Get the Facts and Learn to Fight: A Program for Young Women

Here's an interesting looking training program aimed at women and girls aged 11-19: Just Yell Fire. (Note: this website automatically runs video with sound when you open it, so be forewarned.)

The people behind this -- who include a 16-year-old woman black belt named Dallas Jessup -- are concerned about the risks to younger women. They discuss date rape and dating issues as well as how to fight back against physical attack.

The name comes from their theory that we're used to hearing people yell "help" when they don't really mean it, so the recommend yelling "fire" instead. When I took Model Mugging -- now generally known as Impact -- we were taught to yell "no" for the same reason.

They offer workshops and they also offer instruction for self defense trainers. They've also done a movie showing self defense skills. I haven't watched it yet, but I'll review it here when I do.

Pay Attention: Take Off Those Headphones, Put Away That Video Game, Close That Book ...

Remember when you were a kid, sitting around with a book, or a game, or just daydreaming, and some adult -- a parent or a teacher or maybe a coach -- yelled at you, "Pay attention."

And you said -- automatically -- "I am paying attention."

But, of course, you weren't. You were in your own world, and just trying to keep a small piece of your mind alert for what the adult in question found important, to stay out of trouble. Not very successfully, I might add, or they wouldn't have yelled at you.

Now I'm not here to criticize you for tuning out boring teachers or lectures on cleaning up your room -- far from it. My high school English teacher's take on English poets drove me nuts, so I sat in the back of the room and read Sartre. These days I tend to read and listen to the radio while eating dinner.

But I've noticed something: If there's an interesting news report on the radio, or a song I really love, I tend to read a page without knowing what I read. Likewise, when I get engrossed in what I'm reading, I miss what was said on the radio, often coming out of my fog to find that I've just missed the story I most wanted to hear. And sometimes I find I've finished dinner without noticing what I ate.

And I really didn't listen to the English teacher.

If you're really paying attention to one thing, you're giving something else short shrift. That doesn't really matter when you're home alone with the radio and a book, but it's hugely important when you're walking down the street. Or driving.

I've been musing on this ever since I heard about the tragic rail crash in Los Angeles, in which at least 25 people died. Some reports on the crash suggest that the engineer was text-messaging at the time of the crash -- though I don't know if this has been actually proved -- and there has been a rush to pass a rule against using portable electronics while running a train.

Now you'd think such a rule wouldn't be necessary, that any sane person would know you couldn't drive a train and text message at the same time. But given the number of people who drive cars while talking on their cell phones (and yes, text messaging), it appears that there are large numbers of people who really don't understand how much attention it takes to operate a train or a car, and how much their attention can be dragged away by an interesting text-message conversation.

It's just too easy to get caught up in one of the things you're doing, at the expense of the others, and if the thing you're not paying attention to happens to be dangerous, accidents happen.

How does this tie into self defense? If you're paying attention, you can avoid whatever trouble is up ahead, whether it's bad traffic or someone who gives you the creeps. Protecting yourself from attack by other human beings is really quite similar to protecting yourself from accidents.

Don't handicap yourself by dividing your attention when you're driving, biking, or even walking or jogging. Keep yourself and others safe: Pay attention.

Get the Facts: Gender Affects Crime

Ongoing gender inequity in our society affects your risk from crime.

Over on the Burnt Orange Report, liberaltexan, who I believe is male, has an interesting post on male privilege.

Among the things he points out: Women are significantly more at risk from rape and sexual harassment than men are.

Certainly that means that we need to work together to change those numbers, but while we're doing that, individual women need to be aware of their risk and take steps to protect themselves. As I've pointed out before on this blog, the biggest rape danger to women is not from strangers -- even though that's our worst fear -- but from acquaintances.

Sexual harassment is in some ways a trickier situation, because while it includes many annoying but not dangerous actions, it can affect your career. To protect yourself, you must learn how to make a firm response when something happens -- most sexual harassment policies require that the victim let the attacker know that he was out of line. And you must decide when it's necessary to report an action and take further steps.

