Here are episodes 4 and 5 from Teja Van Wicklen as she takes us through her Mommy and Me Self Defense course.
We will be putting 2 downloads a week here so subscribers can collect the set for FREE, it is available on amazon for $13.98.
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Master Ken teaches you proper technique and legal concerns as well giving some bonus historical information in this latest devastating lesson in Ameri-Do-Te!
You know my saying about any ‘domestic violence expert’ should be mandated to live in a trailer park for a year before they can hang up a shingle? I’m rapidly approaching the idea that anyone who wants to claim to be an expert about gender roles needs to be forced to work manual labor for a year.
I’m not talking lawn care, I mean construction, roofing, logging, trash truck and furniture moving kind of jobs. There’s a reason why. Technology.
It doesn’t take that much muscle to ride a commercial mower or even run a backhoe. I know a number of women who do long distance trucking. When they roll up to the docks, unloading is all done by forklifts. One of the big reasons women could go into the factories during WWII was much of the heavy work had been automated. But even that was a step forward from what there had been before the industrial revolution.
What I’m saying is much of what we think of as gender roles were in fact division of labor. Labor that had to be done by the people right there whether you were paid for it or not. Modern people have no idea how work intensive everything was back then.
Technology literally got women out of the kitchen because tasks that would have taken a person a half hour could be done by pushing a button and — if not walking away — five minutes. I’m not even talking washing machines, I mean electric mixers. Same goes for technology getting women out of the house. Objects that had been extremely time and labor intensive could be purchased at reduced prices because of manufacturing. How long do you think it takes to spin the thread, weave material and then make clothes? Here’s a hint, a 4×6 Navajo rug takes about 2 to 3 months — for an average weave. Fine takes 5 to 6. Now think about how many blankets there are in a family home.
Oh hey and did you know that baby formula wasn’t INVENTED until 1865? And it was created in Germany. It took a little while to get over here. Although feeding devices have been found, the number one alternative to a mother was for over 200,000 years a wet nurse (another lactating woman). Real useful if mom didn’t survive childbirth — which given medicine of the time… Animal milk just doesn’t do so well for human babies without the additional stuff Justus von Liebig figured out. 1865, not that long ago.
Here’s the important point, EVERYBODY worked. Maybe not everyone got paid, but unless you were an infant/toddler or an invalid, you contributed to the labor and resources of the family/group/tribe. Even doddering elders watched over the babies while younger women did other tasks.
I’ve worked in hard labor fields and they are mostly done by men because women simply don’t have the strength and endurance. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a metricfuck ton of other jobs needing to be done. Even in labor environments where there are women, there isn’t ‘equality’ in division of labor. While the women are working as much as men they typically do less strenuous jobs and jobs that require less muscle. (For the record, you see the same division between big men and smaller men on crews.) Here’s a surprise, in ranching and farming there are peak periods where there is all kinds of work that has to be done in a certain time frame. Yes, the women are out there too. But you’ll usually see this same division of labor. By default, there are strength requiring jobs the men do. While women do other — equally important — jobs.
When a modern person thinks of ‘jobs’ they think being paid. Historically many situations didn’t ‘pay’ regularly, you didn’t get paid off until you got crops to market, the ship arrived in port or livestock was sold. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a whole lot of other work to be done.
Take for example the movie “Witness” there is a community barn raising. Yep, men are swinging hammers and sawing. But guess what? There’s no pizza delivery, no jump into the car and drive to town for lunch. The women are working just as hard setting up, preparing food and wrangling kids. Then after lunch, packing it all up. Nobody got ‘paid’ but everyone worked — including the young. That’s what life was before technology. Hell, killing a chicken for dinner was considered a child’s job. It had to be done if you wanted to eat.
Thing is, this is how things were for 200,000 years of human history. We constantly worked… we had to in order to survive. Similar gender roles developed around the world as a result of the lack of technology and some very serious limitations. (Here’s something to consider, horseback riding while pregnant is even to this day strongly not recommended — it’s a high risk to both mother and baby.) Under those conditions, they are the absolute best chance for the women and children to survive.
Those rules were slow in developing and, yet, they are a lot faster changing . Not as fast as technology, but for human behavior, amazingly fast. But having said that…
What do you think all this technology has done to our consciousness?
Not our knowledge, our consciousness. It’s a simple question, but when you start looking you discover all kinds of things that don’t have simple answers — including gender roles.
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Let’s start by stating some facts on self protection law
Facts.
Now given that you’re reading Conflict Manager you may well be a serious martial artists well versed in self protection law. My guess is you won’t tolerate bullshit so you will have read the above with your mouth agape, wondering how someone could make these statements. Please allow me to explain.
