Women Self Defense

Crime, terrorist activities and disasters create fear because they seem so random and unpredictable. You can’t control everything, but you can take the time to think about what you would do in an emergency. If you do your research, you can minimize the dangers and cope with the aftermath.

(1) Improve Your Awareness

When going about your daily activities, it’s easy to forget everyday risks. At work, you may get used to stepping over loose wires near your desk; on the street, you answer your mobile phone when it rings; and in the supermarket car park, you concentrate your attention. on loading your car with groceries. You’re probably not thinking about tripping on a wire, having your phone stolen or getting mugged. However, in order to protect yourself effectively, you have to be better aware of your surroundings.

(2) Analyze Your Routine

Over the course of the next few days, try to assess all the risks of everything you do: as you are driving, look for danger spots and consider how your driving might affect others; if you travel alone at night, do you stay in well-lit areas and have you picked out safe havens on your route?

Around the house, what might cause you to trip or knock something over? If you are doing anything that might be putting you at risk, be prepared to make changes.

Are you putting yourself at risk? Making a call on the street can distract you from possible dangers. Instead, do it when you’re inside a safe place.

(3) Read the Danger Signals

Sensing, processing and evaluating the world around us is something we do without thinking. When having a conversation, for example, you pick up on small changes in a person’s tone of voice or facial expression and are able to recognize if he is becoming angry or threatening even before he says anything specific. Whether you call this a ‘gut reaction’, ‘intuition’ or ‘natural instincts’, this is what helps us to avoid or react to danger and, ultimately, to survive.

Sometimes acting on these signals might go against your social conditioning. For example, if you are in an office and a work colleague suddenly becomes crude, suggestive or abusive, you might get embarrassed and hesitate to say or do anything for fear of causing a scene. But you should trust your instincts and act upon them. Tell the colleague directly that you object to the way he is talking to you. If his offensive behaviour continues, be prepared to take the matter further.

(4) Prepare for Fear

In dangerous situations, fear can cause some profound physical reactions, for which you should be ready. In moments of crisis, some people freeze and have difficulty screaming. Some have trouble understanding what is going on. In extreme situations, some people vomit, defecate or urinate – all of which are’ involuntary and should not be read as a sign of weakness. Another major physical response is the body’s release of the hormone adrenaline, which is called the ‘fight or flight’ syndrome.

(5) Choose a Course of Action

Although most of us no longer have to use our survival instincts, we do still have them. Bear this in mind if you’re worried that you wouldn’t know what to do if you were attacked, had an accident, or were in a disaster. Nobody can tell you the perfect course of action, as each situation is different, hut, basically, if confronted with an emergency you should take the following steps:

• ASSESS THE SITUATION

Working quickly and using all your senses, establish exactly what has happened and whether there are any continuing risks to yourself or others.

• MAKE IT SAFE If there are any remaining hazards, you may need to remove them before doing anything else. For example, following a car accident, one of the first things that you should do is switch off the ignition, even if the engine isn’t running. Or if there is an intruder in the house, get out before calling the police.

• GET HELP In most emergency situations you will require help, whether it’s from the emergency services or from passers-by. If you are being attacked in the street, screaming may scare off your assailant and bring people to your aid.

• USE FIRST AID If someone is seriously injured, you may need to give emergency treatment, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

Finally, trust yourself to make the right decision. It will be based on your instinctive assessment of the facts at hand, as well as your common sense and your previous experience.

This is a true story:

In New Mexico, gangs initiated new members by driving around with their lights off. The first oncoming car that flashed its lights as a “friendly heads up” would become the “target car”. The gang would circle around and the new member’s role was to shoot at the car… no matter WHO was in it!

Yes, violence comes in many forms anywhere anytime!

However, most people don’t even consider preparing for, and it’s a HUGE mistake!

For example, what if you were:

- Attacked by a crowd of people at a demonstration?

- Being chased by a driver on the highway who you mistakenly
cut off and he’s trying to run you down?

- Targeted by a violent gang out looking for a thrill?

These are very real scenarios that you MUST prepare for!

For this reason, you need to include “evasive driving” in your survival plan.

Here are a few tips you can master for evasive driving skills when you’re being chased by a car full of attackers:

1. “Speed” is not necessarily your best alternative

The one who survives a high speed car chase isn’t usually the fastest, it’s the one who doesn’t crash.

Watch those idiots being chased by police on shows like “Cops” and those crazy “caught on video” shows and you’ll see that all the police have to do is follow the perp until he wraps himself around a telephone pole and then put the cuffs on him.

In a chase, try not to travel over 65mph to make sure you can handle your car effectively on the turn of a dime.

2. Turn when they can’t

Rather than try to outrun someone, let them get close enough to you and then take a quick, last minute turn in a different direction.

Action is faster than reaction and if they’re behind you, they won’t be able to respond in time to take the same turn you just did. They’ll either crash or have to back up to follow you and by then, you’ll be long gone.

3. If on a highway, take a 4-lane exit

If you’re being chased by someone on the highway, identify an upcoming exit and move to the far LEFT lane.