But before someone starts raving about how men are victimized by sexual harassment (Don't get confused by the movies, guys: as a fiction writer, I can tell you that all those stories of women harassing men are done because role reversal is more fun to write), let me point out one way in which that gender inequality comes back to haunt men:

Men are at much greater risk from homicide than women.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, 79 percent of murder victims in 2006 were male. In fact, the BJS says men were at greater risk for all kinds of violent crime except rape and sexual assault.

Men are often too cavalier about taking care of themselves, assuming that their strength and gender protect them. They, too, need to pay attention and learn the facts.

Get the Facts: Doonesbury on Military Sexual Assault

Looking for a way to pick up a few facts in a short period of time? Read Doonesbury daily.

Garry Trudeau has a real gift for getting at the heart of serious issues while still being funny. He's recently introduced a new character, Melissa, an Iraq war veteran who was raped by her fellow soldiers. Last week she told B.D. about the Congressional hearings on military sexual assault.

If you've got time to investigate solutions to the sexual assault problems in the military, I recommend Erin Solaro's Women in the Line of Fire. In this book about the current experiences of women in the military, Solaro suggests the problem can be solved if the military issues firm orders that sexual harassment and assault will not be tolerated and holds people accountable. Right now, too many people are winking at the problem and taking a "boys will be boys" attitude.

Work Together: Indian Tribes Should Be Able to Prosecute Non-Indians

As a general rule, women are at the greatest risk of rape and sexual assault from men of their own race or ethnicity. A Bureau of Justice Statistics report (pdf) from the late 1990s estimates 88 percent of sexual assaults are committed by someone who is the same race as the victim.

But according to a recent New York Times op-ed, that rule of thumb doesn't apply to Native American women, particularly those who live on reservations. More than 80 percent of Native American women who are attacked say that the rapist was not Indian, law professor N. Bruce Duthu said in the article.

Duthu also cited Justice Department statistics saying one in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes. Rape is a serious problem in Indian Country. You can read the transcript or listen to this report that played on NPR last year to get some idea of the scope of the problem.

And here's the other shoe: Under federal law Indian tribes can't prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on the reservation. In practical terms, that means a non-Indian who commits a crime on an Indian reservation only gets prosecuted if someone can convince a state or federal prosecutor to take action -- something that doesn't happen often, especially in run-of-the mill cases.

Back in the 1970s, when I spent a summer on the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota, I heard of criminal acts by whites living on the reservations -- acts that went unpunished because the Sioux Nation had no jurisdiction over them. It was obvious then that some white people were deliberately taking advantage of the fact that they were immune from prosecution in the tribal courts. Since that time, according to Duthu, the Supreme Court has upheld the limited jurisdiction of Indian courts.

Congress needs to act now to change this law; it's way overdue. Indian tribes should have the same right to enforce their laws in their territory as any other political subdivision in the country. As long as their authority is limited, Native American women will be targets.

Trust Your Instincts: Older People Can Defend Themselves, Too

The Tulsa World reports that a 75-year-old woman in Moore, Oklahoma, fought off a 35-year-old rapist by kicking him in the groin, poking him the eyes, and hitting him on the head with a cordless phone.

According to the news report, she apparently picked up a few fighting techniques from watching Dr. Phil! I tend to be skeptical about what someone can learn from watching TV, but it apparently helped in this case.

It's just a short news report, but I would assume the rapist wasn't armed. I suspect the woman read the situation and instinctively knew she'd be safer fighting back. And she didn't let the fact that he was half her age get in her way.

Learn to Fight: Upcoming Self Defense Classes

It's September, back to school time. Even if you graduated a long time ago, it's a great time to learn something new. Here are some upcoming self defense classes:

Austin:

Sun Dragon Martial Arts is offering a 3-hour basic self defense skills workshop on Saturday, Sept. 13. The cost is $35. Sun Dragon offers classes in Seido Karate and is affiliated with the World Seido Karate Association. Their head instructor, Joy Williamson, is certified as a self defense instructor by National Women's Martial Arts Foundation.

Washington, DC:

Defend Yourself is offering a 3-hour introduction to self defense on Saturday, Sept. 13, at a cost of $55. The class will be held in DC near Howard University. They are also offering a 3-hour workshop on guns, knives and multiple attackers on Oct. 18 for $45 in Takoma Park, MD. Defend Yourself's head instructor is Lauren Taylor, who has been teaching self defense for over 20 years and is also certified as a self defense instructor by National Women's Martial Arts Foundation.

