The Truth and Lies About Women's Self Defense

[Erica]

I challenge you all to give the Truth and Lies article to your men and women students. Please don't comment on it before hand. Just give it to them and ask them to post their thoughts on this thread/post. This should be interesting.
Thanks,
Erica

Scenario- If you arm your daughter with options and let her know about tactics that perpetrators use - rather than a to do or not to do list (a list which most college kids ignore anyway )- then she can make her own intuitive decision if/ when the times comes (when she is at a frat party, drinking).

As for the little girl who was abducted- Adults failed her- last night on the news her friend -who was with her at the time- was on TV- her friend said that she shouted to go tell her mom -Her intuition did work for her. The adults in her life did not teach her tactics that perpetrators use. Matter of fact - I personally think the majority of kids have better intuition than adults becuase they have less social conditioning.

I truthfully do not beleive that there is an agenda in the stats that are showing an increase in crime- you make it sound like there is some conspiracy in the gov. to make the stats worse and worse... I think they would make them better and better if your theory about agenda was correct.

rooke- Yes - I will get you that info.

hagrid- thanks for the information. I would love it if more people would post up backup info. to what we are talking about. There is a lot of good web pages and books out there!!!

Thanks!
Erica

[Erica]

Hagrid

That web page about child lures is really cool! Thanks! I am going to talk to the ESCAPE director and see if we can attach it to the web page and put it in our manual. Have you used the program?

[rooke]

Thanks

Thanks much Erica. I appreciate it!

Rooke

[Jerry Wetzel]

Hagrid,
Thanks for the info. Very interesting.

Erica,
It seems fummy to hear the person who has been speaking of male societies conspiracy to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and victimized. The idea of conspiracy is a little to far. However, if I run a security agency, or a company that manufactures some kind of self defense product, it is in my interest to help fund a survey that shows how much my services are needed or to help gain funding. As far as things getting better; again, it depends on where you go for statistics. If you look around often, you'll see contradicting statistic all over the place. Depends on who ran the study.

I will accept your "challenge". It isn't much of a challenge really. I agree with much of what the initial article has to say. It is YOU whom I disagree with. I am constantly sharing new info with my female (and male) students. Don't expect much response on the forum however. Most of my students are professionals in various fields with little time for internet bickering.

Stay safe,
Jerry

p.s. Erica, you said earlier that you teach college classes. Are you a professor?

"Start by recalling that violence is a force of nature, a permanent and regular feature of mankind-and it is not new. In this sense, our world is exactly how it was." Gavin De Becker "Fear Less"

[Erica]

re

It makes sense that you believe in the myths because you profit from them.


I hope you do some more studies, but the hundreds that have been done all reflect the same thing: that men commit the majority of violence in this world - violence against men, women, and children - and crime reports around the world document this. Look at the FBI, Justice Dept., RAINN, CDC, Sex Offenses and Offenders, Stopping Rape, The Gift of Fear, Rape Culture, Amnesty International, etc.

..Where are all your stats and books and reports? Please list them so we can look them up. All you do is givel your opinion, but where is your research?

I also have been a counselor at the GA Council on Child Abuse, Dekalb County and Cobb County Rape Crisis Centers, Cobb County Domestic Violence Shelter, Cobb County Violence Study Circles- - and during my 5 years working with these agencies (as well as working as a instructor with ESCAPE Self Defense and as the director at a YWCA where I led the county Take Back the Night with the local police and directed the Week Without Violence Program) I have encountered literally thousands of victims of male violence and only a handful of victims of female violence.

My personal experience(and that of other counselors and instructors worldwide) backs ups the national, local, and world stats.

P.S. I am not a professor...I volunteer as an instructor with the class. In addition to training with ESCAPE for the last five years, I have also trained in bjj with Jacare(and kickboxing with LA Boxing) and am about to begin work as a Cobb County Police Officer

Thanks,
Erica

[Jerry Wetzel]

Erica,

Again with the "myths" drivel. What myths do I believe in? Why do you think most people who read this see you as argumentative and angry? It APPEARS that you have an agenda and that only your way is right. If that is the case, then who is profitting?

If the whole goal of your studies was to confirm that men commit most of the violence in the world where have you been?(Just a figure of speach. No need to answer.) Do you believe that anybody, throughout the entirety of these posts, is argueing against that? That men perpetrate most violence should be obvious to anyone who has read a history book. This is news? Did you not know that before you read studies and stats?

Good luck with your new job. I'm glad you have prior training going in. I have a few students who are LEOs (some female) and from what they've told me and what I've seen, their physical training leaves something to be desired. I'm also going to be interested to hear how you utilize you current knowledge as a police officer.

