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.
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
Here are episodes 3 and 4 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.
There she goes, walking into the bar with her tiny skirt and 12 cm heels.
How can she even walk in them? Her hair swinging free down her back, her perfectly made up lips, colour matching her heels… all eyes turn to look at her as her perfume distracts even the sober men in the place, even the taken ones, even the disinterested ones…. everyone but him.
He looks at her with possession. He wants to own her, own her body, take away all her power to feed his. He walks up to her and firmly grabs her wrist. Looking at him surprised, almost entertained, she releases her wrist, twists his arm behind his back, brings him down to his knees then flat on his stomach…. when he begs her to let go of his arm, because his shoulder is about to pop out, she laughs, whispers something extremely clever to him, stands up and places her nail hard stiletto on his back while he cries in pain. She then walks away, flicking her hair behind her shoulder and redoing her lipstick without even looking at a mirror.
That is how you imagine it, don’t you?
Well, the reality is totally different. In reality, you would be the one on the floor, probably trip over yourself, slipping on a wet surface, breaking your heel and – if you are lucky enough to be able to run away with your heels – causing damage to your feet and spine. You will look anything but sexy, believe me. “But what are the chances this can happen to me?” you might be thinking to yourself.
Actually, pretty high.
If you wear heels on your way to work, if you wear heels walking the streets alone, if you are like me and wearing heels for you is just painful, you can’t wait to kick them off and they just make you clumsy and slow, you are at higher risk.
Or maybe you are like these rare few girls I know who can actually run a marathon with their heels on, perhaps even run backwards! But still, if you can run away fast from your aggressor with heels, imagine how fast you can run with flat shoes?
Are you more likely to slip on a wet or oily surface, or trip over your face when faced with an MMA trained aggressor (always assume your aggressor is very well trained!) when you are wearing sports shoes that are made to prevent slipping (look at their surface!) or when you are wearing a heel with a surface of 1sq/cm “nail”?
I mean, look around you when you are in public. I, personally, am amused to see how women walk like ducks, looking completely uncomfortable, with plasters on their blisters, just to be seen in heels.
Personally, when I see a woman comfortable in her skin, I think that is extremely sexy, and not someone who needs to lean on someone else (or on the wall) to even stand stable!
Now, if you are an aggressor, who would you choose? Someone who is stable, or someone who if you “huff and puff and blow the house down” they fall on their face without any effort? 😀
“But”, you might tell me, “I can use the heel as a weapon”.
Yes, you can.
So your homework will be to practise taking your heel off while jumping/staying stable on the other stilettoed foot, placing it correctly in your hand and hitting the aggressor in places that “matter” (to be short, face or joints) without the heel breaking into your hand, breaking at all or you slipping backwards.
You´d better have steel heels too, the leather ones don’t do the job!
Yes, if you are in a ground position kicking the aggressor in the face or in his kidneys with your heels would do a great job. But honestly, any shoe would do a great job, with a good kick! And dont forget, you wont just stay there to have a conversation with the guy. You have to get up, and run away, get to a safe place (even if he seems dead J ). Again, how far can you get with your heels? Or if you take them off, can you run barefoot? Geting your feet cut by stones, glass, maybe it has been raining, maybe you are in a rocky place…
There is another half-way solution, though. Here come the good old 90’s platforms to save us, shortie ladies! Add 12 cm to your height, while still having the base surface of a “normal” shoe. Still, even there, the safe grip on your ankle is not the best. I have twisted my ankle numerous times wearing platforms when I was a 15 year old party girl.
WAKE UP LADIES. It is where the fairy tale ends, that the real story begins.
Look, I am a woman too. And I like to look sexy and sleek too, but my safety comes first. So, when I do rarely wear heels, I put them on at the last moment, in the car (not in the parking place!), in the office, even in the bathrooms. I don’t risk it!
As my promo pictures have me wearing high heels and boxing gloves, I got numerous messages from couples wanting to try some “kinky” …. let’s call it intimacy, involving self-defense moves. I get it, totally, I do. And it can be fantastic… in the bedroom! Photos, movies, Charlie’s Angels….. all that isn’t reality. Your safety is.
You need to think about these things in advance. You need to be able to protect yourself AT ALL TIMES, night or day, alone, at your work place, in the street, in the club, in your car… always.
Dress to kill.
And be smart; that’s sexy.
