On January 29th, my wife Lorrie and I taught a Womens Self Defense Class at the local fitness club Fit Fam.
I was impressed with the turnout. We’ve had several robberies lately and had a couple purse snatchings so I believe some of the ladies had those concern in mind.
It was great to teach such an anxious and enthusiastic class. In the past it seemed that having a self defense class in a karate school was often a difficult draw. I’ve had some sparse turnouts. What was the difference? This class was a group of ladies that work hard several times a week to improve themselves and they are attending a class in a familiar environment that they’ve grown to fell safe in. They know the other ladies and are comfortable with them. Really was a great experience for me and seemed to be for them.
The Ladies were interested and even when they were confused ( that always happens ) they continued to try to figure out things. My 1st premise for self defense, is to figure out the simplest way to make something work. My 2nd premise is how effective is it? The ladies laughed when I told them about the KISS principle. The usual acronym is Keep it Simple Stupid. I changed it to, Keep it Stupid Simple. Keep it so simple that anyone can understand something. I’ve been in many classes that it seemed that the instructor would teach the most complex methods that they had to do a simple escape. To make something work it has to be simple. It has to be easy to remember and easy to recall, perhaps months or for a longer time after you’ve worked on it.
Most everything we did clicked with the ladies and they were smiling most of the time, winching occasionally and laughing when I was yelling at a daughter not to hurt her mother, (mostly in jest). Later I found out that this young lady is a singer that performed in other cities and was concerned about her safety at times, so that explained her enthusiasm. We discussed some things after class and she has some very good notions about self defense because of the experience of being in strange settings.
I enjoyed sharing what I’ve trained for years on. There’s was another lady there that sell self defense items, so I also told the class the values of pepper spray. Nothing can clear a room like pepper spray. A martial arts friend of mine was teaching a self defense class and thought it would be a good idea to spray a little bit of pepper spray in a dixie cup and let everyone smell it. The rest of the class was taught in the parking lot. I guess he made his point all too well.
All said I hope no one every has to use anything I taught but if they do I want them to be safe. These ladies have learned to add to their safe thinking and some of them came up with some really great comments of things that they do. Everyone has a system of self defense so it helps to hear what they do and for them to think about what they should do.
It was an awesome mix of fit, active ladies who want to learn some easy ways to defend themselves. They’ve asked me to do another class and am glad to help. So I’ll be busy designing some more fun but informative material based on what we did and what seemed to click with the class.
More Good Stuff next month ladies, Thanks for your interest.
Lorrie and I want to thank Fit Fam for the invitation to share with some great people.
