Women's and Men's Self Defense Success Stories

[Fighter]

I am, every day I make sure I improve myself in atleast one way.

[IMPACT LA]

success stories

Please visit our website for success stories as well. (It is a brand- new site, it just went up today):

https://www.impactpersonalsafety.com

Also, another book, "Beauty Bites Beast" by Ellen Snortland is all about the socialization of women to believe they are not able to defend themselves. She makes some great points.

Best Wishes,
Perry Hauck
IMPACT Personal Safety, Inc

[Shiela]

Good idea to share success stories--wish I had one to share.

S

[Erica]

Great Web Site!

The IMPACT Site is great!!! The Success Stories are AWESOME! The pictures you all have on your page are really good too! I hope some day I can come out to CA and take your class! The work you do is amazing.

I helped make the ESCAPE Web page and we have a few self defense success stories too.

https://www.escapeselfdefense.com

Smiles!
Erica

[Fighter]

I checked that site out. Its pretty good, everyone should go there.

[Sean J]

Originally posted by Erica
No one else is posting any success stories!!! Some on you all -- I know I am not the only one out there with stories to share!!

Erica

....Why are success stories so important for women?

Success stories are not just important for women. Everybody needs them. Maybe women especially need them, when it is about physical combat as counterweight to being brainwashed into believing that girls don't fight. This aberration is definitely a cultural one: Show me a species of mammals that does not have some fight related ways of playing. And especially the predators and the apes: Don't the girls play as well?

But there are boys too in our societies that have been made to believe they are physically weak - not all boys grow up to be Schwarzenegger. Not all boys fight with other boys and play in the dirt as children - just as well as not all girls care to play with dolls or look or behave like miniature suburban housewives.

Everybody needs success stories

[holte2]

grocey store

my fiance was at the grocery store and noticved a guy kept following her up and down every isle in the grocery store, as common as that might sound she felt something was not right plus he kept staring at her....finally she turned around and yelled (and she can yell, trust me) "WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME, WHAT THE **** DO YOU WANT!!" after that he stood there for a second and walked away....she didnt seem him again after that...

maybe she was wrong about the guy, maybe she wasn't..im glad she didn't have to find out when it was to late.....your voice and embarrasment can be a powerful tool

[lynj99]

Here is a woman who suffered an attempted rape and turned her life around because of it. Her name is Liz Clarke and she has now dedicated her life to helping other women to learn how to defend themselves.

http://www.geoffthompson.com/guest_writers/LizClarke/Guest_Writers_Liz_Clarke_page1.htm

Here is a link to her website.

http://www.womens-selfdefence.co.uk

Incidently I have introduced my wife to this forum and she is now looking into learning how to defend herself.

Lyndon

[terry]

Here's one that happened to me when I was about 20. True story: --T

I was awakened by my mom one night at about 3:00 AM while visiting home from college. I rubbed my eyes to see her standing over me in her bathrobe shaking my arm with a concerned look on her face.

"What?" I asked.
"There's someone trying to break in the house." she whispered.
"Where?" I sat up in bed.
"At the front door. You can hear 'em picking the lock." she explained.
"Well, call the police," was my initial reaction. By that time I was bleary eyed on my feet in my underwear looking for where I had put my jeans.
"But what if they get in BEFORE the police arrive?" she asked. She had a point there.

I walk downstairs, through the living room and into the entryway of her house. What I then heard--a faint metal on metal scraping and clicking--was a door being picked from the other side. That woke me up right away. I turned around to see my mom behind me with a cordless phone dialing the police. I thought to myself: It is possible they could succeed before the police get here. If they enter at a time of their own choosing they could take us by surprise.

I looked out the viewing hole to check things out. There was a single adult male, a stranger a large build, picking the lock. I took a second to look whether there was anybody else behind or to the side of him...nope, nobody. I already knew that my mom didn't have any weapons in the house other than kitchen knives. And so my mind went to the idea of walking in there and possibly having to defend us in the event the intrudor got into the house while I was in the kitchen. I took another look in the keyhole. Still just one perp. I looked at my mom who was whispering into the telephone for the police to come right away.

I took a deep breath, seized the door knob, threw it open. As the door came open the pick remained in the door and the intruder, surprised, began to stand up. I struck a powerful downwards blow towards his hands, a LaCoste #8 as I remember. And cleared a bowie knife. As it clanged the floor just inside the door of my mother's home time seemed to slow down.