Lots of love,
Mirav
This is the first 2 episodes 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.
Who is Angela Meyer? —————————————————- 2
Pushing Your Students and Red Lines —————————- 5
The Effects of Female Socialization ——————————– 7
Running and Personal Safety —————————————— 10
Female Interest in Women’s Self-Defense ———————– 14
Understanding Risk vs. Reward ————————————— 16
Boundary Setting: Communication and Enforcement —– 19
Fear and Anger —————————————————————— 21
Emotional State and Mental Images ———————————- 24
Erik: Please tell me a little about yourself. I am interested in hearing about your background and current activities.
Angela: Ha ha…these days if someone were to ask me that question, my answer off the bat would be to laugh and say, “it’s complicated, but I’m actually always working on the act of balance to make it ‘more simple’.
I was a collegiate soccer player, did not speak as a little girl, to the point of therapist wondering if some sort of “trauma” was involved in my “muteness.” Found voice through tapping into deeper currents through the team mentality of soccer and spirituality. After graduating college, I lived in Brazil favelas with a family for a year because I felt drawn to the “edges.” I got a Masters of Theological Studies from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO and volunteered/ lived/ worked for over 10 years at an AIDS hospice in DC for homeless men and women called Josephs House. In this time span I also started teaching Yoga, and became an End of Life Counselor through the Metta Institute in San Fran. I left DC to live in NYC and study as a Buddhist Chaplain through the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. Working in the “liminal” space between life and death has been one of the most life-giving spaces for me, as it is “real”, and there is no “bull-shit.”
While I was in NYC I found, a practice called Budokon through a Yoga studio where I taught. That was my first introduction into Martial Arts. I had had therapist for years telling me I should do Martial Arts, and my response was always, “I don’t have time for another thing.” After my first taste of Martial Arts, I had visions of being Million Dollar Baby and trained seriously in all aspects since then.
Upon moving back to DC a year later, I trained very seriously in Krav Maga and MMA, Muay Thai, Jiu Jitsu, wrestling. From the beginning, I had a desire to compete, but I also suffer from anxiety which kept getting in the way. I also had to do a lot of internal work, around my identity of being a “caregiver.” All the work I had done professionally, was in an intense caregiving role. I had to work out internally what it meant to be a “caregiver” and also what it means to be “violent”. I wanted to fight so bad in a ring or cage, but didn’t think I’d be able to hit someone in the face, ground and pound and make them bleed. I had to work through my own inner violence, and integrate the feelings and meaning attached to it.
In the last year and a half…I finally stepped into a Muay Thai ring four times and am currently training for a fight at the end of April. Although the fear and anxiety is there every time, I’m learning more and more about my “limbic threshold” and through great coaching being able to access more than I thought was there.
I’ve trained in self-defense for the past six years through Fit to Fight, an organization that recently broke away from Krav Maga, but focuses on both Self-defense and training students to fight. I will be testing for my Black Belt this August in San Antonio.
Currently I teach Yoga, lead Yoga Teacher Trainings, teach a lot of Women’s Self-defense, travel and teach workshops with my partner who is also my coach. I normally train 3 hours a day and am always looking for balance which I’ve accepted is not a destination but a continual act. I am fascinated between the similarities in Yoga, Fighting (Martial Arts/Self Defense) and working with Death, breathing is the common thread.
I’ll stop there and we can continue.
Erik: Well, I had a suspicion that you had an interesting background and you definitely do.
In terms of women’s self-defense, what is the focus of your teaching? What is the primary message/take-away that you want your students to receive from your classes?
Angela: To stop waiting for prince charming or someone to come save them. To learn to be your own hero.
To stop apologizing away their lives and instead say, “I wish a mother fucker would.” To understand that it’s possible to still be fiercely compassionate and violent in the same moment. To not fear their own violence, but to channel it, creating boundaries, not just in a self-defense scenario, but every relationship in their lives. To say no when they want and yes when they want. To understand that if someone chose to attack them, they must dehumanize them…they have become an object, therefore no one cares how you “feel”, or if you are tired or don’t want to right now.
I want students to become more intimate with their perceived “red line”…the place where physically they think they have nothing more to give. They can’t go on…where they are highly uncomfortable…and I coach them to see if they can access more…to realize that they may just a little bit more to give. To understand that if someone crossed a line in the sand and they had to “fight”, no one would care if they were fucking tired, or uncomfortable, they just should go.
