Staying safe with self-defence: empowering and preparing women one class at a time
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Following the recent public attacks on women in Canberra, many of us are trying to figure out what we can do to stay safe.
With physical defence tools like maces and pepper spray illegal in Canberra, it may seem like there’s no hope.
But there is something that we can all learn to keep as a secret tool in our back pocket.
And that is self-defence.
Senpai Jess from Cummings Karate Dojo has over 15 years of experience in martial arts and is a big promoter of women learning self-defence.
“Self-defence can be seen as a purely physical act – someone attacks me, and I do my defence,” Jess says.
“But I see self-defence as holistic – it’s about how we present ourselves to the world, our confidence, the boundaries we set, most of our self-defence is actually those boundaries and the verbal side.”
The course Jess co-teaches is tailored for women to provide them with the skills to defend themselves.
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While we all hope that we are never in the situation to physically defend ourselves, Jess believes enrolling in a course like this can be seen as learning a lifesaving skill, just likeCPR.
“With CPR, you know it’s a lifesaving skill and you hope you never have to use it; you’re probably going to be pretty bad at it if you ever have to use it because you’ve never done it before, but it’s better than nothing.”
“If you’ve never experienced any sort of violence before, whether it be verbal or physical, it can be quite difficult to respond to that,” she says.
“The purpose of learning self-defence is to almost provide inoculation – you have that experience so you can go, I’ve dealt with this situation before in a safe environment of a self-defence dojo, I’ve practiced it, and now I can respond. It really reduces the time of hesitation and that can be critical to survival.”
While being in a situation that requires a response can be frightening, knowing you have these skills provides a course of action, instead of being left feeling helpless.
“Part of [the benefit of self-defence] is that we’ve taught you something and hopefully you remember some of it. Whether it’s you get your hands up, you run away, you just don’t want to freeze or immediately start to fight.”
Speaking from personal experience, the basic skills of self-defence may seem intimidating at first, but with regular practice it becomes doable and easy to remember.
And with confidence, comes the ability to deal with a situation differently.
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“Fight, flight, freeze or fawn response are all instinctive. Flight can sometimes be fantastic, but you may run into a worst situation. You’d think fight would help you, but people’s fight response isn’t typically I’m going to get my hands up and do something. Freeze, for obvious reasons isn’t going to help,” Jess explains.
“Fawn is one we see a lot in women, particularly in times of discomfort. When you’re trying to set a boundary and say no but you’re smiling and giggling … it can send a mixed signal and doesn’t help your response.”
When women are given the space to practice their response, an unconscious internal shift occurs and suddenly, the natural response changes.
“What you really want to be doing is going ‘Here’s my adrenaline dump, I know what my instinctive feeling is, but now what am I actually going to choose to serve me.’”
And the best basic options for dealing with a situation? Get your hands up to protect your face and head, use your voice to tell the attacker to ‘back off’, and try to de-escalate the situation.
For those who may be worried about the legality of performing self-defence, here’s a very basic breakdown of what you need to know.
You are not criminally responsible for an offence if it is done in necessary self-defence, including to defend yourself or someone else and to prevent or stop the unlawful imprisonment of you or someone else.
However, it is important to note that actions are only excused on the ground of self-defence, if it is a reasonable response (in other words, you’ve responded to the situation with the right level of intensity).
“When we teach hitting people, particularly in the head area, we are really clear that you need to think about the consequences of what happens next,” Jess says.
“But you need to survive. At the end of the day, if you end up in a court of law but you survived, I think that’s probably better than you restraining yourself out of fear for what may happen.”
While there are many YouTube videos online teaching self-defence, Jess urges women to come to a class for the full experience.
“You need to go to a class if this is something you want to protect yourself from. I truly believe it’s like first aid – everyone should know some self-defence. Go to a class. Go learn how to protect yourself from common attacks.”
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Jess’s six go-to tips to feel prepared for the worst-case scenario are short and simple.
- Do self-defence course or pick up a martial art.
- Stay fit and healthy.
- Practice verbal boundaries.
- De-escalate the situation or run away.
- Keep fighting and don’t give up fighting for your life.
- Go and speak to people afterwards.
Self-defence training also isn’t something to fear, although it may seem it to begin with.
“The self-defence training can be scary in terms of the situation you would be dealing with, but there are so many benefits … like fitness, community, social engagement. All that makes you feel more confident and happier,” Jess shares.
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“The founder of our style had this saying that if everyone did karate, we would have world peace.”
“The reason why respect is at the heart of martial arts is because training with other people requires respecting their body and limitations and different people come with different experiences and pasts.”
Jess also sees learning the skill of martial arts as a way to lead to a more harmonious life.
“Martial arts can be a philosophy as much as a hobby, so how you treat people in your club and the lessons you learn carry on into the outside world.”
Looking to the future, while Jess knows self-defence is a great step to empower and prepare women, she’s calling for change on a societal level.
“I think having men’s groups just talking to men and women’s group just talking to women is not helping. … If we don’t start talking to one another and being willing to listen to what the other side has to say, then we’re not going to get anywhere.”
But for now, self-defence classes are equipping women with the capability to protect themselves, one lesson at a time.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, reach out. Contact 1800 737 732 for help.
