Mail from Claire – inspirational story #6

Since I started this blog, I received quite some emails, most are very supportive, some critical (as often are the comments). Today I would like to share (with her permission) an email I received from a girl named Claire about her very interesting experience. I consider her account as a very valuable addition to the ongoing debate about ball myths and the philosophy of teaching self defense to young women particularly the differences in attitudes between male and female instructors.

Dear Wendy,

My name is Claire, and I just discovered your amazing blog. I study journalism and social science and I am about to graduate next year. I find the discussions on your blog quite fascinating uncovering some overlooked gender issues. I even considering doing my master thesis on the subject. I understand that from a male perspective, it is a very unpleasant and touchy subject, that’s why the responses are not always positive. Let me share a story from a couple of weeks ago which was for me quite eye-opening and completely changed my opinion how self-defense should be taught.  

At the beginning of this semester my good friend convinced me to attend a female self-defense course organized by our university. I heard some horrible stories about sex offences which happened recently, so I decided to give it a try.

The whole course consisted of two parts, one was theoretical about crime and rape prevention and the second one, which lasted for three weeks was about physical deterrence. We were divided into two groups of approximately 10; one group was led by a male and one by a female instructor. I was in the first group with Gerry, approximately 35 years old assistant professor from the sports department. He claimed he does several martial arts including karate and aikido, holding I don’t know which dan…even went to London Olympics…. He often wore a black kimono probably to highlight his seniority. Not exactly my type, but he was fit and good-looking, and I suspect that some of my classmates had a crush on him 😊

All the time he acted like he is the best expert in self-defense in the whole world. I did not like how cocky and opinionated he was.

Regarding the content of the course, I must say, his classes were dead boring and to me appeared totally useless, I often regretted I had to skip my favorite callanetics classes. The training looked basically all the time the same; he showed us a particular technique, usually to get out from a hold or grab and then we were supposed to repeat it and practice, either with him or in pairs. There was hardly anything on last-resort techniques. It was far from the fascinating and novel course you had with Linda.

For instance, he never mentioned testicles as a possible target…or actually, he mentioned that we should never attempt to kick or knee the groin, because it is dangerous, an attacker expects it and that we can lose balance…basically all the myths you debunk in your posts. Girls should, according to him, aim their kicks only at shins or knees cos a regular woman is not able to aim and kick higher. I am not an expert in self-defense by any means, never done any martial arts but come on, the things he thought were so unrealistic, consisted mainly of throws, pushes and elbow hits.

One evening Helen, the instructor of the second group got sick and we had to have the class together. This time we learned how to get away when an attacker stands close by and grab our hands. The idea was to twist the wrist to release our hand from the grasp, hit his nose with the palm and at the same time put one leg behind the attacker and try to trip him and push him down. Practicing this technique obviously caused us a lot of frustration. I don’t know how he got an idea that tripping a well-built man is a good self-defense move for an average college girl. Gerry became quite arrogant, criticizing us, having some stupid demeaning comments, and just adding to our frustration.

A man is as strong as his weakest point

There was a moment one girl, her name was Nadia was supposed to perform this move with Gerry playing an attacker. Nadia joined us from the other group and was a bit older than most of us, I think she was already a graduate student. So he grasped her hand to simulate an attack. But unexpectedly, Nadia instead of that awkward maneuver she was supposed to do, completely out of the blue, she stepped forward, quickly and sharply raised her knee and hit him right there …. you know the testicles! Because no groin techniques were ever trained, I suspect he never wore a cup. The bulge of his sweatpants got deformed, screamed horribly and immediately dropped to the ground. We all looked at him in awe. He was rolling on the floor cursing in apparently great pain.

Nadia was terrified, she squatted next to him and started to apologize profusely. But he just angrily rebuffed her focusing on his anguished male organs. Maybe to save the awkward situation one girl broke the silence and humorously commented “Well, that worked!” We started to chuckle, and another girl added “Seems, Nadia should be our new instructor!” another girl added “Heard something got cracked! Icepack?”

Nadia should be the one
wearing a black kimono 

I was a bit appalled by those sarcastic comments. You know we were just students, and he was a young professor, who just got in an embarrassing situation and is possibly injured. Of course, he did not share any humor with us, he just looked at us with an angry red face and called off the session and asked us to leave.

In the locker room, we gathered around Nadia to get an explanation.

Nadia told us that the last session with Helen they learned to get away from a similar situation, and a knee strike was involved and somehow the whole thing came automatically. She said I got really scared I ruptured his testicles I could feel the soft tissue being crushed with my knee. I am so sorry; I had no idea how effective it can be.

We were quite supportive, absolutely not blaming her. One girl said “Don’t feel sorry, you only broke his ego. He should have worn the cup, come on, this is a self-defense class one should expect their balls to be kicked!”

Nevertheless, Gerry did not come for the next class. We finished the remaining two classes with Helen. What a change it was! She was much much better teacher, and Wendy, imagine she used the word testicles instead of groin! We had some concerns about Gerry, but she assured us he is fine, he sustained a mild bruising in one testicle and in her words “The functionality of the organs got retained.” She said he took a break, teaching self-defense to young women can be quite grueling sometimes. 😊

She told us that what Nadia did, is a simple and effective defense move, and any instructor should not be ashamed to teach it and have the trainees to practice it. She also blamed Gerry for not wearing a cup, such carelessness was just calling for disaster. If Nadia kneed with a bit more force it indeed could lead to a rupture or torsion, possible permanent injuries. But if facing a rapist this should be our goal. She even gave us some tips how this can be easily accomplished.

We also discussed the grab-twist-pull method in detail. One girl even suggested having Gerry as a ‘training dummy’ so we can learn this important method in real! Helen was laughing with us, but she rejected the proposal “A good idea, but I don’t want to lose my tenure.” You were lucky you got Bob and Peter for Linda’s course. I think Helen should also look into such possibility. I see a lot of my male cheeky classmates for whom the serving in such a course as your ‘darling attackers’ would be only for their good 😊

The course was not long but I was amazed on the differences in attitude and approach between those two instructors, and I regret we hadn’t done the whole physical part with her. We had just two classes with her, but we left the course more confident and empowered and prepared for this dangerous word.

I don’t want to generalize but it indeed seems that female self-defense instructors perform better, and I can only recommend to specifically look for such courses.  

My best wishes and I hope to read more about this topic on your blog,

Claire

Thank you Claire for this very interesting and empowering story, I wish you very best luck in writing your thesis, do not hesitate in consulting me with anything. And be safe. Wendy