Women’s self-defense seminar at Ground Control Kansas City

I haven’t been to jits in about two weeks, due to a broken toe, a cold, and GCKC getting flooded during a week of storms (oh the joys of basement schools). But I realized I hadn’t blogged about the self-defense seminar we did in June. Maybe writing will help with the withdrawal pangs?

The seminar was a private team-building exercise put together for kettlebell Matt (we also have a blue belt Matt) and his female coworkers. He’d been talking to them about self-defense, especially after one of them had a parking lot encounter with guys trying to break into her car. About a dozen women attended, ranging in age from 30-50 and varying in athletic ability.

Jonathan taught the whole thing and used me as the example in almost every scenario. Steven observed and held kick shields later on.

Don’t Be An Easy Victim

After we warmed up, we spent the first half of the seminar talking about awareness, avoidance, and not being an easy victim. My first school gave me a good foundation in those areas, but it was good for me to refresh my memory. We did several scenarios where Jonathan would approach and I would either be unaware or alert. I busted out command voice a few times and then we had a little session where the women took turns yelling, “No!” They were a little shy about learning that. Lots of self-conscious giggling.

As women, we’re conditioned to think that we’re not supposed to be loud in that way. We’re supposed to be polite and smile when a guy is encroaching on our physical space or wants to talk to us when we don’t want him to. We’re not supposed to say no.

But command voice, body language, and a mentality that says “I will not be a victim and I will not allow you to cross my boundaries” are necessary tools. It can be embarrassing to practice it with other people, but it has to be done. (I’m not exempting myself—I usually forget to speak at all in self-defense scenarios because I’m so focused on exactly how I’m going to take the guy apart.)

Stand-Up Techniques

We moved on to demonstrating stand-up techniques. We’d run through his seminar outline earlier in the week, and Steven and I hit the high points that morning before the group arrived, so we were pretty well prepared.

We demonstrated defenses against wrist grabs (same side grabs, cross grabs, and grabs from behind), bear hugs, front chokes, and a few other techniques. We also taught them how to perform elbow strikes and side kicks.

Simple, meat-and-potatoes self-defense, just the way I like it. If the women remember even one or two of these responses, that’s a success.

Unscripted

Next was the portion I was most excited about: free-form self-defense. Jonathan was going to put on a helmet and some pads and come at me. I had to stop him and escape.

He’d asked me earlier if I’d be comfortable doing that. I said yes. The ladies should see unscripted, realistic self-defense, right? And anyway, I’d done that sort of thing frequently at my first school. But it’d been years, and we had an audience, and there’s nothing like trying to figure out how to take a guy down when he’s charging right at you. My stomach kept turning over as I strapped on some hand pads.

And then he was reaching for me—”Hey, girl, hey, come here, come here“—and I let loose.

Most of that part of the seminar is a blur to me. Got in some bad positions occasionally, but was able to use a few of the techniques we’d taught earlier, protect myself, and control my attacker long enough to escape. Apparently I was a little too efficient—Jonathan said he couldn’t attack me as fully as he’d planned because I kept shutting him down. We went to the ground a few times; I bridged up to get him off me and escaped out the back door. Which led naturally into…

Ground Techniques

Jonathan decided not to teach a lot of BJJ. Mainly we wanted the ladies to know that even if they were put in a bad situation on the ground, they still had options.

We showed them closed guard and how to pull a guy down if he tried to punch them: crunch up using your core, try to get your head to the outside of his shoulder, gable grip your hands. Once in that position, transition to a choke—same technique as an rear naked choke, except it’s from the front and you use your free hand to gouge at the attacker’s eyes. We also showed them how to take the back from that position (if the attacker’s resisting the choke), hipping out and hooking the lat, then getting up onto the back to set hooks and RNC.

We also taught them how to defend themselves if they were knocked to the ground but their attacker was still standing: position and up-kicks, and standing up while still protecting themselves.

Fun Times…

Throughout the seminar, about three or four of the women had been game enough to try out some of the things we were showing them. When Jonathan had me show the bear hug defense that ends in scooping the attacker’s leg (he lands flat on his back), one or two were bold enough to try it, though a little leery of doing it with one of the guys. So I was the “attacker.” (Bear in mind that I am five feet tall and weigh less than some large dogs.) Anyway, I got to practice my back fall, which was nice for me.

At one point we were on the ground talking about things you can do from closed guard, aside from the clinch-choke-take the back combo. We’d talked about me having some go-to techniques from that position. When Jonathan said, “Well, Jenn has some options from here. She could … ” I think I put him in an armbar before he finished the sentence. Oops. (The ladies were all, “That was awesome! Do it again! But slower!!”)

After that Jonathan, Steven, and I changed from street clothes into our gis and rolled a bit to demonstrate what BJJ was. (“So that’s what Matt does!”) Jonathan promised he would make me look good and he did. I even pulled off a scissors sweep. Baby steps, I know, but still. And he told the ladies I was legitimately hard to pin down with my guard game. I had a blast, and then I got to watch Jonathan and Steven roll. Always fun to watch. Oh, and Jonathan wanted me to do a flying armbar on him, so I did. Tapped him twice: first, hanging upside down; second, after I lifted his leg and pulled him into the classic armbar position.

…Were Had By All (We Hope)

The participation was about what I expected. A few looked kind of bored, the majority watched and giggled every so often, and a few jumped in and tried things.

Near the end I got an opportunity to tell them why I do BJJ—not just because it’s good exercise, but because it’s good training in getting past the instinctual response of freezing in a bad situation; instead, I learn a whole new set of instincts and get used to grappling with bigger guys.

Not sure if any will come back, though a few did ask for Jonathan’s card. I didn’t get a chance to talk to them individually, since I had to go to work. But they all looked really excited about Matt taking them to lunch afterward.

What a blast. Jonathan is hoping to start a women’s self-defense class in the fall, and you can bet I’ll be all over that.

Additional Reading

This is a great post on common problems with women’s self-defense classes, if you’re interested.