The more I think about
it, the more it looks like a
marketing scheme that caters
to the modern consumers’
desire for instant gratification.
In my experience, there are no
shortcuts to developing the
skills necessary to adequately
protect yourself from a violent
aggressor, whether you’re a
woman or man. That said, any
instructor worth their salt knows
this all too well. They would
also know that a few classes on
advanced techniques and tactics
with no concept of the basics
will do little more than provide
students with a false sense
of security.
A few months ago, a female
friend asked if I would teach her
some women’s self-defence.
I said, “Sure — I’ll teach you
Isoshikai karate!” She explained
that she had no use for any
of the elements other than
what would work in a real
fight; she had no interest in the
uniforms, kata, meditation or
anything else.
The problem is, where
learning self-defence is
concerned, everything in karate
is connected: the uniforms
indicate good technique via an
audible snap; the kata is the
blueprint that demonstrates
the variety of ways in which
the techniques therein can be
applied; and the meditation is a
mental exercise that teaches you
to calm your mind in a crisis.
Again, there are no shortcuts.
It will take a lot of time, sweat,
perseverance, bruises and
patience to advance to a point
where you are really prepared
to defend yourself. Yet, after
just one special self-defence
class, it is not uncommon for the
student to leave the dojo feeling
like she is ready to take on the
world, and ready to face down
and defeat a real aggressor
threatening real violence.
These students could not be
more wrong.
When enrolling in a core
curriculum, however, there is
a very different perception —
regardless of the system. The
student is training in this very
old, tried-and-tested method
of self-protection, and yet after
her first class, she knows she is
far from ready for real violence.
Why? Because she is wearing
a new white belt around her
waist. Even if she has never seen
The Karate Kid or The Perfect
Weapon, it’s universally known
that a White-belt is a novice.
As a novice, it takes a special
kind of arrogance or stupidity to
believe you are ready to handle
real violence. Yet, women’s self-
defence classes can encourage
this perception.
I have watched many women
go through just a handful of
women’s self-defence courses
and leave with an over-inflated
sense of security that actuallyattracted assailants, resulting in
a very painful reality check. For
example, my US Navy command
requested that I run a women’s
self-defence class on base while
stationed in Japan back in 1999,
after a few female sailors had
been sexually harassed at a
popular night club. Because my
classes were free, a lot of people
came for lessons. As with every
other women’s self-defence class,
I selected a few techniques from
my core curriculum of karate, all
of which were geared toward
stun-and-run tactics. Students
would practise on the bags and
pads, and then role-play.
At the time, there was a
woman in the class named
Carole, who already had a
strong personality. After only
a week of classes, she and her
husband went to the base club
for salsa night and, for whatever
reason, she wound up in a verbal
altercation with a man. Instead of
walking away, because she had
taken a few self-defence classes,
she decided to escalate it to a fist
fight — a fight she lost. She cameinto the next class with her wrist
in a brace and some mild bruising
to the side of her neck to inform
me that she was quitting because
my techniques had failed her.
According to her, she should
have been prepared to handle
any man in a fight because she
had taken my women’s self-
defence class (and a few others
before coming to mine). As her
husband described it, she had
been uncharacteristically bold
at the club. When a fellow sailor
attempted to dance with her
on the floor, where she would
have in the past directly told him
“not interested”, in this case she
instead responded aggressively
and continued to do so after
he’d started to walk away.
Now, the male sailor cannotbe excused for his part in what
occurred, but the point is that it
could easily have been avoided
— that’s self-defence.
A couple of years later,
another female friend asked me
to teach her self-defence, as
she was involved in an abusive
relationship. Naturally, I agreed
to teach her but, again, instead
of training her as an official
student of my curriculum, I
approached her training as just
another self-defence course. It
was only a few weeks into her
training when trouble found her,
but not at home: she witnessed
a mugging and rushed in to help
a woman who was in a tug-of-
war over her bag. She managed
to break the mugger’s grip, but
instead of then running some
distance from the aggressor as
the victim had, she stood herground to fight. According to
her, the thug started to leave but
when she took a fighting stance,
he took it as an invitation to test
her newly acquired skills. And
her skills were no match for his.
Thankfully, she wasn’t injured
too badly, but she spent the next
few days in a lot of pain.
In both instances, had the
women in question been more
aware of their true standing in
terms of skill and preparedness,
they would have responded
differently. Instead of further
escalating the conflict, they
could have defused it simply by
letting the aggressors leave. I
blame myself for both of these
outcomes, for it’s my belief
that had I enrolled them in
my standard curriculum, they
would have had a completely
different mindset going into
those situations.
My opinion is that if you’re
looking to learn self-defence
and you wander into a karate,
taekwondo, jujitsu or other
martial arts school and they
offer a separate class for
women’s self-defence, you are in
the wrong place. Avoid schools
with lots of trophies in the
windows, too, as these schools
likely focus on tournament
fighting, which is vastly different
from self-protection. Align
yourself to a school where you
can get the whole product.
And when you come across
an aspect of training that
seems disconnected from self-
defence, ask questions. When
an instructor doesn’t know
the answer, it’ll be easy to tell
if they’re trying to snow you
or not.
These days, I highly advise
against courses that are
advertised strictly as women’s
self-defence. They can, in my
experience, be a prelude to
disaster.Jason Sigler has been involved in the martial arts since 1982. He holds a 5th
Dan rank in both Budokan karate and tang soo do, 3rd Dan in Shotokan
and 1st Dan in Kukkiwon/Jido Kwan taekwondo. He lived and trained in
Japan from 1997 through 2012 and now teaches his “own flavour” of karate,
Isoshikai, focusing on pragmatic kata and bunkai (combative applications), as
well as helping out at his wife’s taekwondo school.“SHE MANAGED TO BREAK THE MUGGER’S
GRIP, BUT INSTEAD OF THEN RUNNING FROM
THE AGGRESSOR AS THE VICTIM HAD, SHE
STOOD HER GROUND TO FIGHT.”MARTIAL MINDS |ƫ333ċ (%06) #ċ*!0ƫđƫ^89