Self Defense and Smart Phones

July 29, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Did you ever consider smart phones as part of your self-defense training?

Nearly everyone has a smart phone. They are ubiquitous. They are legal in every state. (At least the last time I checked. Stay tuned for further government interference.) Indeed, some people seem joined to the hip with their smart phones.

They are convenient to carry. They are affordable.

And there’s no doubt that they are useful. You can find your favorite restaurants; where the latest movie is playing; messages in your e-mail inbox. The list goes on and on.

But what do smart phones have to do with self defense training?

Sure, you can always use them to call 911.

That’s obvious. Right?

What else?

Some so-called self-defense experts say you should use your smart phone as a weapon with which to bludgeon your opponent.

How wise is that advice?

True, it may repel your opponent, at least for the short term. But I wouldn’t count on it. It’s going to take more than that to make a vicious criminal cut and run. Worse, you risk destroying your only line of communication to the outside world. What if you can’t outrun or evade your attacker long enough to reach safety?

Instead of thinking of your smart phone primarily as a physical weapon, here is an alternate suggestion to make maximize its defensive capabilities.

I recently came across My Mobile Witness. It’s a free mobile phone service that allows you to snap a picture of a person, place or event and send it to a digital data bank that can be accessed only by law enforcement. That way you and law enforcement have a record of the situation that’s giving you cause for concern.

Clearly it’s useful for real-estate professional, social workers, and healthcare providers who must often go into unfamiliar or isolated buildings and neighborhoods and deal with strangers.

And I suspect it would be particularly valuable for college students, especially co-eds, who may find themselves in uncomfortable situations at frat houses or on Spring Break and the like.

They certainly should be a part of every woman’s self-defense training. Ditto for men.

Whenever in doubt about your physical safety or that of others, call 911 immediately. Don’t underestimate the dangerousness of the situation. Don’t try to be a hero. Let the law enforcement professionals take care of it.

Still, it’s one more tool to consider in your self-defense arsenal. I can’t say that I’ve used it and can report on its effectiveness first hand, but I’m going to let my friends know about it. Definitely worth serious consideration.

Filed Under: Women's Self Defense Tagged With: weapons, women's self defense

7 Self-Defense Tips for Women

June 24, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Situational awareness needs to be the first step in any serious self-defense training program, especially women’s self-defense training. Here are seven self-defense tips to help improve your situational awareness:

Be careful if you spy someone who is checking you out with unusual care. He might be staring at you. Or, he might keep oddly reappearing as you move along your way. Either way, it’s not a good sign. Time to go on alert.
If you think someone is stalking or about to attack you, seek safety in crowds or any place where there are witnesses. The more, the better. (Of course, if you can find a police officer, even better.) Contrary to the pop psychobabble you sometimes hear in the media, criminals don’t want to get caught. The mere presence of potential witnesses may be enough to get an attacker to think twice.
Don’t go anywhere that looks unsafe. Places that are dark or poorly lit are prime terrain for criminals. So, too, is terrain that gives them adequate cover and concealment. Park trails or apartment entrances surrounded by trees and bushes are a good example. If you think it’s unsafe, it probably is. It never hurts to err on the side of caution.
Have points of escape. Do some serious reconnaissance of your surroundings at home, at work and elsewhere. You want to have at least one escape route by which you can flee your attacker and reach safety. The more points of escape you have the better.
Don’t let a stranger violate your personal space, especially if he is acting suspiciously. Your personal safe zone is about a six foot radius around you. Once that’s violated, be prepared to take action.
If someone does violate your personal safe zone, be ready to speak out in a loud voice and let him know he’s not appreciated. Shout it out! Speaking up in a loud, authoritative voice and thus drawing the attention of passersby may be enough to deter him. (Just don’t count on that tactic necessarily working.)
Know ahead of time what you can do if you have to defend yourself against a physical attack. Don’t try anything fancy. Stick with basic, straightforward techniques that you’ve repeatedly practiced to incapacitate your opponent and then run for safe harbor.

While these tactics are especially important for woman’s self defense, they ought to be part and parcel of any self-defense training program for men as well as for women.

Filed Under: Women's Self Defense Tagged With: self-defense training, women's self defense

7 Reasons Combat Hapkido Is Perfect For Women’s Self-Defense Training

June 22, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Women’s self-defense training and commercial martial arts training are too often incompatible. Commercial martial arts schools typically emphasize sports training at the expense of self-defense training. Commercial martial arts are about trophies, tournaments, and rank. Women’s self-defense training is about life and death.

