A
friend of mine recently
posted a video on a social
media site regarding
women’s self-defence and asked
for my thoughts on the topic.
Ladies, if you’ve ever visited
a martial arts school while
searching for the one that
would be a ‘right fit’ for you,
you’ve probably been shown
a list of courses or products
offered therein, aside from the
core curriculum offered by
the school. These may have
included cardio kickboxing,
bully-proofing and reality-based
self-defence or, specifically, self-
defence for women.The way the latter seems
to work is that women would
come into the dojo for regular
classes each week. During each
class I, as the instructor, would
select a few techniques that
I felt were most relevant to a
situation where a woman might
need to protect herself. I might
select strikes such as palm-heel
strikes, eye gouges, knee strikes
to the groin and so on, and we
might cover a few different
escapes from various holds that
a woman might be placed in by
an aggressor. The women will
then practise the techniques
on a bag or pad and then we’llrole-play so they can put into
practice what they’ve learned
during the evening course.
The idea sounds great.
It even looks amazing on
paper and when seen in
advertisements, it provides a
feeling of hope and security.
The reality, however, isn’t quite
so simple. Providing a women’s
self-defence program such as
this actually short-changes the
prospective students.
What I mean is that the
techniques and tactics I select
to teach in the women’s self-
defence class come directly
out of my core curriculum.So, by picking and choosing
specific techniques, I’m actually
providing only part of a whole
product. Take the construction
of a house, for example:
when building a house, you
must first lay the foundation
and then the framework. For
the construction of a sturdy
house, you must have all the
elements of said production.
Self-defence is the same way.
You have to first cultivate
a strong foundation — but
it seems to me that these
women’s self-defence
classes forego foundation
development altogether.Self-Defence for Women
GUEST SPEAKERShould ‘women’s self-defence’ be a thing, or is it diluting the true value of
what can be gained through applied learning of a martial art, for both men
and women? US karate instructor and ex-military man Jason Sigler shares
his opinion on the concept.JONAS GRATZER/LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGES88 ƫđƫ333ċ (%06) #ċ*!0 | (^) MARTIAL MINDS