I should start by explaining my background. I’ve been training in martial arts for over twenty-seven years and have amassed a variety of grades in different arts including some dan grades. These days my emphasis is very much on pragmatic self protection and as a result I’ve developed a very fine bullshit filter. I’m also a specialist nurse in the NHS working in emergency care.
These two disciplines of emergency nursing and martial arts compliment and influence each other, but that’s an article for another day. I also do a little agency work on the side. All of my nursing roles require annual mandatory training and this includes conflict management. For my main job I get an hour every other year. But this particular agency insisted on my doing a full day and had no interest in my credentials or experience. So I did it. Just to “tick the box.”
My suspicion is that they put the training out to tender and gave the contract to the cheapest company.
The day started well. The lady presenting was confidant, articulate, practiced and prepared. We covered the usual things; causes of aggression, types of language, a model for de-escalation and so on.
After lunch we covered law as it relates to self protection. Now, I knew going in that she needed to be careful, on my iPhone is the Kindle app, containing the latest Star Wars novel and the books of Mr Mark Dawes and Mr Leigh Simms. The latter two lack the entertainment value of x-wings engaging TIE fighters or indeed the deep discussions on ethics, actions and The Force, but they are the foremost authorities on self protection and the law and their books are very accessible. I keep them to hand for quick reference for when I’m teaching this material.
Our presenting lady started well in the right place, 1967 Criminal Law Act and all that. She got a little confused over the implications of imbibing alcohol and self protection but we can write that off as irrelevant to nurses on duty (we hope.), but then without warning or relation to anything previous she dropped the bombshell: anyone that does martial arts, Karate, boxing or whatever has to register their hands and feet with the police as weapons. Furthermore, us martial artists can’t use our skills in self protection.
Those that know me know that at times I’m as subtle as being whacked around the head by a lemon, where said lemon has been wrapped around a brick. I lost it.
I would like to think that normally I am an articulate, and I would hope erudite, person I think I simply declared “that’s utter tosh!”
But she persisted. We were clearly disrupting the class at this point so I gave her my business card and invited her to e-mail me the reference to these supposed “laws” and said she was welcome to peruse my iPhone Kindle library.
I wish I could say that I was exaggerating all of this using artistic licence in my writing for effect. But in the immortal words of Han Solo “it’s is true, all of it.” I worry about how many people she’s fed this misinformation too. I genuinely worry that someone might have some workable skills developed over a number of years in the dojo and now have the fear to use them when it matters due to the supposed consequences.
And then we did the practical session. Oh hell! I suspect you wouldn’t believe me if I did explain what she taught us, and again I didn’t hold back my opinions on it. She maintains that the techniques were endorsed by her son who is in the SAS or Royal Marines or Spetsnaz or something. I maintain that they were based around concepts that all sensible instructors dropped years ago. They were devoid of principles. Several times I asked about context. Was our attacker a 19 year-old six-foot-three unit with their brain addled by M-Cat? Or were they a frail 85 year old lady with a screaming urine infection? In my job both are possible. She wouldn’t even answer my question. (As a point of interest, one of my Aikido Sensei was a retired mental health nurse, his answer is to knock out the 85 year old and share a coffee with M-Cat boy. I think he’s joking, but I’m honestly not sure!)
So, what do we learn from this? Well primarily, if you pay with bananas then you’ll get monkeys. A well trained monkey might have been a very effective trainer but unfortunately this particular paid primate wasn’t well trained and was repeating how she’d been trained. Sadly I don’t know what we can do about it, aside from continuing to be the paragons of correct information and effective methods.
For reasons I won’t go into, I feel that there is a chronic wound in the way that (most) front-line NHS staff are training to deal with conflict. On this occasion the wound was gaping wide open.
If you live in the US, or if you have been watching the news, I’m sure you’ve seen all the footage of the rallies, riots, protests, and various vandalizing and unpleasantness that we are experiencing in the country right now.
I have seen much good advice written, and contributed some, about avoidance, ways to survive a rally turned riot, and all of those are good, I back them, but I’d like to add some different thoughts here.
Firstly, the best advice is to avoid them all together. For me, there is no good that can come from a gathering that has at its core, confrontation with passions running high. But, sometimes you must pass through the area, or the riot comes to you. I used to live smack dab in the middle of downtown Denver, two blocks from the park used for rallies, and 5 blocks from the State Capitol, we would, at times, get caught in the middle, so it is not always possible to avoid.