With your pursuer close behind you, make sure you have clearance and at the last minute, shoot across all 4 lanes to barely make your exit. It will be difficult for them to back up, especially in the left lane against traffic, to follow you.

4. Distract the driver

If you’re driving at night, reach under your seat and pull out a 2- to 5,000,000 candlepower spotlight. (You can get these from any boating or auto store.)

Shine it behind you at the driver and you’ll instantly blind him. He’ll likely stop the car out of sheer panic of crashing (which he may do).

These are just a few of the tricks you can use to escape from someone while you’re in your vehicle. For even “sneakier” advice, there’s a whole section on “survival driving” in a new book and audio program just released on “escape and evasion during riots“, called the “Social Chaos Survival Guide”, click here to learn more.

Remember, proactive prevention measures is surely better than being forced to face it unprepared. This can be a matter of live or death issue for you and your family.

Is there any Best Self Defense Move especially for women? The answer to this ‘frequently asked question’ is there is none, i.e. there is NO one best self defense moves especially best for every woman in every situation.

From a solely physical perspective, all self defense is, is tool and target development. The ‘master’ developed the tools, understand how to apply these to the relevant targets in a non-telegraphic way using efficient motion and then work on how to apply these against a resistant attacker in any situation and environment.

However, the tools applied have to be relevant to the situation. Someone may has the best side kick in the world but he/ she still may find it of little use if you are king-hit and then tackled to the ground. As for women especially if they are wearing restricting clothing, seated, lying down, in their car etc. Their best move is whatever is relevant, applicable and will be able to get the desired result in your attacker in any situation or circumstances.

The physical delivery of the tools is subject to a few principles to ensure maximum effectiveness against an attacker.

The main principles are:

(1)    Efficient Motion – This principle states that we should not do anything that is not directly required for the execution of the objective. In other words, take the easiest and shortest route to launch your strikes without any superfluous, exaggerated or expanded movement.

In most of the martial arts there is a lot of unnecessary motions, the usual reason for this is to develop other important attributes, or simply for aesthetics but when it comes to self defense application often times we need to “trim back” what we do to ensure efficient delivery.

(2)    Non-Telegraphic Movement – The unexpected shot is the one that hurts the most. As such, it is crucial to ensure that movements are non-telegraphic to ensure maximum ‘shock or surprise’ value and eliminate the chance of the attacker’s reflective response stopping you from executing our shot.

Below are the simple principles applicable to get this:

(a)    Proper understanding and use of the 6 combat ranges, i.e. :

1.       Striking

2.       Kicking

3.       Lunging

4.       Grabbing

5.       Trapping

6.       Ground Fighting

Many of the martial artists are good in one or two of these 6 ranges only.  Real attacks are dynamic and move fluidly between ranges at an extreme fast  pace and although there are a couple which are the most common it is still important to have an understanding and skill set to handle them all. When you do have that understanding, you will instinctively use the correct tools for the different ranges and not do what I call “forcing a range” simply because you feel more comfortable there. What you are comfortable with is irrelevant.

The attacker will use what he is comfortable with and if that is different to what you expect you will find yourself in a very bad place. The correct use of the relevant tool for the given range is critical in delivering non-telegraphic movement.

(b)   Correct understanding to eliminate ‘Pre-Contact-Indicator’ of every tool. When delivering the ‘move’ the first thing that should move is the intended tool, the body and everything else follows, not the other way around. Definitely, a correction of weight distribution, torquing of the hips, loading of the hand to the hip etc will add power to a hand strike, but all that is useless if you cannot execute it on your target because you have made it so telegraphic in its delivery that your attacker has already expected and reacted accordingly.

(c)    As important as an understanding of our opponent’s Pre-Contact-Indicators is to us as the ‘defender’ to help us intercept their intention-to-action and develop heightened perception speed, it is also important to understand how they apply to ourselves in the delivery of each individual tool so that we can work on reducing or eliminating them. These are the keys to non telegraphic movement.

(3)    Delivery of the tools from both a defensive and/or offensive aspect also should include continuous defensive positioning to allow for your opponents’ multiple possible reactions to your strikes. Something as simple as a flailing arm from your opponent can cause serious damage if you are not protected from this possibility. Keeping a strong defensive position throughout your attack/response is very important.

The physical aspect of defending ourselves is  a broad and multi-dimensional topic. Remember if the situation must go physical is to do whatever the situation justifiably calls for in the most efficient means possible to allow you to protect yourself and your family and to escape to safety. Don’t bother about making the ‘moves’ look good or fit into your system. As soon as you start to worry yourself with aesthetics you lose focus on the actual goal, which is to cause reasonable damage to your attacker as fast and efficiently as possible.

The goal here is to survive, not to ‘win’. No-one ever ‘wins’ a real fight. Do whatever it takes to free yourself out of the situation, analyze the confrontation and situation and learn from it to help you avoid it ever happening again. If you achieve that, then your self defense training has served you well.

In summary, if you really cannot avoid or defuse any dangerous attack and has to confront with physical , the’ Best Self Defense Move’ is the one that does the job and gets you home!