DC Impact is offering a 5-week intensive women's basics class beginning Sept. 14. The cost is $595 and the classes will be held near the Gallery Place Metro stop. I took this class years ago back when the program was first starting in DC, and I highly recommend it.

New Mexico:

Impact Personal Safety in Santa Fe is offering women's basic self defense on Saturdays and Sundays beginning Sept. 20. This program is probably similar to the one offered by DC Impact. They provide a sliding scale fee, ranging from $50 - $450, depending on ability to pay.

North Dakota:

The University of North Dakota Women's Center offers Impact classes and even gives college physical education credits for taking it. Their next class is scheduled for Sept. 12-14.

Pay Attention: Car Accidents Kill More People Than Crime

The latest edition of AAA World, AAA's Mid-Atlantic region magazine, reminds us that our lifetime risk of dying in a car crash is three times as great as our chance of being murdered.

According to the article "Risky Business," about 43,000 people in the U.S. die every year in car crashes, with another 2.5 million suffering disabling injuries.

Those are sobering figures, but there's good news, according to AAA: Most crashes are preventable. The key to preventing car crashes: Paying attention.

A 2006 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that lack of driver attention accounted for nearly 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes. Incidentally, cell phone use was the the most significant factor, though the AAA article also mentions adjusting the radio and other vehicle controls, eating, drinking, and talking to passengers.

The AAA article also discusses the usual suspects -- drunk driving, speeding, aggressive driving -- but also makes a big point about one other major problem: fatigue. It's hard to pay attention when you're falling asleep at the wheel.

Self defense is not just about protecting yourself from crime; it's about protecting yourself from all the dangers out there. Driving is a dangerous activity, but if you pay attention, you can minimize your risk.

Here's an excellent example of what should be a driver no-no: Jamie Lawrence reports from Korea that his bus driver was watching television while driving down a six-lane street. I'd like to think that this is just another of those wacky tales about driving in other countries, but I've seen too many ads for car TVs to discount the possibility that U.S. drivers are doing the same thing.

Life Interferes: An Explanation and a Recommitment

I obviously haven't been blogging much this year. My life got complicated and some things -- including this blog -- fell by the wayside.

As I mentioned earlier on this blog, I moved back to Austin, Texas, after many years in Washington, D.C., and started a new job as the Austin correspondent for my company. I was optimistic when I made that previous post that I'd get back to blogging regularly, but I had clearly underestimated how much time it would take me to settle in.

Additionally, my first fiction collection came out in print -- Conscientious Inconsistencies -- and I've been devoting some time to that as well.

It's occurred to me that maybe I don't have enough time to do everything I want to do in my life. I thought about dropping this blog and the overall self defense writing project.

But I can't. The subject is too important to me. So I'm starting back up today and promise that from here on out I will post on a regular basis.

Stay tuned.

Be Flexible: Anything Can Be a Weapon

My Aikido teacher flies a lot. He likes to joke -- when he's teaching a class, not when he's going through airport security -- that no one ever checks over his hands as possible weapons.

But, of course, his hands are very useful weapons indeed, as anyone he's ever sent flying across the mat can tell you.

The truth is, anything can be a weapon. And while that may strike fear into the heart of those conducting security theater at the airports, it is something the rest of us need to remember when we're in a tight spot.

For example, here's a report from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times about a woman who used spray perfume to get away from an attacker.

Now I'm not advising you to start carrying perfume around for self defense purposes or to automatically spray anyone who looks at you cross-eyed. What I am suggesting is that in a difficult situation, you can often find something that will work as a weapon so long as you stay calm and aware of what's going on around you.

One of my favorite stories about this -- and I heard it so long ago that I don't remember where it came from -- is one about a woman who found herself on the subway late at night, alone except for a man who frightened her (as I recall, she had good reason to be afraid). So she began to pick her nose and otherwise act in a rather gross manner.

He got off at the next stop.

Anything can be a weapon.

