Articles
Become a Warrior Princess
This article originally appeared in DASH magazine issue 8 (May/June 2004) and is reproduced here with permission. Stephanie visited Kingsland Martial Arts as background to this article.
When I started going to parties with my friends, my loving but somewhat over-protective mother came up with a plan if I ever needed to be rescued from a social event gone bad. I was to find the nearest phone, call home and enquire, "How's the dog?" and my father would swoop in and collect me.
Fortunately it never came to that, but like many women I grew up with a vague awareness of my physical vulnerability. Though the constant stream of media reports of violence against women is misrepresentative - domestic violence is much more common than attacks by strangers - the danger of physical and sexual assault is real. Any woman without a personal bodyguard could stand to know more about how to keep herself safe, and at worst, fend off an attacker.
Safety in Numbers
Self-defence is not just about knowing how to fight back. A key part of protecting yourself is understanding how you can become vulnerable, and steering clear of risky situations.
1. Memorise these words - "anticipation and avoidance". If you get into a tense situation, try to talk calmly to an aggressor. Practice relaxation, as appearing fearful or stressed can provoke an attack. Body language is important, so maintain a comfortable distance between you and the aggressor.
2. Be aware. Auckland self-defence teacher Paul Quickenden says that one of the keys to safety is being cognizant of your surroundings: "Situational awareness is important. Keep your head up, pay attention to what's around you and the people nearby." A potential attacker is going to seek out someone paying little attention to their environment. Walk tall, look confident and be alert, even on a busy street in the middle of the day. Also, make sure you know where you're going - looking lost leaves you vulnerable.
3. Carry a personal attack alarm and a mobile phone. Noise is the best way of drawing other people's attention to you, and with a phone you can summon help from anywhere - for yourself or for someone else. With these items you will feel more confident, but don't fall into the trap of thinking "it will never happen to me".
4. Wear comfortable clothes and shoes that are easy to move in. Carry your bag slung across your body with any zips or openings on the inside. Walk facing oncoming traffic, to deter kerb-crawlers. If you have to walk in the same direction as traffic and a car stops, turn around and walk the other way so the car cannot follow you.
5. If you think you're being followed on foot, cross a road and keep walking. If you still think someone's trailing you, head for somewhere busy and well-lit. Have your mobile phone at the ready, and don't be shy about asking - or yelling - for help.
6. Beware of spots where physical assaults are common, such as parks and carparks. Never walk in them alone at night. If you have to leave a safe location to reach your destination in a more isolated area, walk in a group. If that's not possible, take a taxi. Taxi drivers are required by law to drive you wherever you specify, within reason, even if it's only a $4 fare. "Try not to become isolated," Quickenden says. "The more people you have around you, the more likely someone will eventually react if you scream - though it may not be instantaneous."
7. If you tend to exercise outdoors and alone, be conscious of the habits that put you at risk. Listening to music can make a tough run easier, but wearing headphones dulls your senses to potential danger and makes you an obvious target. Plan your route carefully and always stick to well-lit, populated areas. Don't always go on the same route at the same time, and remember to leave behind details of where you're going and when you will return. If possible, take a dog with you.
8. Don't be tempted to push yourself to your physical limit when out exercising - you should never get so exhausted that you cannot run away from danger if necessary. Look sure of yourself and in control and always act on your instincts - if something looks or feels wrong it probably is.
Toughing It Out
There's a small chance that the time will come when prevention techniques fail and you need to make a decision about self-protection. If you choose to fight, remember one thing - give it everything you've got.
1. Use a gas or electronic attack alarm, as these give out a short piercing sound and will temporarily disorientate an attacker, giving you enough time to escape. Carry it somewhere where you can get to it quickly - don't leave it buried at the bottom of your bag. If you don't have an alarm, just make a noise yourself by screaming as loud as you can, or shouting "call the police!" - if you're loud enough this can be just as effective as a personal alarm. If you have an alarm, use it and shout as well.
2. Steady yourself. Panic can disable you, so focus on keeping control and channelling your fear into anger. Adopt what police term the "bash and dash" approach. Primary targets are the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, throat, groin, knees or shins.
3. The voice is a powerful weapon. As Quickenden says, "Everyone knows how unsettling it is to hear a child's high-pitched scream. If an attacker is close and facing you, make a loud noise directly in his face." The element of surprise is crucial: many attackers will not expect you to fight back or respond in a coherent way. If you react immediately and aggressively to being threatened, that may be enough to scare the attacker off. "The evidence suggests," Quickenden points out, "that men like soft targets."
4. Use your head. If grabbed from behind and held in a bear-hug with your arms pinned, don't struggle forward, it will exhaust you. Instead, repeatedly fling your head backwards into your attacker's face and upper body. One or two connecting blows will do serious damage to the nose, chin and collarbone.
5. Never carry a gun or knife - the law regards them as offensive weapons, and they could be easily turned on you. Likewise, disabling sprays such as Mace and pepper spray are not legal for civilian use in New Zealand.