The first thing I want to cover is your own mindset and internal awareness. If you are mad, passionate about an issue, or anything else that alters your normal mindset, you need to be aware of how that will affect you if things go down the crapper. You can’t make good decisions with a bad outlook.
It’s also easier for you to be manipulated into looking like the bad guy when you are not in control.
One of the best mindset sayings I have heard, and made a mantra of comes from my friend, author S.A. Bailey, and he uses it as an occasional tag line or autograph. It is as follows, and then I will break it down.
Until it’s time to shoot a motherfucker in the face
A little crude, perhaps, but easily understood, and addresses dealing with people caught up in our current social environment.
When you are in the middle of a disturbance or riot, it is not the time to assert, or expect, your right to express your opinion to be honored. Swallow your pride, and just concentrate on the mission of getting home. Needless arguing gets all sorts of people in trouble, and the more your ego is invested, the more trouble you can get in.
In general, the only thing that is a threat is physical actions. Words do not injure you, rocks, sticks and cars do. But, in a rally or riot situation, you need to pay attention to the words around you, as they can trigger action against you. That doesn’t mean you can start blasting away because you felt threatened, it means you need to move your ass now.
Hive mentality/herd mentality is a real thing in a mob, and the guy you work with and joke with at lunch can turn on you and beat you to a pulp in a mob.
Hopefully you can see that it is important to avoid these gatherings, no matter how passionate you are about an issue. But if you won’t or can’t please keep these words in mind and stay safe.
Oh yeah, please,as always, I would highly recommend carrying some basic
First aid/trauma gear, and a charged up phone.
Erik: I am interested in your opinion on female runners and personal safety. What are some of your thoughts on training women to deal with their fears and concerns?
Angela: My first response would be, don’t run, train in Martial Arts and Self Defense instead. BUT I spent many years as an outdoor runner and even ran a marathon at one point (which was not the best decision for my body).
This is a serious issue and there have been several incidents where I live, in Washington DC, where female runners have been attacked, especially early in the am.
I think first and foremost, trusting intuition and that “gut” feeling of safety/unsafety is key when dealing with outdoor running as a woman. For instance, I remember many years ago when I lived in AL. I was running during the day on a trail in the middle of nowhere. There was a part of the trail that paralleled with a small highway. As I ran by the highway, a truck with 3 men hastily pulled off onto the shoulder. There were no other cars or people around. They got out of the car and started walking towards the trail. For a split second I thought, “Ang, they probably just have to go to the bathroom, don’t freak out,” But in the next split second, I started sprinting for my life. I did not care what I looked like, I followed the fear in my gut. As I started to sprint, they realized it was probably not worth it to chase me, and yelled things like, “We just wanted to talk to you.”
I reiterate, when we are talking about Self Defense, we are referring to winning moments in time. I won that moment in time, but I just as easily could have not.
I have many women ask about carrying pepper spray while running. My response to that is, “If carrying something makes you feel safer, do it, but unless you’re trained in using pepper spray, keys or a tazer, the reality of being able to access and use properly in a moment of “fight or flight” is slim. Using weapons, takes just as much training as defending weapons and this is where I always default back to the real work of Self Defense, especially when we are specifying women. Learning to fight is key, instead of being “weapon-centric” one must learn to fight on a deeper level and always look for exit strategies, weapons in a real-life environment, and the ability to use our bodies as natural weapons. We must begin at the preemptive, psychological, sociological patterns that are deeply ingrained in us and it’s all connected.
Erik: In think that you brought up an interesting issue here.
On a statistical basis, I think that the majority of women are on some level effected by Fear of Violence while running and a smaller proportion are effected by verbal harassment and threatening behavior. And a very small proportion are effected by actual physical assaults. But the consequences of these assaults are severe.
Therefore, regarding Fear of Violence, carrying a weapon may have a soothing effect. In that case, the weapon provides a benefit. It also may help them in terms of verbal harassment since the person many feel less vulnerable and be more assertive, but, a major problem occurs in the event that they actually have to deploy the weapon.
In that case, not knowing how and when (legally and tactically) to use the weapon may have the effect of worsening the situation. In addition, they may have false confidence regarding their weapon’s capabilities which may encourage them to take more risk than they would without having a weapon. And of course, there is always the issue of not having the psychological will to use the weapon. Not to mention, the practical issue of carrying it.
Then again, there are always those situations, where having a weapon available may become the determining factor for safety.
Therefore, I think it can be reasonably said that carrying a weapon has both positives and negatives associated with it. The factors will vary from individual to individual, from environment to environment, and from incident to incident.
Reviewing what you said “We must begin at the preemptive, psychological, sociological patterns that are deeply ingrained in us and it’s all connected.”
