with a black belt can be overcome by the average man.
Rarely do the attacks follow the pattern of the classroom, the seminars just aren’t long enough or realistic enough. My class was critized because I mostly talked and then at the end demonstrated the difference between the “self-defense-class” kind of attack and a real attack. One of the ladies took umbrage because I did not allow them to all practice the simple grab releases the “other guy taught them last month.”
I find that no one sums it up better online than Marc MacYoung. His website is one of the few that cuts through the crap of internet martial arts nonsense.
That’s a hell of good site. Especially the discussion about preventing rape.
Anecdotally, I took a one day self-defense class with my mom, free through her work. I learned a little about breaking holds (helps when I’m being tickled) and a little about being more aware of my environment.
I also wanted to kick someone’s ass after the class. That was a fantastic feeling of empowerment.
I don’t about this for sure.
Women are in general weaker pound for pound. But strength isn’t everything when it comes to a fight.
I’m 6’5" and my weight ranges from 225-235 lbs or so. However when I was in the Army I knew guys who were Green Berets, Delta Force guys, etc who were 5’7" maybe a 140 lbs who I have absolutely no doubt could kill me with their bare hands before I had a chance, and I’d be dead before I hit the ground.
That’s why I think no-bullshit training in how to defend yourself, ones that don’t focus on ludicrous holds and tosses combined with some other general physical training would make a woman much more capable of defending herself. Sure, she’d have the disadvantage of being surprised and being smaller and weaker. But an attacker doesn’t expect to be involved in a serious fight. And just the hint of one will scare many of them away. Even still, the guy might be able to come out on top, but with the right training I could show a woman how to inflict enough serious damage that whoever was attacking who would probably be strongly inclined to back down.
And, I knew women in the Army who could probably kick a lot of guy’s asses in general.
I second Anaamika.
The main value of the classes is not in the techniques they teach. It is in teaching you that you have the power to fight back. Attackers look for easy victims. Often they will go up and do something a little bothersome. When a woman tried to ignore him or acts nice, he knows she’ll be an easy target. These classes teach you how to recognize that, and give you the kind of genuine confidence that they will see.
Strength sure doesn’t hurt, and a huge pain tolerance is even better. My husband has the latter in spades, and a friend of ours who’s been studying martial arts since he was a little kid once decided he’d show big strong husband about how pressure points can make you crumble. I think the phrase he next said was “You’re supposed to be in pain.” My husband’s response was essentially, “Yeah, but so?” If you get an attacker who has a strong pain tolerance or is crazy/on drugs/drunk, you’d be surprised what otherwise painful attacks you can launch and not get the desired reaction.
I’ve taken a few self-defense courses, as well as some martial arts training, and I think the best training - especially if it’s a short class - is to teach you to be on your toes, constantly be checking out your surroundings, to not be afraid to turn and look at someone possibly following you/cross the street to confirm that/yell loudly, to react quickly rather than freezing up, to run as your first line of defense and fight second, and only long enough so that you can run again. For any fighting moves other than a few examples, that’s when you need to take the long-term classes (months, years) and devote serious effort to it.
In general an attacker is not going to pick on a big strong woman if other prey are available. If you fought straight up you would likely (as your surmised) get your ass handed to you quickly by a trained martial artist or highly trained combat solider, but having said this I think you would be surprised how many one on one fights quickly go to the ground even when trained combat soldiers are involved. Once on the ground a lot of the normal martial arts leverage training goes out the window, and fighting largely becomes a messy scrum, and an exercise in endurance, upper body strength, and the ability to punish, pin and immobilize your attacker.
In this respect women are at a severe disadvantage if the scuffle goes to the ground as many women (not all) have quite limited upper body strength relative to men. Many women do not realize how weak they are in terms of upper body strength and how easily they can be physically dominated if they are on the ground by a man in reasonable physical condition.
This is why it’s important to avoid these confrontations in the first place per the link previously given.
The danger here is that you feel empowered. But you’re not really.