This comes full circle to the psychological work. The “pre-emptive” self-defense. Questions like What would you be willing to fight for? What are you fighting for currently? (doesn’t have to be physical), Could you kill someone? What would you be willing to do?
I think it is very important to do the “inner” work of self-defense, as well as the physical.
Erik: Please expand on what you mean by “I wish a motherfucker would…”
Angela: “I wish a mother fucker would” is of course used more for effect than a literal expression.
When I’m teaching, I make sure I clarify that I am not literally walking around the world, hoping someone will attack me. I am a small woman, and even though I “train” am under no assumption that size, terrain, surprise, weapons, etc, don’t matter, they do. I use this “phrase” to explain walking around as a woman with confidence. I explain to the women I teach, that after training in Self Defense/Fighting, I walk different on the streets of DC. I am still fully aware of my vulnerability, I just have a different awareness. If I am walking on the street and I hear someone sketchy coming behind me, I am more ready, more alert. I look if there are places I can run, are there other people around, is there anything I could use as a weapon? I want to show that I would not be an easy target. This is what I’m talking about when I say “ I wish a mother fucker would” mentality, like a game face on, even if inside my bones are shaking.
Erik: Based on what you said about pushing your students and their Red Lines.
How do you deal with the fact that what you really want to do is push these women both physically and mentally, but there is always the very real possibility that due to past history with trauma (or something else) that one or more of them will have an emotional breakdown?
This creates a situation in group training where the students are effectively limited by the weakest member(s) of the group.
For example, you simulate a high-pressure assault and the student breaks under the pressure. The result is that she ends off being psychologically worse off than before. Her confidence is lowered, not raised.
On the other hand, the other women in the group would benefit from dealing with having their limits pushed, tested, and ultimately expanded.
Many instructors deal with this issue by creating “fantasy fights” where everyone “wins” regardless of the effectiveness of their actions.
The side effect being that the students leave the training with an unrealistic assessment of their ability and never really get “tested”.
How do you deal with this problem?
Angela: Wow, these are great questions and very real ones. I have had several students who have had a history of trauma from mild to very severe and I think the key word is TRUST. I lead with a no bullshit approach, and I push students to their breaking points, but because of my background in Chaplaincy, hospice and counseling, I never do this without having first created a safe space.
I lead with ferocity but also a feminine energy (not meaning, because I’m a woman, just more circular). I sit the women down in a circle before we start, I share a little bit about my fear and vulnerability, not in a sense of oversharing, or being “soft”, but so that they will trust me. I tell them that I am okay holding any of their “feelings” and that my job is not for them to like me, but to ruffle their feathers.
That said, because I am a trained professional in creating community, safe spaces and counseling…I feel able to not baby women who have had past experiences, but go at their speed. Many of the women are also seeing therapist in conjunction with self-defense training. I’ve had so many different experiences and deal with them each on an individual basis, through deep listening and a mutual trust relationship. If I have not established trust or created a safe space, I would not be able to do this. I think that is why it can be so healing to have a Woman teach all women’s self-defense. In these environments, it can feel safe enough to break down, fall apart, get angry, and work through trauma. Even though my goal is to explore their limbic threshold through pushing physically and psychologically, I am also a fierce nurturer, and energetically embody a safe presence.
I also am not an advocate of protecting or babying women, but I don’t think it is black and white, especially when dealing with real trauma. This is where I think self-defense is such a personal journey and there are no “right and wrong” answers.
I do not change the intensity or ferocity of my teaching, but I am highly aware and sensitive, to those who have had prior experiences.
Sometimes I’ll have them work with specific people, like my assistants. I always provide techniques for self-care after. I also make sure to let these women know that they are in charge. I do not force anyone to go where they are not ready to go, but I work with them in an intimate way to take their power back…again, for each woman I’ve worked with, it’s been a personal journey.
So, I guess, my “circular answer” to your great question is…I could not do the work I do, I could not ask women to go to the places that scare them the most, if I did not first create trust and a safe space. This is one reason I think it is helpful to have female teachers of Self Defense. It’s hard to fully understand what it’s like to walk around the world as a woman if you are not one. Just like as a white woman, I can never understand fully what it means to walk around as a person of color.
End of Part I.