Hey Baby: Here's a Washington, DC, Class on Handling Street Harassment

The guys yelling "Hey, baby" on the street are often just a minor annoyance, but sometimes street harassment can lead to real trouble.

Lauren Taylor's Defend Yourself program offers a class on dealing with street harassment for women and girls age 16 and up in Washington, DC, on Saturday, March 29, from 1 to 4 PM. The class will be held at the Potter's House, on Columbia Road in Adams-Morgan. The workshop costs $39, and goes up to $45 after March 16. There's a discount for registering with a friend. Contact lauren@defendyourself.org or 301-608-3708 for details.

Here's the description from the announcement email:

Can you "ignore" street harassment? Of course you can. And you already know how to do that. This class will give you other options, making ignoring it only one in a range of skills to choose from, especially when ignoring it doesn’t seem safe.

The class will cover the self defense techniques -- prevention and awareness, verbal self defense, and physical strikes -- that you might need in dealing with street harassment. Most of these skills can also be transferred to other irritating or dangerous situations in the rest of life.

Defend Yourself has more self defense classes scheduled for spring.

Project Confidence: Become Someone the Spirits Want to Protect

I took an Aikido seminar this past weekend with Mary Heiny Sensei, a sixth-degree black belt who began her training in Japan in the late 1960s.

In addition to the greater understanding of Aikido that I gained in my body -- there's nothing quite like moving to demonstrate what you understand and what you don't -- I increased my awareness of Aikido as good self defense.

Heiny Sensei told us something she had learned from one of her Japanese teachers. The Japanese phrase for self defense is go shin jutsu. "Shin" in that phrase is generally written to mean "body." But one of the real entertaining (and subtle) things about the Japanese written language is that many Japanese kanji are pronounced in the same way while meaning different things.

When O Sensei -- the founder of Aikido -- wrote go shin jutsu in kanji, he used the character pronounced as "shin" that means "kami, or spirits." His interpretation of self defense was something like "be someone the spirits want to protect."

Now O Sensei was a religious man, but I don't think even he meant that phrase in a purely religious sense. I interpret it as act with integrity -- both in how you move and how you deal with others -- and you will be protected.

I'm using the word "integrity" because it is a core principle of Aikido and encompasses both physical integrity and the concept of ethical conduct. I could say Aikido principles, but explaining that will take me much more space than a brief blog post, and integrity is a good fit.

Integrity underlies a lot of what I mean when I say project confidence, but it also includes the concepts of flexibility and calmness, not to mention paying attention and trusting your instincts. If you move through this world with that sort of integrity, you will be protected simply by being who you are.

Learn to Fight: Upcoming Classes in Chicago

A recent comment gave this blog a rave review and the person who posted mentioned that she was about to relocate to Chicago. So as a thank you, here is some information about upcoming self defense classes in Chicago.

Impact Chicago has scheduled core classes on March 8 & 9 and 15 & 16 (Saturdays and Sundays from 11 to 5) at JCFS, 3145 W. Pratt in Chicago. Their next session will be a one-weekend class May 16-18 (Friday 5:30 to 9:30 and all day Saturday and Sunday) at Belle Plaine Studio, 2014 W. Belle Plaine in Chicago. They also have classes scheduled for July, September, and October.

The class costs $395. Registration information can be found on the core program page. The phone number is 773-338-4545 or you can email for more information at leslie@impactchicago.org.

Learn to Fight -- But Not From Bad Videos

According to the Dallas Morning News, there's an armed serial rapist attacking women in the greater Dallas area. In what I'm sure is an effort to help women deal with this threat, the newspaper posted a video giving advice from a police officer and a couple of self defense experts. (Note: the video plays with Flash or the Windows Media player -- it doesn't work with Quicktime.)

Unfortunately, the advice on the video is all but useless to an untrained person. In the first technique, a woman is trapped under a man who is trying to undo his pants. The video shows how she twists her hips to get loose, and then kicks the man.

While this is a good ground technique -- often taught in the Impact and Model Mugging classes -- it's not something you can pick up watching a video. For one thing, you need to learn how to stay calm throughout an attack so that you can identify those moments when an attacker -- even an armed attacker -- is vulnerable. Responding at the wrong time can be dangerous, but if you're calm and relaxed, you will see a good opening.