These are deep issues that cannot be resolved in a few hours of instruction. Neither can the ability to learn and execute physical technique be learned in a few hours.
Therefore, for a one-time class with women who are unlikely to take additional classes, what do you feel is the most important aspect to focus on? In other words, do you think it is more important to focus on problems that are more likely to occur, but have less physical consequences, such as verbal harassment and sexual coercion. Or problems that are less likely to occur, but have greater physical consequences such as violent stranger assaults?
Angela: A big YES to all you said. I am learning so much from your questions and deeply grateful for the process.
When I teach Women’s Self Defense workshops (or any “once off” training) I make sure they understand:
They are only dipping the tiny tip of their baby toenail into the vast waters of “Self Defense”.
There is nothing I am about to say/teach in this class/workshop that will guarantee a magical shield of safety. I also tell them if they hear teachers who say, “these 3 techniques will make you safe.” Run. Fast. In the other direction.
It comes back to the importance of boundary setting. I think this is the first vitally important shield to owning your own body and space. Women being verbally harassed, sexual coerced, or violently assaulted are symptoms of our culture. They happen. Sometimes really often. It’s disgusting. It’s not right. And in no way is it a women’s “fault”. That said, we as women, can start to make personal choices to how we want to show up in the world. Do we say we are sorry, just because we are apologizing our existence away, or are we really sorry for something? Do we giggle, because we like to laugh and have fun? Or does aggression and confrontation make us uncomfortable? Are we not able to yell because we really don’t have the capability, or are we so self-conscious about how we come across? Do we always take care of others because we really want to, or are we just programmed that way?
I think this is the most important aspect to focus on. Through an intense, uncomfortable, physical experience, how do I as a teacher, shed light on everyday habits and engrained belief systems, that keep them from being a fucking powerhouse? Awareness is key. If I can just plant a few seeds that will take root quickly or grow over a long period of time, I have done my job of making a woman safer. I will never know when or if the seeds will take root, but I’ll try like hell to sew them.
I do think it is VERY important to acknowledge that every woman is different and there not a cookie cutter answer.
I had an experience the other night. I was sleeping alone and thought someone broke in the window of my apartment. I struggle from pretty severe anxiety. It shuts me down, especially in a moment of primal fear. I went through all my self Defense 101 checkpoints. What could I use as a weapon? Where are my exits? What will I do to get out quickly and where will I run? The process was legit and proactive…but the real problem, was, can I actually do this? My body feels shut down in fear. I “know” all of these things intellectually but can I do them? It’s not an easy answer and I think we are doing a disservice to all women, when we give pat answers.
So to reiterate, I think the most important thing to start teaching women from day one: Bringing awareness to how they move through their everyday world. Does this way serve them and make them safer and stronger?
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Here are episodes 5 and 6 of 14 from Teja Van Wicklen as she takes us through her Mommy and Me Self Defense course.
We will be putting 2 downloads a week here for the next 6 weeks, so subscribers can collect the set for FREE, it is available on amazon for $13.98.
Simon Sinek speaking about Millennials in the workplace of today, the following video is an excerpt from an episode of Inside Quest with Tom Bilyeu.
Full credit to Inside Quest.
Erik: Rory Miller talks about creating a physically safe place to do physically dangerous things and an emotionally safe place to do emotional dangerous things. It sounds like that is exactly what you are doing.
Angela: Yes. I also make sure I am fully responsible for physical safety as well. This is why I am very strict on no one talking when I’m talking, so that everyone can hear the instruction and there is no confusion. I let people know they may get bloody knuckles, from punching a pad bare handed, and if they have a job where that’s not cool, they can use palm heel strikes. I let them know they will be physically uncomfortable, and that’s part of the work, to get their bodies stress inoculated.
But I take the job of keeping them physically safe very seriously.
Erik: It has been my experience (and others) in dealing with the typical demographic of women that come to a self-defense class, the majority are really not interested in engaging in serious physical contact. Using a rough guideline of the 80/20 rule. I find that only twenty percent are willing to push themselves physically, the other eighty percent would rather not.
My solution to this issue has been to focus on primarily boundary setting and use role playing of common scenarios that women encounter in their everyday lives as teaching tools. Invariably, the women have voiced boundary intrusions and violations by men as their primary concern and problem.
Angela: I agree this is one of the most voiced concerns of women who are seeking “Selfdefense”. It’s that in between space, where someone has not physically crossed a line in the sand, but there has been some sort of verbal intrusion or feeling of impending violation. In Fit to Fight, the Self Defense system I train under, they refer to this space as the “fence.” The space in-between, where there is not a clear threat, but you prepare mentally and set yourself up physically to be ready.