“I stalked you on the internet…”
“I’ve been lurking around his Facebook page”
“I totally follow every social media site for ________”
Sounds creepy. Only it isn’t in our world of social media. Constant internet access has created a culturally acceptable context under the nomenclature of stalking. We follow each other around on Facebook, Instagram, webpages, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. and joke about stalking people online. We joke about it because it is acceptable behavior. Sometimes we tell on ourselves, sometimes we don’t. If someone tells you they stalked your Facebook page, it is because they are perfectly comfortable with their actions and expect you will be too. It’s what we do because we can – information at our fingertips and all that. This is not an overt indicator of future violence. Nor is it an indicator –in and of itself – of twisted social scripts, and if they never tell you…you will be completely unaffected. Calling this new form of voyeuristic research stalking is an unfortunate, albeit loosely accurate application of the language; but it is not an expression of violence or risk.
What puts stalking on the spectrum of violent behavior is when it involves evident assumptions of license against the autonomy of another human being. While it’s true that not all stalking includes physical violence causing pain, injury, damage, or imprisonment; it is nonetheless well inside the parameters of violence dynamics. It assumes license against autonomy because, at a point, the hunter has made unilateral decisions about the target’s future. Before taking this deeper, two quick reminders from the first article:
On the first point: predators stalk their prey. Humans are predators. Therefore, if you are stalking someone’s Facebook page, you are hunting. Maybe you are just curious about what an old friend from high school is up to, but it is still hunting.
On the second point: the hunter must reveal itself to complete the hunt. This reveal may be overt, like an ambush; or it may be a gradual build from secretive to evident behaviors demonstrating a toxic spin of standard social scripts. In either category there is a point along the continuum in which the target becomes conscious of the hunter.
When the awareness hits, our understanding of what it means to be prey kicks in. Our lizard brain opens both eyes and knocks on the back door of our monkey and human brains. Senses heighten and a variety of physical warning signals begin to flash in the target’s body. Reports of feeling the presence of the predator long before there is visual contact are not paranoia. This is our instinct-driven ability to identify subtle changes in the environment necessary for survival when we lived on the savannah following herds.
In our current reality, most people have never met their Lizard brain. This is not a bad thing. It is good to experience safety and security. Because most people have not met their primitive Lizard brain, most people in domesticated societies do not know what it feels like when the Lizard brain begins to stir. The consequence is dismissal. If the Lizard brain begins to shake off its hibernation and you have no context for it, your monkey brain will resist it.
This is critical. Even in the mid stages of a stalking timeline when the Threat’s actions are becoming more obvious, targets will create justifications for their primal alarm system and work to dismiss/justify the Threat’s behavior.
I have the odd distinction of being hunted by two distinct types of stalkers[1]. Drawing from these experiences, I can look back at the timelines and see any number of red flags that were present early on in the hunt. I did not identify them consciously because they didn’t match any of my mental blue prints. My Lizard brain stirred and I ignored it. Too primitive. Too visceral. Too antithetical to my social scripts and schemas.
This is what makes conscious boundary setting a complex and uncertain process when we try to apply boundary setting to stalking dynamics.
Dismissing the early indicators guarantees the hunt will progress and the hunter will grow more confident. Early awareness is no magic wand. Awareness is insufficient without action and early action may or may not shut the stalking behaviors down. Early detection does give the intended target a greater number of options. Uninterrupted, the stalking timeline escalates. Always. As the timeline escalates, options for the target shrink and standard boundary setting becomes increasingly ineffective and has been known to periodically escalate the stalker’s aggression.
What are the early indicators? In reviewing the common published bullet points, the material generally addresses behavioral indicators of the stalker, which means the hunt has progressed fairly deep into the timeline. If the behavior is observable by the target or a third party, the hunter is getting more confident and doesn’t mind being seen. Again, once the hunting behavior is openly observable, the timeline is deep.
I want to press back even farther. Instead of trying to find ways to see a hunter in stealth mode, let’s go to something potentially more reliable at an earlier point on the timeline. The movement of your Lizard Brain.
The subtle internal markers of your Lizard Brain coming awake can show up before observable behavioral flags in the Threat. If the hair stands up on the back of your neck or you feel like you need to shake off an interaction – literally – this is the Lizard brain stirring inside its hibernation. There are other indicators of your lizard brain waking up; the instinct to stop and look around for no apparent reason, a gut check that you’re being watched, eyes narrowing (yours) in response to an interaction with someone who bugs you, the little voice in the back of your head that was weird, again as it relates to bumping into the person hunting you.