I looked at him and pushed him out of the door to get him away from the knife. He pushed back. And then I went off. As his hands approached my chest to push me I parried them with my left and put 240 pounds behind a Thai down elbow. I felt the bones of his temple crack beneath my elbow and saw him stand straight up and stagger back in surprise as his left eye filled rapidly with blood. I pushed him again, away from the knife on the ground, and threw 5 Thai kicks down and into his left knee. He was still standing. (Shit) Then I grabbed his jacket, pulled him towards me and threw him down the flight of stairs that led to the basement. There was a terrible CRACK as his head hit the large 4x12 beam that went across the top of the door way. Then a whump whump as his body fell to the ground.

I turned to look down the stairs at him. He lay there and didn't move. I looked back at my mom, who was standing a few feet behind me in her bath robe, still with her cordless phone in her hand. But now her face was red with anger and her hands were clenched. She jabbed the air with her left hand and urged, "Hit him again!"

I grabed the phone from her hand and said to the police dispatch, "Send an ambulance right away. I think I've just killed an intruder." I gave the phone back to my mom and sat down on the upper stairs and started to shake, my lungs gasping from the adrenaline rush that had hit me. My mom talked to the police dispatch and walked away from the entry way and up to the bay window in our living room to check for the police.

Well, as it turns out, I had NOT killed the guy. I had cracked his skull, crushed several bones in his face and damaged his optic nerve, but while I sat on the upperstairs (which went down to the entry way), he woke up, got up and came up the lower stairs, out of my views until he was just a few feet away from me. I have played that moment over in my mind may times on what could have happened. But what did happen was that he looked at me and ran. Or perhaps I should say he dragged himself down the driveway and up the street about a quarter of a block before he collapsed. The police, when they finally did arrive, just followed the trail of blood he left behind him.

So, to make a long story short, the fight lasted less than 10 seconds, my mom was safe, the police got the bad guy, and the bad guy--a prior violent offender--got to spend a month in the hospital before he got slapped with some serious charges.

But questions remain that I ask myself to this day: Should I have opened the door at all? Why did I let him get out of my sight? It was dark, and what would have happened if he would have had a gun or another buddy close by? Could I have been charged with manslaughter if he had died?

What I can say was that, in the moment, things happened so fast that you could only react. All those use of force guidelines, etc., go out the window. Finally, it made me think about how strong a thing is love itself. If someone ever threatens the life of someone you love, you will go.

Regards,

T

[holte2]

T-
great story, my question for you is how often were you training then and how long had you been studying? I am curious because instinctivly you began using your MT instead of reverting to something else , i.e just letting the adrenaline take over and throwing punches and stuff...does that make since?

[terry]

Originally posted by holte2
T-
great story, my question for you is how often were you training then and how long had you been studying? I am curious because instinctivly you began using your MT instead of reverting to something else , i.e just letting the adrenaline take over and throwing punches and stuff...does that make since?

I started training Muay Thai when I was 15, and that incident happened when I was 20. (I'm now just turning 40.) But I really only spent about 2 years training Muay Thai over that five years because I was pretty busy with college engineering courses & such. In any case, at the time of that incident I was spending about five hours a week training Muay Thai.

I've always considered Muay Thai to be my base art because whenever I had to make use of it--no matter what else I studied--it was Muay Thai that came out and worked under pressure. However, that has changed recently with the addition of BJJ as another core art. For me, the other arts I do add versatility to the basic fighting capability I have developed in those two arts. In addition, as I age I like BJJ and Muay Thai because they are fitness producing arts. I'm very enthusiastic about, for example, Sayoc Kali, but I would never have them as core arts because I would get fat as a pig if I did.

Cheers,

T

[kengar]

Re: From - Perpetrate My Fist

I have to stories, and I'll try to make them short.

Started going out with this girl that I worked with and as lucky as I could be she had a psychotic ex who was prone to violence, dealing drugs, and run in with the law. She was so nice I don't understand how she stayed with him. One day walking out from work with her, as I started to get into the car a hand grabbed my shoulder and I looked around. Seen some stranger who ask, "are you the motehr f**ker I'm looking for. Without thinking I put a back kick into his gut knocking him back far emough for me to gain my composer. Oh, he had a steel pipe about to crack my skull. I knew I need to breathe to calm my nerves before I felt I could deal with this so I just ask the basic stupid questions, Who are you?, etc.. He took a few swings at my head and I blocked them, the problem came when the girl decided to jump in the middle. Now I was trying to keep both of us from being killed.
He went back to his car, me thinking he was leaving so I let him, and he grabbed his gun. After pulling her from between us I finally got her to run away back to the office building. Once she was gone we stood looing at each other while he said he was going to kill me, he told me to get on my knees, I said no and then he shook his head and left. She came out with a slap print on her face and I just had bruised fingers from blocking the pipe. Honestly the only thing I thought about when he pulled the gun and said he was going to kill me was, 'God, he's too fat to go for the gun so you have to get me out of this one' and 'who is goint to do my laundry'.

