What are the hurdles?

[JasonE]

Mike -

I appreciate your post. It looks like you've had to walk the same path I'm treading now. I've been learning many of those same things along the way, but I always want to know more. On a side note, most of those things apply equally to men, IMHO. I am curious about PACE. I've had some involvement with IMPACT and other training programs, but am not familiar with PACE. You can e-mail me directly at JasonErickson@CSTCoach.com with more info. If you have a web site, please send me the link.

Thanks!

[Tom Yum]

Update

Hey Mike, have you fought yet?

Hook us up with the results.

[Hardball]

As a male martial arts and fitness instructor, I need some fresh perspectives on how to address the physical, mental, emotional, and any other hurdles that women experience in training.

As someone that knows far too many women that have been raped or assaulted, I want to find ways to attract more women to train for self defense instead of just for basic fitness. I am hoping that women on this forum would be kind enough to share some of their thoughts.

Thanks in advance for your input. Feel free to to check out my fitness training web site to verify I'm legit. I am also a moderator on the Circular Strength Magazine forums if you want more background on me.

Thanks for your time and feedback!

Offer hand gun training for women. I start them out with CO2 pellets. I find that a lot of "Pro Active" women "want" to be trained in Handgunning.

[medic06]

Wooo-eeeeyh!

you gots to finish off wit some fresh fried beignets and coffee wit chockory

chicory?? Yup

[47MartialMan]

Hi Jason,

Several years ago I took cardio-kickboxing class with an emphasis on self-defense. As you might expect, the class consisted of mostly women. The ratio was about 16 to 2 I think.

Anyway, once in a while I'd stop and just watch how these women trained on the heavy bags. I was appalled, to say the least. None of these women seemed willing to put any effort into their training and the instructor just let it go on and on like that. These women seemed more worried about the possibility of breaking a nail during training than about how effective their SD skills would be if attacked. Outside of the cardio benefit, they were wasting their time if SD training was their main purpose for being there.

Understand, these were all average women with typical female personality traits; none of whom had great athletic ability or the macho desire to aquire years of advanced training or to compete in MA tournaments. If you are to put together an effective women's self defense program than realize that the types of women who I've described here will probably make up the majority of your students.

Therefore, the best advice that I can give you is simply to find a way to get these girls to train at 100% intensity at all times, and as though their lives depended on it. Concentrate on a few basic and powerful strikes and make sure that they can, and do, execute them properly.

Good luck,
Mr Miceguy

Many women join the ranks of cardio-kickboxing. It is not true self defense. It is another name for Tae Bo another name for-jazzercise-same for-aerobics-likewise-callesthenics.

One of my MA instructors told me long ago-"If you want to develop a great self-defense curriculum, dont only rely on MA. Go to rape seminars, take criminology and psychology classes. Learn about the many situations of modern life and apply all." I wrote this down in my foist notebook for references and course studies such as mentioned.

Pepper sprays and Tazers will not be effective if the mind-set and other training is not there.