One of the responsibilities of your primal survival programming is to make you invisible to the Threat. Eyes (and the brains processing the visual information), like things that move. Predator’s eyes are designed to really like things that move. Moving shadows under the cabinets mean potential meals for house cats. It’s why cats like to play with pieces of string pulled across the floor. It is also why mice freeze when Fluffy makes the scene. So do we. Another indicator your Lizard brain is being summoned is when you feel the need to just go still. You are more noticeable when you move, easier to see, easier to assess, easier to track. When you are still, you are less attractive. It is why playing possum works for the possums. No, it’s not quite that simple but the Lizard brain is working off some pretty primal cues.
These are a few examples of what it can look/feel like when your primal survival instincts are beginning to influence your perception. There are more and some will be unique to you and your circumstances. Our lizard brains have not gone extinct for a reason. When yours wants to come out of hibernation, make note. The earliest of warning signs won’t stand up in isolation but if you keep track of little Lizard Brain Alerts, you gain an advantage in the timeline.
Note: I would be remiss to ignore the obvious. Lizard Brain Alerts do not automatically mean you are being stalked, it is a correlation of sorts. Our eyes narrow when we experience something distasteful, that could be any number of things. Right now, this is all theory and throwing darts to see what might be useful, or not.
[1] There are several taxonomies for categories of stalking patterns depending on the research and researcher. No one taxonomy is universally accepted as best I can ascertain.
The subject of women and self defence has been a popular topic in recent months following a small number of incidents in the city where I live. In response the Academy of Self Defence, where I am a senior instructor, have provided free seminars followed by the offer of structured classes, after which I am always left asking myself the same question with increasing frustration.
What the hell is it that woman want from self defence training, do they even want to train?
My father was keen for his children to learn martial arts but it was actually his first grandson who eventually showed an interest. I didn’t feel the need until I reached my mid-thirties. That stemmed from an altercation whist driving with my then nine month old son asleep in the back of the car. Now whilst I was quick to hit the hijack locks it made me realise I needed something more to protect my valuable cargo on a daily basis no matter what, when or where.
My first attempt was to accompany a work colleague to a kick boxing class where the instructor simply allowed his teenage pupils to freely kick us in the head. Thankfully that knocked some sense in to me and I sought the wisdom of my father who directed me to the very same club he had taken my nephew to all those years ago. I was greeted by a shaven headed chap dressed head to toe in a bright red Gi (ringing any bells Garry?). The class was a good mix of male & female students (tick). There were separate male/female changing areas (tick). There was even another new starter, albeit a man, who is still one of my regular training partners today and my dogs vet! I won’t lie it was a daunting experience and I’ll let you into a secret, I did take my father with me like the typical daddy’s girl that I am.
Not everyone is as fortunate to find a legit dojo like me, filled with the fantastic people who after all these years I can honestly call my friends…you all know who you are. I am now a third dan black belt and senior instructor, my son is a junior black belt and junior instructor. The club I joined has transformed over the years for the better.
So you might be thinking I know what women want, but I don’t. I was lucky, determined (I bought a Gi on my second lesson) and that way minded…I have two older brothers who I used to play fight with which explains a lot in my book. Garry and I receive numerous queries from women who want self defence training. We take part in radio shows, provide free seminars in response to actual attacks on local women and organise mini courses to suit.
These efforts generate a lot of interest, but the promises of attendance soon turn to excuses and cancellations as the day draws near. That passion and drive I felt attending my first lesson isn’t there. Does this mean it takes a particular type of woman or mind set? I wonder if they would only give it a go they could see the physical and mental benefits this type of training has to offer. It could realistically save a life where else can you get that kind of experience?
Many women sit for hours in a gym in spinning classes, but you can’t spin an attacker though I suppose you could throw the bike at him were it not bolted down. Are women so preoccupied with high energy routines they think will result in a quick weight loss they don’t consider the long term benefits of a martial art or self defence training?
Or is it that they simply want the silver bullet of self defence delivered in a single one hour session (could you make it half an hour) at a convenient time of day, for free, oh and I don’t want to do anything too physical. I’m being sarcastic but it’s how I feel sometimes when faced with this dilemma. So in my quest for some kind of understanding into the minds of women I am going to reach out to a random group of women on the interweb and I’ll get back to you.
