To quench a fire🧯: groin slap

Groin slap effectively 'quench the fire' in
case of unwanted sexual advances 

Since I started this blog, some of you might have got the impression I only advocate for the most brutal response to any type of attack. However, Linda’s course was not only about last resort self defense. She did teach us awareness and avoidance, as well as less violent methods of deterrence. These can be used in not overly dangerous or life-threatening situations for instance if your new date is too overzealous and pushes you to something you do not want, or your horny colleague is making unwanted sexual advances. Unlike for instance kneeing the testicles, there is little risk of a serious injury. Linda called these techniques ‘fire-quenchers’. Al Marrewa in his self defense book ‘The feminine warrior’ refers to them as ‘attention-getters’. 

He tells a very interesting story demonstrating their applicability in real-life scenarios:

Elizabeth was in a crowded elevator when a man standing behind groped her between the legs. She could have responded with verbal self defense but decided to use an attention-getter instead. With his body pressed against her, she knew exactly where he was. So without turning to look at him, Elizabeth reached behind her and slapped the man’s groin. He grabbed his crotch and actually fell to his knees (he was also humiliated in front of others). The doors opened moments later, and Elizabeth calmly left the elevator. Her aggressor was still on his knees, moaning in pain. 

Al Marrewa,  The feminine warrior: a woman’s guide to verbal, psychological, and physical empowerment. (1998) page 119-120

Common reaction to a groin slap

In this case, Elizabeth used one of the simplest yet very effective attention-getters—the groin slap. It was not missing in Linda’s portfolio of techniques either. She told us why it is so useful and should be in every girl’s arsenal. The woman’s hand is always in the same level and the proximity of the groin of an approached attacker. It can be used, as Elizabeth did when he is standing behind you as well. The groin slap should be done as a non-telegraphed, surprise attack, it is then very difficult to block or evade it. Once the attacker buckles reflexly, you can follow by striking him on his neck with your elbow and pushing him forward ideally to make him slump on the floor or into the wall. 

Slapping testicles is similar to scooping water 

Linda sought to explain the principle of the defensive moves by relating them to the things and activities we were already familiar with. In this case, she said: “Do you remember when during summer you jumped into a lake or sea, and you got into a fight with someone by splashing water at each other? You firmly pressed the fingers together, so your hand formed a cup which you used in sharp and quick swinging motions to scoop as much water as possible towards your opponent? The groin slap is based on similar mechanics, but instead of water, you are scooping up the attacker’s testicles.”

For a perfect execution, it is important to remember these points: The striking area is your fingers. The palm of your hand or the heel of your hand should not be preferred for this as the whole hand cannot penetrate easily between the thighs. A larger area also dissipates the force upon the impact. On the other hand, fingers pressed together form a sturdy spear-like structure. Sudden sharp contact with a pointy striking area makes it count. It is important to note that, unlike when kicking or kneeing which rely on an upward movement, the penis does provide relatively good protection against slapping. So you should avoid striking just the front of his groin or in a downward direction. The movement of your arm should be a fast pendulum-like motion with good swift momentum, so your fingers flick sharply to the bottom of the scrotum.

Linda demonstrated the proper execution of the groin slap on our kicking dummy with fastened silicone testicles. I remember how each slap produced a thud sound and the silicone testicles bounced erratically evidencing a spot-on hit. Linda then let us practice on the kicking dummy, and once she saw we got it right we step into training in pairs with Bob and Peter. We made two girls only and two mixed pairs, but we were supposed to rotate to give every girl a chance to practice with a boy. Linda told the girl ‘attackers’ to put two balls of crumpled paper in their gym shorts to simulate the testicles. We trained the groin slap alone first and then the whole sequence ‘slap-hit with the elbow-push forward’.

Because of the relative mildness of this move, it was actually the first time we could try out a technique on our darling attackers without them wearing any protection. However, we were supposed to 'deaccelerate' our hand right before hitting the target, which is of course not fully possible due to the gained momentum of our hand.

So the poor boys were occasionally hopping in pain, groaning and clutching their manhood, while the girls with paper balls were just giggling as it rather tickled their girly parts and felt a bit weird. Sometimes the surrealism of Linda’s course was indisputable...

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