I also agree many women are really not interested in serious physical contact, but I think a huge bulk of that trend is female patterns of socialization, which I see as something that needs to be directly addressed and changed. I tell women right away, this is not cardio kickboxing, calorie burning time or, group exercise.
Honestly, I don’t care if women don’t want to push themselves physically (although I think you are correct in the 80/20 rule, but I think the physical push is necessary to access the part of themselves that feels too powerful, violent, aggressive, too uncomfortable. I think it’s necessary for them to feel what they fear, in a safe and supportive environment, otherwise they will never have an opportunity to rise above it. Of course, this is all done by building trust and understating the real distress of trauma. I make sure from the beginning the women know I am a safe leader and yet in the next breath, tell them I’m okay with them not liking me.
Erik: Generally speaking, I have found that younger woman in particular, do not have a real understanding of the concept of deterrence. They confuse deterrence with aggression. They feel that by engaging in tactics such as strong body language, eye contact, assertive phrases, and the like, that they will encourage aggression rather than discourage it.
Much of their behaviors seem to stem from socialization that relies upon using passive body language and indirect communication to deal with conflict. Some examples are excessive smiling, giggling, downcast eyes, ignoring, hunched shoulders, pretending to be looking at her phone, entwined legs, etc. These behaviors seem to be ingrained responses to social conflict particularly in dealing with aggressive men.
It is my belief that these behaviors are habits that arise partly from the fear of engaging in Over-enforcement. Since they fear a backlash from assertiveness and strength, the tend to overshoot in the opposite direction and engage in Under-enforcement. The element that they don’t seem to understand is how Under-enforcement breeds contempt, a lack of respect, and can lead to violations, particularly from predatory individuals.
Enforcement is at the core of boundary setting. It is the willingness to enforce boundaries that creates respect for the boundary. Most of the time this enforcement is not physical, but sometimes it is.
I would like to know if you agree with my general assessment, and if so, where does your training fit in?
Angela: Very well said, and I couldn’t agree more. If there was ONE take away I would want women to get from training with me in Self Defense, it is your statement, “It is the willingness to enforce boundaries that creates respect for the boundary…under-enforcement breeds contempt, a lack of respect, and can lead to violations, particularly from predatory individuals.”
I start an intro Self-defense workshop or series with that in mind, therefore the work we do, will yes, be very physical and tactical…and yet I am looking to ignite the psychological grit and emotional resilience to say, “not today mother fucker”, not just to an attack, but boundary setting in all areas of a woman’s life, especially relationships…and maybe, just maybe, begin to de-socialize, normal female responses when confrontation/ perceived aggression arises: giggling, permagrin, lack of seriousness, apologizing, over nurturing, excuses, and sulky body language.
The themes I see the most are:
1.Apologizing: I find it fascinating how so many women are socialized to apologize their existence away. I encourage students from the beginning to count the number of times they say “sorry” during training. I am a firm believer that awareness is the first step to broader social change and movement.
2. Giggling: I bring awareness to this before we start training, that it will most likely happen and when it does, ask yourself why? Not as a way to judge yourself or others, but again, as an awareness practice. What are common habits when we are uncomfortable and why we do them? I of course do not think there is anything innately wrong with giggling, but if it is a response to uncomfortably, do others take us seriously?
3. Unnecessary Self -Consciousness. It can be very difficult for many women to yell. I have personal experience that I’ve had to overcome, the fear to be “seen”. But through a lot of internal and physical work, I have found voice, drawn boundaries, and become a woman, those on the outside see as “tough” and a “beast.” Many women find it extremely uncomfortable to yell from their guts. A little peep comes out or no sound at all. I think they see a part of themselves they don’t want to admit is there, violence, aggression, power, rage. I love the Marianne Williamson quote and read it often, “Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” I don’t encourage women to go out and pick fights, but I do think it is necessary for boundary setting. I encourage women through physical uncomfortably to “unleash the beast” in a safe, supportive environment, so they can feel the underlying energy of it and know it’s “okay.”
I am so passionate about this work because I can see myself in all of it. My inspiration to competitively fight these days (besides loving it), is because I’m still working through deep ingrained parts of myself that are terrified to be “seen.” Parts of myself that seize up with anxiety if I think everyone will be looking at me, completely vulnerable, exposed, with no guaranteed control of the outcome.
End of Part II
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OK that is the advertising blurb, better than nothing but I just wondered about one of these for on holidays? Anyone else have any thoughts?
Is there a piece of equipment you would recommend if so please tell us.