Oh and in case you were wondering whether I would have changed anything about the day that brought me to training in the first place, my answer is no, not a thing. I only wish I’d turned up twenty years earlier but at least my father got his wish, he now has three black belts in the family.
Jayne is a director of CRGI, a 3rd dan black belt in Ju Jitsu and a Senior Instructor teaching Ju Jitsu and self defence classes at the Academy of Self Defence.
www.academyofselfdefence.co.uk
I grew up around the phrase “necessary evil”. It was used to indicate a task or action necessary, but unfortunate. Something that, if it could be avoided, would be avoided.
The colloquialism has a lot of play when it comes to creating an open culture for women on the mat. Necessary fits because intentional conscious effort is necessary to turn good intentions into tangible impact.
A necessary evil because making this conscious effort isn’t without backlash and because in a perfect world, there would be no need for the effort. In a perfect world, conversations about how to get more women a) through the door and b) how to get them to stay, would be moot.
In this perfect world women grow up training at the same rate and percentage as men. They grow up with effective socialization for boundary setting and with a more comfortable (normalized?) context of violence.
As of now, this is not the norm.
The number of untrained women is substantially greater than the numbers of untrained men and the statistics of violence against women remains markedly high (also in comparison). I am hesitant to lean too heavily on published stats for our conversation because those are generally inaccurate. If you train, have ever trained, your experience may be enough to validate these assertions. Training centers with greater than 20% women are rare. That number comes from one of the organizations I am affiliated with, and I don’t know if there are any broad scope numbers we can generalize so I am working with what I have. The numbers are gleaned from experience, and a small sampling statistical sampling. Bear that in mind.
The end result? It’s not a perfect world so the questions get recycled. How do we get women in to train? How do we keep them once they come in for a trial? There is no single, effective answer. Each style of training, each individual dojo or location has its own flavor and culture. Whatever the culture or training approach, I can safely make one generalization. Low numbers of women are reflected in the attitude expressed toward women on the mat.
You can gain insight to what the attitude may be by looking at the following:
Are there a few token females or are women expected to be there?
When the men show up to train, are they surprised when a new female student is on the mat? Is she treated like a snowflake?
Shunned as too weak to be a good training partner?
Is she respected as formidable (or with the potential to become formidable)?
Are the male students dropping trou in public spaces or do they step into a bathroom to change?
If it’s cool for men to discreetly publically remove groin protection after training, is it cool for the women to do the same, or do the women get grief for it?
The culture of the mat space determines the protocols and like water, the attitude runs downhill. The instructors set the tone and the students will – mostly – follow suit. No big surprise on this one, right?
What has piqued my curiosity is the backlash lurking about the edges. As training programs make efforts to create environments in which women are as comfortable hitting/rolling/grappling as men, there are a few men who are kicking up a little dust. What about the men? Why aren’t the women being asked to make the men more comfortable? Why shouldn’t the girls be asked to put the toilet seat up?
If training programs and dojos had risen up out of Amazon Princess Warrior cultures and men were only recently being encouraged and accepted, this would be a valid question. That isn’t the history.
Whether it’s through humor, protocols, expectations, or ritual there are effective ways to bring more women to the mat. If the men get resistant to the efforts creating an invitational environment to both men and women; here is a question.
What are you afraid of?
And the guys are not the only ones who resist efforts to create an effective training environment for women, there are women who fight it as well. The women who are accustomed to being the token female in a male environment can fight to maintain their position. They can resist sharing the status they have earned by toughing it out in the “boy’s locker room”. This is a different problem. The question about fear remains.
Guilt and Punishment
All of us are prone to feel guilty about something or other. It’s quite normal, no need to feel guilty about it.
We all feel guilty about something, eating too much, eating too little, praying too little, loving too much or too little, being too honest or not telling the whole truth, wanting someone we shouldn’t or not wanting the one we “should”, believing in God, not believing in anyone, workaholics, shopaholics, drug addicts, alcoholics, pheromones, nymphomaniacs…and what else?! We all have our little “sins”.
But what does this actually mean? Well, if we all feel guilty, we all have a need (subconscious or not) to be punished. “Horrible” as it sounds, in one way or another, this is how you attract violence into your life. Whether you are violent in some ways towards yourself, you let someone treat you badly or you attract an aggressive incident.