Secondly, it's not the first technique taught in self defense classes. You work up to material like this. Further, it's useful to practice it in a safe class setting before trying this kind of move. You need to let your body learn that it can do this kind of move before trying it for real.

But what really worried me is that the video contained a couple of scenes showing defense against a gun. Again, these are legitimate techniques, but they're not techniques for beginners. The first one involves moving inside against an armed attacker; the second showed a similar defense when the gun is held at your back.

I might try either of these moves, if I sensed an opening or felt like the attacker was going to kill me regardless -- if you're calm, you'll be aware of these things. But I've spent 20 years in Aikido learning how to enter against an attack. In my experience, most beginners don't do this right immediately.

Not only do I think this video showed techniques that are too advanced, I also think it picked ones that are too intimidating. I would guess -- and I'd love to have readers look at the video and share their own reactions -- that most people would look at these techniques as shown and immediately say "I could never do that."

That's not true -- most people can do these things. But they need to learn them gradually, not be confronted with the scariest techniques right off the bat.

I grant it's better that the police are acknowledging that women can defend themselves. It wasn't very long ago that the standard police response to rape attacks was for women just to go along and not try to do anything.

But I don't think this video is going to help anyone who hasn't had any training. I suggest women look for a good self defense class instead. I'll be providing more links to upcoming classes soon and I'd be glad to post links to training available in the Dallas area specifically, if teachers will send me information.

Protect Yourself: Hide From Men or Learn to Fight?

Mexico City has established women-only buses to protect women from gropers. This isn't a new idea -- in a comment posted to the Ambling Along the Aqueduct post on the subject, Vandana Singh notes that New Delhi ran a few such buses when she was growing up. And I've heard of them in other countries as well.

This doesn't strike me as much of a solution. As Jessica Valenti observes in The Nation, "I'm all for safe spaces for women, but is segregation really an answer to sexism?"

Singh noted in her comment that getting on the woman-only bus was always a relief, which I can certainly understand: When I was in law school, we had a women's lounge -- a restroom that included a large area with couches, comfy chairs, and tables -- and it was always a relief to hole up there to study. We weren't hiding from gropers (though there may have been a few), but from the pressure of continually fitting into what was decidedly a male-dominated world -- our class was about 10 percent women.

A recent study highlights the fact that women are still in a double bind when dealing in the world: do things the way men do, and you're labeled unfeminine; do them in a more feminine style, and you're too soft. Just ask Hillary Clinton. So the occasional respite into a woman-only world does provide some relief.

But protecting women by segregating them from men leads to protecting them by keeping them out of some professions and public spaces. It reinforces the idea that women are helpless. And it limits the lives of the victim of abusive behavior, instead of stopping the abuse.

Besides, the bus isn't the only place where women get harassed. The Washington Post reports that a man -- or perhaps, judging by the varied descriptions, several men -- has been been attacking women in Northern Virginia. The police haven't caught anyone, and women are responding by taking cabs and giving up walking. Of course, cabs are expensive and walking is good exercise, so fear is taking a large toll on these women's lives.

I haven't noticed any cities declaring streets off-limits for men.

Judging from the description of the attacks, I suspect most women could fight this particular attacker off if they had a little training. He's apparently not using a weapon. But the article doesn't even mention learning how to fight as a solution to such attacks. It's not the only answer, of course -- good lighting, regular police patrols, and a societal decision to take such attacks more seriously can all improve safety.

But women can learn enough to protect themselves from such attacks, just as they can develop skills to deal with gropers on the buses. In Singh's comment, she noted that she developed a tough style when riding on mixed buses in New Delhi (though she found it a relief when she didn't have to do that). Making a scene is also a reasonable response.

Women taking action to protect themselves, whether from gropers or rapists, will eventually provide more safety than token respite on public transportation. After all, as the Valenti article notes in a quote from Katha Pollitt:

Obviously, there would never be enough women-only space to accommodate all women all the time - half the subway cars or half the hotels …Women-only space is just a little breathing place for a few women every now and then.