What’s a woman in search of self-defense training to do?

Give Combat Hapkido a try. You may learn more about self-defense training than you ever imagined.

Pure self-defense. Combat hapkido is strictly about self-defense. It’s not about aerobic conditioning or meditative yoga or tournaments. It’s not a sport. It is literally a martial art. In other words, it is an art of war that teaches how to defend yourself against physical aggression.
Practical. Combat Hapkido teaches self-defense techniques that work. Hapkido was (and still is) the martial art of choice for the feared Korean Special Forces units. It has been taught to our own Navy SEALs as well as the Army’s Ranger and Special Forces units. When it comes to neutralizing an attacker quickly few other martial arts to my mind do it quicker and more devastatingly.
Fast. You don’t have to spend years practicing it to be a competent practitioner. Beginning with your first week of training, you start taking home self-defense techniques that really work. With a little diligence, you should make rapid progress.
Gender-Neutral. Combat hapkido will work for women just as well as it works for men. And it as welcoming to women students as any school I’ve ever encountered.
Athleticism Not Required. The good news is that Combat Hapkido doesn’t require you to be an Olympian athlete. If you’re in reasonably good shape, you can master its self-defense techniques without having to be quicker than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Versatile. If you’re studying another martial art, that’s fine. I haven’t yet met a Combat Hapkido who discourages cross-training. No need to quit the martial art you presently love (if you’ve found one).
Fun. Did I forget to say that I’ve met Combat Hapkido practitioners from many states and from all walks of life? They have simply been some of the nicest people I’ve met at any martial art school. The kind of people you want as neighbors and friends.

Are there other martial arts styles out there that will teach you what you really need to know to defend yourself against rape and sexual assault?

Yes, but they are few and far between.

Dozens of Combat Hapkido schools exist throughout the country and its founder, GM John Pellegrini, travels across the country teaching supplementary seminars.

If you want to learn more, give the International Combat Hapkido Federation a visit and find a school near you.

Train hard, stay safe, live well.

Filed Under: Combat Hapkido, Women's Self Defense Tagged With: combat hapkido, self-defense training, women's self defense

Women’s Self-Defense Training: Does It Do More Harm Than Good?

June 21, 2011 By Editor 3 Comments

Women’s self-defense training has become a popular topic in the New York City media as several notorious rapes have scarred the social complexion of the city.

As a result, self-proclaimed women’s self-defense experts pop up on television lecturing the media and their audiences about how women can defend themselves.

There’s only one problem.

Too much of what they say about women’s self-defense training is wrong.

Dead wrong: Ineffectual, unrealistic, and potentially fatal to a woman in danger of being raped and perhaps even murdered.

Why? Because they don’t stress the importance of:

Situational Awareness. If situational awareness is 90% of self-defense training, as many say it is, then it needs to be stressed much more seriously. Just saying, “Look around you,” isn’t enough. Instead, you need to know what potential threats to look for and how to evaluate them. What to look for when you walk down a street, enter an elevator or a stairwell, or approach your car in a parking lot. You have to understand what Sun Tzu called the terrain.

Overwhelming Force. When you strike an assailant, it’s not enough just to make contact. You need to strike hard with enough force to incapacitate him. Your attacker is intending to do more than overwhelm you. You should return the favor.

For example, pushing your palm into your attacker’s nose won’t do anything except make him angrier. Half-hearted strikes against full-blooded monsters aren’t going to cut it.Driving your palm into his nose so that you break it, causing his eyesight to become blurry with tears, as he flinches in pain and recoils at the sensation of bleeding, gives you at least a fighting chance to survive.

Multiple blows. Overwhelming force almost always requires multiple blows, especially if your assailant is significantly larger or stronger than you.

Far too many wannabe self-defense gurus demonstrate just one technique, as if that’s all it takes to escape danger. This is pure fantasy—and a potentially deadly one at that.

A powerful attacker, especially one under the influence of drugs or alcohol, will most likely remain undeterred. You’ll more likely than not need multiple blows to ward off a vicious rapist.

So what should women do to learn how to defend themselves against rape and sexual assault?

Seek out self-defense instructors, courses, and organizations that offer competent women’s self-defense training programs.

Here are two suggestions:

Train hard, stay safe, live well.

Filed Under: Women's Self Defense Tagged With: self-defense training, women's self defense

Self Defense for Women: The Keys for Personal Safety

May 4, 2011 By Editor 4 Comments

In self-defense for women and sexual violence, I argued that self-defense products such as firearms and pepper spray each have their part in your self-defense program. They do, however, have serious drawbacks as self-defense weapons. In short, they tend to be inconvenient and may have unintended legal consequences.