Stay safe,
Jerry

[Hagrid]

We do use the Childlures program in our class. How does it work in the real world? Don't know, none of my kids have had a situation (this is a good thing). There is a book and there is also an abbreviated pamphlet available. Very useful for awareness training. We do scenarios with the kids as described in the literature. I also have Impact/Model Mugging training so we incorporate that as well.

HAGRID

[Erica]

Hagrid

Hagrid-

That is cool. I am going to see if the ESCAPE Team will get the book about the program.

Yeah- IMPACT/ Model Mugging programs rock- the director and founder of ESCAPE trained with both of them and was an instructor (they call them attackers I think) with them. I really want to take the instructor's class, but I don't have the money. I have researched them and Krav Maga - I would like to take the instructors class both these organizations. Do you have suggestions on other really good women's / kid's/ self defense classes or seminars?

I am going to start another thread in the Women's Self Defense board- that I think will help me and other instructors and students. I am going to call it - Women's and Men's Self Defense Success Stories- I also am going to start a thread called - Resources for Self Defense - I hope to see you all there!!

Erica
ESCAPE Self Defense
Atlanta, Ga
770-433-9371

[Fighter]

Im going to check that out right now!

[Shiela]

Wow--this is some really good stuff in here. I know no one has posted on this for a few weeks but I just had to commend you people for your passion on the subject. Right off I have to say that Rockwell, YOU have got a good head on your shoulders. I don't think there was one thing you said that I'd disagree with. To me your arguments seem undisputable despite Erica's opinion of not being able to back them up with references--I think common sense tells us that they are indeed valid points without extensive study and reseach. Anyway, I hope we haven't heard the last of you.

I admire all of your opinions and facts that I've read. This is the first day I see this site and after having read these posts I rushed to register in hope to partake in future discussions.

Thanks and peace to you all...

S

[Rockwell]

Sheila, I appreciate the support. I don't have any degrees or certificates of expertise in these matters, and the only stats I generally get are the ones on the nightly news. I just try to form intelligent opinions based on my experiences, the experiences of those around me, and other sources I trust and respect. I think just about all that can be said has been said on this thread...hope to see you on another one.

Best,

Jeff

[Ryu (JKD?)]

By saying people put themselves in a situation that they will be attacked/ or possible attacked is wrong and blamming.


I disagree with this. The only reason I do is because this can be taken to the extreme too easily. There very well is "right" ways of being aware, knowing your environment, etc.
The lion analogy is quite silly both ways because if the person avoided the lion pit all together the "attack" is for the most part neutralized.
This is not to say victims of violence are at fault of their attacks. I very much agree with Erica that it is the ATTACKERS who should be blamed for those actions. Regardless.
Yet at the same time we live in a world where men are NOT equal. Sad as that is. People need to take responsibility for their actions. But realistically, that won't always happen.
If I am aware that there is a neo nazi bar in a particular area, and I walk in with certain clothing, attitude, that I know will get me into trouble (even though it wouldn't with just about everyone else on the planet) and they beat the living hell out of me..... well they are disgusting, they are the ones at fault for the attack, and they are the ones who are without a doubt "WRONG" for their beliefs and what they did..................... But.... I'm an idiot for not taking responsibility for my own actions. Regardless if I "should" be free to do what I want..... our world doesn't work like that. I actually feel telling women that they NEEDN'T be aware of getting drunk at frat parties, where they go at night, etc. is actually very dangerous, not to mention highly irresponsible to what is a very real evil in our world. Doesn't matter if the "lions" should have been tame. In reality they weren't.

Having said all that, I want to reinerate that I very much agree with Erica on almost all her points. The "rape culture" we hear about is NOT just in the US. You can see it in many other countries as well.
Media and movies, TV, DOES portray women in a very bad light most of the time. We have films where kidnapping, beating, tieing up, women is supposed to be seen as "funny", "cute",
"cool" or other such things. To me it's really disgusting, and is a major anger to me.
I HOPE ...... that a lot of people starty seeing that kind of thing as disrespectul and digusting.

As far as the training.... I agree for the most part again with Erica. I've got more to say, but it's late and I'm too tired
LOL

So I'll call it a night.

Ryu

[Rockwell]

Ryu...the lion analogy was actually supposed to be silly. That was just one of my feeble attempts at keeping a serious discussion from getting TOO serious. I think we're all in agreement with Erica when she states that violence against women is wrong and society carries a great deal of the blame for this violence. Some of us have simply disagreed with her approach for working toward a solution.



Best,


Jeff

[chalambok]

Erica, that was some very interesting stuff. Probably it was all true, but I cannot comment from any historical perspective because I am not a predator. But just as an aside, my Pekiti Tersia instructor, Al Solomon, always used to use the term 'counter-offensive' because it changes one's mindset completely. I liked it then, and still use it in my class.