Relocation: I've Moved to Austin, Texas

The blog has been silent for several weeks because I've been moving from Washington, D.C., to Austin, Texas, and dealing with the logistics took all my time and energy. I'm starting to get settled in, though, and I'll be posting more regularly.

I'm on the lookout for self defense resources here in Austin. There are certainly lots of martial arts schools. I'll add resources as I find them.

By the way, I drove by myself from D.C. to Austin. I didn't run into any problems on the trip. The weather cooperated and even the traffic wasn't bad most places -- and I was much more worried about traffic accidents than other possible problems.

I'm a practical traveler: I have a cell phone and AAA, and I keep my car doors locked. And I had the car serviced before I left. But the most important thing I did -- as a driver and when I stopped for meals or the night -- was to pay attention. That's the key to both self defense and road safety.

Here's a view of downtown Austin from the south side, not too far from where I live. The "Live Music Capital of the World" is certainly getting to be a big city.

Get the Facts: High Heels Are Bad for You

Here's a chart detailing all the damage wearing high heels can do to your body (found via the blog Sociological Images: Seeing Is Believing).

Let me add a couple of other things to consider. As the chart points out, wearing heels affects your posture, putting you off balance. If you end up in a situation where you need to fight, you'll need your balance. Furthermore, it's a lot harder to run in heels than it is in flats -- and that's true whether you're getting away from a bad guy or are trying to get across the street before the light changes.

Finally, women in heels look more vulnerable than women in flats, probably because they're off balance and can't run easily. Some people define this as "sexy" (and it's true our culture deems women's legs sexier when they're wearing heels), but let me ask you this: Do you really want a lover who is attracted to you because you look helpless?

Cartoon Break: Bizarro on Being Afraid

The Jan. 2 edition of the cartoon Bizarro reminds us that there are people in our government who want us to be very afraid.

I notice that Bruce Schneier linked to the same cartoon.

Dan Piraro draws Bizarro.

Good Advice: Stop Waiting for Your Prince

I heard an interview with the legendary Eartha Kitt on the radio this morning. Talking about the fact that she made her own way in the world, she said something that I think fits nicely into the concept of taking care of ourselves:

I always thought of myself a sepia Cinderella, and look, I'm still looking for my prince, but the prince turned out to be me. ... Everything I want in my life I have to pay for myself.

Kitt was talking about economic self sufficiency, of course -- despite singing songs like "Santa Baby," she bought her own sables -- but the same principle applies to self defense. Waiting around for your prince is chancy -- he might not ever show up. And even if he does, he might not be able to protect you. Even worse, the guy who can do the best job of taking care of you may not be the one who has your heart.

Learn to take care of yourself. Then you can choose your prince on your own terms -- or choose to do without one at all.

photo of Eartha Kitt by Carl Van Vechten

Learn to Fight: Peace on Earth, But Be Prepared All the Same

Here are some upcoming self defense classes in the Washington, D.C., metro area:

Defend Yourself:

• Dec. 30: Defend Yourself has a one-day class for teens -- age 14 through college -- from 1-5 PM in Garrett Park. There may be a few spots left. Call 301-608-3708 or email Lauren or Cathie to see if you can still register. Cost is $70 in advance; $65 in advance if you register with a friend; $80 at the door.
• Beginning Jan. 14: A free, 16-week class for survivors of sexual assault meeting on Mondays sponsored by Defend Yourself and the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. The class will meet in downtown D.C. near a metro stop from 6:45 to 8:45 PM. To sign up, call the D.C. Rape Crisis Center by Jan. 7 at 202-232-0789 and ask for Amara.
• Defend Yourself will also offer a series of self defense courses in 2008, beginning in January with a class for mothers and their high-school-age daughters and in February with a general self defense class for women 16 and up. Check their class schedule for further details.

DC Impact:

• DC Impact offers a one-afternoon intro class on Sunday, Feb, 17, 2008 from one 1-4pm at KMDC at Gallery Place, 616 H St, NW, 2nd Floor, in Washington. The fee is $49.
• The group also offers a women's basic self defense class on Sundays from 1 to 6 PM, beginning March 9 and running until April 13, 2008, at the same location. The fee is $595, but will be reduced by $50 if you register by Dec. 31, 2007.

Registration info and other details are on the class schedule on their website.