One self-defense weapon that any women can make part of her self-defense program, however, are her keys. (Guys, pay attention, keys can work as a self-defense weapon for you, too.)

Keys, Self Defense and Women

Almost nobody leaves home these days without their keys. It’s just too risky to do otherwise. You virtually have to carry them. So why not make them part of your arsenal?

One smart move for a woman is for her to keep her keys in her hands when going to or from a parking lot or her home. Having them at the ready enables you to get into your vehicle or into your home and escape from harm’s way more quickly than if you have find yourself having to dig around for them in your pocketbook under the duress of attack.

But there’s another reason why they may be one of the best self-defense weapons at your disposal.

Julie Green, the founder and author of Defy the Bad Guy, a website dedicated to women’s self-defense and personal safety, explains in detail how you should hold your keys in How Should I Hold My Keys in the Parking Lot? It’s worth reading.

With very little training, you can also use them to slash your attacker with them. Watch top-gun security expert Kelly McCann show just how easy it is to transform a set of keys (and even a credit card) into self-defense weapons in his video Minimum Damage, Maximum Effect: A Complete Guide to the Use of Pepper Spray, Less-Lethal, and Improvised Weapons.

Pepper spray and other self-defense products do have their place, but never overlook the possibilities simpler, more practical household items offer for your personal safety.

Filed Under: Self-Defense, Women's Self Defense

Women’s Self Defense Training and Sexual Violence

April 30, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Although April comes to an end, the brutal reality of sexual violence does not. Nor should the need for women’s self-defense training.

In the face of imminent sexual violence, however, the best laws and the best intentions of society are of little help. When sexual violence strikes, the victim may all too likely be alone or surrounded by bystanders unwilling (or afraid) to intervene.

What to do? Let’s consider two oft-quoted recommendations when it comes women’s self-defense training against sexual violence:

Women’s Self-Defense Training Option #1: Own a Firearm

True, a firearm can end sexual violence. No doubt about that. But it has its limitations:

Most states make it difficult (to say the least) to get a firearm permit.
Getting a carry permit is next to impossible in some states.
Defending the use of justified lethal force before the courts has become a nightmare.
Unless you regularly train with a firearm, it may do you more harm than good. It’s one thing to shoot at a stationary target under the optimal conditions of a firing range. It’s something else to have to shoot a moving target attacking with the element of surprise and stealth in his favor.

Women’s Self-Defense Option #2: Pepper Spray

Pepper spray can work. But do most women really want to be always carrying a pepper spray canister in their hand just in case they are attacked? Alternately, a woman could put it in her pocket and handbag, but would she in the face of imminent danger have the time to dig it out and ward off an assailant? Probably not.

Besides, there is no guarantee pepper spray is as effective as many of its vocal supporters (and sellers) will have you believe for at least two reasons:

Some assailants can withstand the sting of pepper spray. If they are under the influence of drugs or emotionally enraged, pepper spray may fail to get the job done.

You have to successfully spray the opponent who is in effect a moving target. Too often easier said than done.

So what can women do?

In the next post, I’ll outline some aspects of self-defense training designed for women who want to defend themselves against violence, sexual or otherwise.

In the meantime, if you want to learn more about sexual violence and what you can do to help stop it. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has a wealth of information.

More importantly, if you are a the victim of sexual violence or know someone who is, then contact the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or contact your local emergency services at 9-1-1.

Filed Under: Self-Defense, Women's Self Defense Tagged With: adult martial artists, Getting Started, self-defense training, women's self defense

Women’s Self Defense Training: What Do Women Need to Know?

April 11, 2011 By Editor Leave a Comment

Women’s self defense training is in high demand. So I was taken by surprise when I saw a blog post whose author asked what does a woman need to learn to be able to defend herself. So what self-defense techniques do women need to know?

Here are some partial answers to that question:

Situational Awareness

A women’s self defense training course should, if nothing else, teach you situational awareness. Regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, you want self-defense techniques that first and foremost help you to avoid becoming the victim of a violent attack.

You want to know how to position yourself if you find yourself threatened. Almost everything around you can be instantly transformed into a defensive weapon. Watch:

Escape Techniques

If you’re a woman, you don’t want to get into a drag-down, knock-out fight with your opponent, especially if he is much bigger or stronger (or, worse, bigger and stronger) than you.