I’m not meaning to pick on FilmGeek, she just said a very common sentiment in a particularly clear way. So in what follows , “you” refers to anyone taking a one-time SD course.
One short class will not change the habits or attitudes of a lifetime. Under surprise & stress, people revert to their habits.
If after leaving that class, you consciously worked daily to change how you pay attention to your surroundings, how you interact with everyone every day to be more assertive & take-charge, and if every few days you work out rehearsing moves, actions and reactions, then yes, that class truly started you on the road to empowerment.
But the empowerment came not from the class, but from the effort of weeks & months that followed.
If, OTOH, you did what most folks do, myself included, and take the class, nod in agreement, go through their canned exercises, and forget about all of it the next day, well you haven’t done squat.
In fact, if somehow you internalize the idea that you’re now “empowered”, you’ve probably increased your risk, not decreased it.
False confidence is more dangerous than false lack of confidence.
I think that what most classes are trying to teach is that the average attacker is looking for a victim that isn’t really going to fight back. They don’t want a alot of noise, don’t want a lot of trouble. That is why the ideal is to cause them the most amount of trouble possible.
The classes that I have taken have not been about incapacitating the attacker (although it would be nice if you could). It’s giving yourself a few seconds to get away. It’s being just enough trouble that maybe the guy decides you aren’t worth the trouble.
Case in point - on Oprah a few weeks ago there was a young girl that a guy tried to abduct. She had been taught by her Dad to fight tooth and nail (because of a news report showing a video of another young girl being abducted and walking with her attacker). She fought and the guy took off. Not because she beat the snot out of him, because she was too much trouble.
I’m well aware most fights in the real world will (unless they involve weapons) turn into a glorified wrestling match with punching. In fact, in my younger days before I was given any form of unarmed combat training by the military, if I ever got into a fight I intentionally tried to get it to the ground. On the ground I didn’t have to be coordinated or quick, I could use my weight and strength advantages that I had over most guys and fight the battle on my terms.
I actually am pretty into martial arts these days, but it’s more of a recreational thing and most of it wouldn’t be applicable to a real fight.
Most people are not trained to stand up and trade blows, block blows, and doge blows. That’s the reason if a joe off the street tries to box a trained fighter he’ll get beat so bad he wishes he was dead (and he actually could end up so.) Since most people don’t have any sort of real training when it comes to punching/trading punches they resort to wrestling since everyone has some rudimentary ability to throw another person around.
I’m glad I never had to engage in direct hand to hand or melee combat while in the Army. It’s not the best feeling in the world to get shot at, but you know I was highly trained with a rifle, I knew how to take cover, I knew that me and my men were almost always going to be the better shots and the more disciplined. My plan if I ever had to get that close in personal was to pull my pistol or knife and try to end it that way (bringing a knife/gun to a fist fight being a beneficial situation.)
I can’t imagine what it was like to fight back when men ran at each other with big knives, clubs, axes, and swords. It’d be chaos and terribly frightening, and I doubt very seriously warriors were slapping weapons around like you see in the movies. I bet you basically got two or three good chances to hack at your opponent before he hacked you, and then during the melee if you weren’t fighting in formation you basically had to kill everything in front of you and just hope to god you didn’t get stabbed in the back or that the battle didn’t flucatuate such that you were trying to fend off 3-4 people with your sword or mace.
We had a serial attacker on campus last year, and as part of the awareness campaign, the cops sent an e-mail with an FAQ.
Interestingly, they advised not fighting back, because that can make it worse for you, the victim. This is apparently because some will use any justification to hurt you. If you hurt him, he’ll take it out on you.
What they said to do was just hold your cell phone in your hand and if you felt unsafe, to call someone – the police, your mom, your best friend, whoever. The idea is to make sure a potential attacker thinks you can get help out there in a second. (They also advised programming the cops in your cell phone address book, which I did.) If you don’t have a cell phone, the police said you can always call them for an escort or ask someone to walk you to your car.
Robin