After that incedent I started to show her how to fight. And one night she was out in their area and a bigger girl came up to her, asked her name and them punched her across the face. She turned back around and punched the attacker in the throat, watching the person hit the floor with no movement she took off.

[Taekwondo_mom]

My name is Susan, and this is my first time posting in this boardroom. People are often suprised when they discover that I am experienced int he martial arts because of my petite physique and reserved personality. I am soft spoken and quite reserved, but being a mother of three children has often demanded for me to be aggressive in certan situations -- especially when it involves the safety of my children. For the most part, here some background information about myself: I've studied the martial arts for 23 years and trained in self-defense tactics. I was born and raised a military brat, and my father taught me and my sister some boxing techniques at an early age in order to for us to protect ourselves. My mother was a piano teacher and practiced judo and karate during her spare time (which she had a lot of), along with a few other military wives.

Years ago, my mother stayed out my house to keep an eye on my youngest son (who had lost his sight around that time) while I was at work. Sometime between 2 and 3 o'clock he heard a "chicken scratch" noise along with some voices coming from downstairs and walked into the guest-room to alert his grandmother. She was already up reading a book and drinking a cup of coffee, but insisted that the noises and voices were all part of his imagination and assured him that he was going to be safe. He was still determined that somebody was trying to get into the house, so to make her grandson feel better she told him to stay in the room, while she went downstairs to check out the "noises." After walking around the house to make sure that every window and lock was secure she uncovered that somebody was outside of the front door trying to pry the lock open. She ran back to the guest-room and discovered that my son had already fallen asleep. As she walked out of the room my mother closed and locked the door behind her, and then she called the police. She could tell that there was more than one intruder trying to get into the house, so she rushed into the laundry room and grabbed her karate Gi off of the dryer and put it on. Afterwards, she walked into the living room with her cup off hot coffee and sat on the couch while the intruders were trying to pry their way into the house. After failed attempts of trying to get the door to pry open, the intruders took the risk exposing themselves and broke the glass window open. After the first intruder made his way through the window the second intruder was halfway into the house when the lights suddenly flickered on. Imagine to their suprise when they saw an "old" woman in her 50s wearing a karate Gi sitting on the couch with her arms crossed (one hand holding the coffee) and her barefeet propped up on the living room table. She did nothing but sip on her coffee and stare at them. Needless to say, the intruder that was halfway in the house was spooked and decided to leave the scene. The other intruder didn't have the same level of fear, though. He decided to test my mother by grabbing the old lamp that was leaning against the wall, and taunted her by threatening to hit her with the old lamp if she didn't get "face down" on the ground. She still remained calm and confident on the couch with her feet still propped up against the table, but this time she firmly instructed him to leave, and forwarned the intruder that the the scenerio would not be pretty if she had to get up from the couch. The young intruder didn't acknowledge her warning at first, but seconds later he dropped the lamp and evaded through the window. The police showed up minutes later and apprehended one of the intruders prior to arriving at the house. The young intruder that was caught eventually gave up his teenaged accomplice.

I have no doubt that my mother could've definetely taken out one of the intruders and could've put up a fight against both of the young men (whow were quite sizeable), if it came down to it (in fact, she was planning on using the "hot" coffee as a weapon of sorts). I'm greatful for the fact that violence wasn't needed to disarm the situation, especially with my son in the house. My mother is small and petite, yet she is a firm and intimidating person. I also have some personal success stories regarding myself (and other family members) that I will share with the boardroom later on tonight. For now, I have to get back to the torture of grading these essay papers. Thank You.

- Susan

[greenhorn]

A former secretary of a company I worked for told me that she escaped from an attempted rape just by shouting at the guy and pushing him away. Not very spectacular, I admit, but some rapists seems to be such cowards that even the ligthest demonstration of resistance and determination will spoil thier attack. On the other hand, if he would have continued his attempt to rape her, she would have lost the option to suprise him with her counterattack. So I guess what she did can not be recommended in general. It worked for her, though.

[ruskate6]

Speaking of self-defense success stories, I recently came across an interesting platform called Omegle. It's a video chat site that randomly connects you with people from all over the world.

I thought it could be a useful tool for those practicing self-defense to test out verbal de-escalation techniques or boundary-setting with strangers in a relatively low-stakes environment. The randomness of who you talk to can help simulate real-world encounters.

Of course, it's crucial to prioritize your safety and use caution in any online interaction. But I thought this site might be worth mentioning as an unconventional way to supplement self-defense training with more opportunities for practical application.

I'd be curious to hear if anyone else has tried using online chat platforms in this context, or if you have other ideas for practicing self-defense skills outside of class. Let me know your thoughts!