So you want self-defense techniques that allow you breakaway from an assailant should he lay his hands on you and escape to safety. You need to be able to be able to defend yourself against wrist, arm, and shoulder grabs; front and rear choke holds; and being pinned or cornered either on the ground or against a wall or desk.

But to do that you need another weapon in your arsenal of self-defense techniques:

Basic Strikes

Forget about fancy kicking techniques. You’re not Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris. You don’t want to be, at least not for the purposes of women’s self-defense training. What they do is Hollywood spectacle. Great entertainment, tremendous athleticism. They are not self-defense techniques nor do they have a place in a self-defense training program.

Mastering basic strikes enables you to execute the three self-defense techniques you must never forget if you want to prevail in a fight. Without them, many otherwise useful escape techniques lose much of their effectiveness.

Instead, you need basic striking techniques, you need to learn how to rake or if need be gouge your opponents eyes; elbow and palm-heel strikes; hammer-fists and back-fists. You want to know how to execute shin kick, foot stomps and scrapes as well as know the limitations of groin strikes. (The latter are not the foolproof self-defense technique some will have you believe.)

Take a look at this video:

Simple self-defense techniques that leverage your strength to the max and inflict serious pain on your opponent are what you need. If all it does is deter him (or her) from pursuing the attack, your martial arts training tuition has been well-spent.

Take a look at The Ten Commandments of Self-Defense. They apply to men and women alike. Forget them at your peril.

Is this a complete list for a women’s self-defense training program? No, not by any means. But these self-defense techniques will set a woman (or a man) wanting to learn self defense in the right direction.

Do you have more questions about women’s self-defense? Feel free to comment or e-mail me

(Yes, I am not a woman, as some of you may be wondering why I’m writing about women’s self-defense training. But did I mention that I was anti-rape and anti-sexual harassment instructor certified by one of the top law-enforcement training companies in the US?)

Filed Under: Self-Defense, Women's Self Defense Tagged With: self-defense techniques, self-defense training, women's self defense

Why Combat Hapkido? — Some Frequently Asked Questions

December 31, 2010 By Editor Leave a Comment

Why Combat Hapkido?

Combat Hapkido (or CH for short) is a realistic, effective and straightforward method of self-defense for men and women to learn. It doesn’t take forever to learn. You don’t need to be an Olympic athlete. And it works. That’s why many law enforcement officers and top military units such as the U.S. Army’s Tenth Mountain Army Division practice it. If you want to learn how to defend yourself in the streets quickly, Combat Hapkido is for you.

Is Combat Hapkido for women as well as men?

Yes, combat hapkido techniques are perfect for women’s self defense. It does not require superior strength. It can be learned quickly. It teaches situational awareness, how to disorient and disable an attacker regardless of his (or her) size, and get home safe and sound.

At what age can I start?

Unlike many traditional martial arts programs, CH is not for children. The techniques are too dangerous in the hands of the immature and inexperienced. Therefore, instructors typically prefer to teach students 18 years of age or older.

How long will I have to study Combat Hapkido in order to be able to defend myself?

That depends upon how often you practice and the dedication you bring to the art. That said, with regular practice and commitment, you should be able to begin to be able to defend yourself within six months and perhaps as little as three. Indeed, at the Bronx Hapkido Center students begin to learn effective self-defense techniques in the first week of training.

Can anyone benefit from practicing Combat Hapkido?

Yes, CH can be learned by adults regardless of their age or gender. Nor do you need the physical prowess of a professional athlete. I know of one practitioner who is nearly 70 years old and still going strong.

What is the difference between Combat Hapkido and other schools of Hapkido?

CH is more progressive and eclectic than what often passes for traditional hapkido. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, it absorbs what is useful in other martial arts and discards the rest. For example, the traditional stances and postures as well as the acrobatic kicks of traditional hapkido have been replaced with techniques more appropriate for self defense in today’s environment.

Is Combat Hapkido recognized as a legitimate martial arts style?

World renowned hapkido grandmaster In Sun Seo bestowed Combat Hapkido (also known in Korea as Chon-tu Kwon) official status as a kwon or official style in the World Kido Federation. Chartered by the Korean government, the World Kido Federation maintains the integrity and records of all legitimate Korean martial arts. What is particularly noteworthy about recognition of CH’s recognition by the WKF is that is usually awards such status to long-established traditional martial arts schools.

Where can I find a school?

Go to the International Combat Hapkido Federation’s directory of schools to find a school near you.

If you have any further questions you’d like answered, send me an e-mail at ama@adultmartialartist.com