6. Conversely, if you come up against an attacker who is armed, it's serious. "If you can neutralise them before they get into a position to be a threat, do so," Quickenden says. "But this requires fast action and a strong situational awareness. If you can't, and all they want is your purse, give it to them. It's not worth dying for. I would give this advice even to senior self-defence grades - you can't dodge a bullet, and defending yourself from a knife attack requires advanced training. One thing though - never leave with the armed attacker. If they start steering you from a crowded place to a car, for example, your best option is to resist at the scene and hope someone comes to your aid."
7. Always have something available that can be used as a weapon. This could be a pen, a set of keys, an umbrella, or a less obvious tool - a travel-sized bottle of perfume or spray deodorant could be directed at an attacker's eyes. You have the right to defend yourself with reasonable force.
8. When deploying an object as a weapon, remember that anything that is hard and blunt should be aimed at bone (for example, direct the corner of a handbag or briefcase at the face, skull, shin, elbow or kneecap), while something with a point should be aimed at soft tissue - say, a pen into the throat, eyes, crotch or groin. (But do take care not to overreact: "Your response should be commensurate with the level of threat," Quickenden says. "If you get an unwanted pat in a nightclub, it's not okay to break his nose!")
9. Hoof it! Once you've achieved your primary aim of stunning or surprising your attacker, run for your life. If you manage to overcome them, stop attacking - you could be putting yourself in more danger, and you risk being charged with assault.
Class Action
As an expert in hapkido, a Korean martial art of self-defence, Quickenden recently introduced women's self-defence to his regular classes. This is intended, he says, to specifically address the needs of female students, recognising that they are generally smaller and weaker than a typical male attacker would be: "One of the strengths of hapkido is that you can have multiple defences to the same attack. All we have done is capture those that a typically-sized woman can make work most of the time, and then applied some good self-defence principles to these."
It looks easy on paper, but I timidly embarked on Quickenden's class with no experience of martial arts or even a good fist-fight. The 90-minute lesson - intended to equip people with the most basic strategies for dealing with a physical threat - began with a five-minute warm-up which included dynamic stretching, the swinging of legs and arms in different directions. While standard stretching lengthens and relaxes the muscles, dynamic stretching makes them springy and limber, and ready for action.
The action began with Quickenden teaching us to punch - the boxing fundamentals of jab and cross-cut. The keys are to keep a side-on stance, the fists up to protect the face, and a straight wrist. Serious martial artists strengthen their wrists by doing press-ups on their knuckles. And use your hips! Quickenden kept telling us. The swing of the hips creates momentum and is where all the power in the punch comes from. After a few practice rounds I thought I had the technique down and was feeling more confident, but it's deceptively easy when you're punching into space.
Without missing a beat, Quickenden launched into the fiendishly complex kicking manoeuvres. Others in the class appeared to cope well, but my appalling lack of balance (I've been working on it, but I think that like charisma it's something you've got or you haven't) was quickly revealed. Like punching, kicking defenses are generally either jabs or swings: depending on the position of yourself and your opponent, you can kick with the heel or ridge of your foot into the kneecap or shins; bring the top of the foot up between the legs; or pivot your body to kick hard against the outside of the opponent's knee.
With some brief punch-and-kick practice against the instructor's hand-held pads, we moved on to the business end of the class - women's self-defence. The goal here is not to learn to beat an attacker to a bloody pulp, but rather to know how to shock, stun or pain him enough to gather your wits and run. A basic self-defence principle is the three-pronged strategy known as pain-technique-pain: for example, when grabbed around the neck by an attacker, first clap your cupped hands hard against his ears (a ruptured eardrum is excruciating); then, thrust your arms violently upwards between his to break his grip; and finally, kick or knee him between the legs, or stomp hard against his shin. I wondered, if someone grabbed me, whether I would remember these moves in the midst of panic - but such a violent and sudden reaction would give me a good chance of escape.
And we learned what to do in a rape situation. The basic move, with an attacker on top of you with his hands on your throat, is to grab his hands and push hard against the tops of his thighs, throwing him backwards. A more sophisticated variation involves flipping him over with a thigh against his neck, bringing your other leg over his chest and thrusting your hips up to break his arm. (I later tried this technique on a male friend who has 20 centimetres and 40 kilos on me, and found that all I would have done is make a bad situation a lot worse.)
One of the downsides of a self-defence class is that, obviously, it's just practice, and this means that you can never really go to town on your opponent. It's playfighting - you swing gentle punches not intended to hurt - so you won't know whether you can defuse a real-life threat. But it's surely better than nothing, and it will give you some extra tools in the self-protective arsenal that all women need.
Statistics
The World Health Organization has reported that up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.
At least one out of every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her.
In the USA, the Surgeon General has warned that domestic violence poses the single largest threat to all women: more than rape, muggings and car accidents put together.
The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police.
Men perpetrate the majority of violent acts against women.
In 88% of all violent incidents males are identified as the suspects; half of all incidents involve a male perpetrator and a female victim.
Of persons charged: 98% of sexual assaults are by men and 86% of violent crimes are committed by men.
Women are almost 8 times more likely to be victimized by a spouse than are men.
Female victims are most frequently stalked by a current or former partner: 39% by an ex-husband; 2% by a current husband; and 17% by a current/former boyfriend.
There were 3,312 recorded cases of sexual offences in 2002/2003, 57.2% of which were resolved.
It was stated that 11 women a year die and about 400 women are hospitalised due to assault.