Sigmund Freud (1916) explained that most of us aren’t strong enough (character-wise speaking) to “supress” our guilt without feeling self-deceived and therefore diverse forms of self-punishment are formed. He divided these into “the criminal from a sense of guilt”, “those wrecked by success” and “other self-sabotaging and self-tormenting character types”.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed (1887) that we want to experience guilt as we have a rooted desire to cause suffering, in order to dominate others and express power. It is our integration into society and culture that prevents us from doing so, but the instinct is always there.
From a religious point of view we grow up believing we “should be” or “could be” better people, but consider ourselves unable to (due to our nature/instinct), therefore we feel guilt (and confess, donate, fast, cry, suffer, pray for forgiveness etc’).
In all these explanations the common factor is that the feeling of guilt leads to the “agreement”, or even the will, to suffer. Once we pay that price our guilt feeling diminishes and we are able to feel good again until the next time.
How This Impacts Our Vulnerability
So, if you subconsciously (or consciously) feel guilty about something, you are more likely to look for trouble, or let trouble look for you. Now, I am not saying that you wake up in the morning, leave your home and try to find someone out there to beat you up. But I believe that you create, knowingly or not, an energy field around you (“I feel guilty, I should be punished, I feel unworthy, I feel vulnerable”) which will attract an aggressor more readily. Aggressors look for this type of “easy victim”, people who are submissive and not likely to fight back. If you believe you should be punished, your inner strength and will to survive will be weaker than if you believe your life is worth living that you are worth living.
On the other hand, if you are a person who is generally more connected and aware of your feelings, and self-being, you have been working on your guilt and anger, and the energy around you “feels” to the aggressor as if you are “not the right one”. In this sense it would be challenging to fight you and it won’t be that pleasurable. The aggressor is looking for a submissive person in order to feel more powerful (himself); if you are not that, then the “power trip” is …. pointless.
It has been scientifically proven that aggressors, like wild animals, choose their victims by picking up on subconscious signals. The “predator” knows in a matter of a few seconds who is a suitable target and who isn’t.
Hardening the target
“If I had the slightest inkling that a woman wasn’t someone I could easily handle, then I would pass right on by. Or if I thought I couldn’t control the situation, then I wouldn’t even mess with the house, much less attempt a rape there.” (Brad Morrison, a convicted sex offender who raped 75 women, quoted in Predators: Who They Are and How to Stop Them by Gregory M. Cooper, Michael R. King, and Thomas McHoes) “Like, if they had a dog, then forget it. Even a small one makes too much noise. If I saw a pair of construction boots, for example, out on the porch or on the landing, I walked right on by. In fact, I think if women who live alone would put a pair of old construction boots—or something that makes it look like a physically fit manly type of guy lives with them—out in front of their door, most rapists or even burglars wouldn’t even think about trying to get into their home.”
Betty Grayson and Morris I. Stein (1984) tried to find out what attracts aggressors to certain victims and what doesn’t. After videotaping pedestrians (without their knowledge) on a busy street in New York, they asked convicts to make their selection of who they would choose to attack, within seven seconds. The results were surprising. The selection was not depending on age, race, size or gender (for example, some small women were passed over and some large men were selected). Even the convicts themselves didn’t know how to explain their choice. But what was common to all the “potential victims” selection, was a few things in their body language, that sends messages to the subconscious mind that that person is weak, is distracted, can’t defend themselves, and feels as if they deserve to suffer (lack of self-love, again the guilt feeling).
To give a few examples, the potential victims that were selected dragged or shuffled their feet when walking, while “non-victims” had a smooth stride stepping heel to toe; potential victims walked slower than non-victims, or had an unnaturally rapid pace when nervous or scared, while non-victims had again a steady “normal” pace of walk; potential victims had a slumped posture that indicates weakness or submissiveness and a downward gaze (the guilt again!) whereas non-victims had a confident, “correct” posture and looked straight and around (situational awareness).
So, Can you “fake it till you make it”? Can you fake the body language to seem more confident and not be potentially selected by aggressors? The answer is YES, you can walk more confidently, you can seem to be more centered, you can be more aware of your environment, you can change the pace and stride of your walk… but can you really fake confidence? can you fake inner strength? Can you fake self-love…? The non-verbal signals your body will give up in a stressful situation is not something you can easily camouflage.
