Next 365 days of female self defense

This holiday season was like the others. After some busy months in work, I finally took a break to relax and enjoy the time spent with Tom. Those two weeks involved the casual watching TV, cooking and eating some traditional goodies, visiting relatives, and going for some romantic walks. After being bored of all the staple Christmas fairy tales and family movies on national channels I suggested we watch what Netflix offers. “Now it is my turn to choose”  I insisted when I spotted the movie 365 days in the selection. I was curious because it seems to be such a paradox; I heard from my colleagues how awful and cringey the movie is, but strangely, somehow it is still one of the most successful Netflix movies worldwide.

I thought there must be something to it so why not watching it. Tom obviously was not that happy, he wanted some action or comedy, but I convinced him there are some hot sex scenes in it. If you have not seen it yet it is a Polish erotic drama. The plot is simple: a young Polish businesswoman Laura is kidnapped by a young Sicilian mafia boss Massimo who gave her 365 days (not a short time) to fell in love with him or he let her go. Of course, he is an extremely handsome, rich, and powerful alpha male (otherwise the whole premise would not fly right?) who always gets what he wants even the heart of any girl he desires. The plot was simple and predictable but anyway, spoiler alert!: after some of her initial resistance, a passionate attraction gradually develops, she drops her nice but boring boyfriend, and finally they are getting married. One can easily understand why this movie created such a fuzz.

I admit that although the script and dialogues sucked, there was some chemistry between the two characters and sex scenes were daring. But I was quite disappointed, throughout the entire film I wished for a more unexpected change in narrative or a twist in the plot. Why Laura could not show her bravery, and quick-thinking in combination with self defense skills to get rid of her overconfident and arrogant captor. It would be so satisfying seeing her turning the tables and by using his fragile masculinity against him to put him to his knees. There were so many instances in the movie this could easily happen.

For instance, there was this tense scene in the shower when both are naked. Massimo shows his typical controlling and dominant side (and his male parts), Laura provocatively teases him with her looks. At some point, seeing her being interested in his penis (or testicles who knows😊), he orders her to touch it. Her hand slowly moves along his torso towards his crotch. I immediately thought to myself that if she attended Linda’s course, she would know how to use that instance his confidence betrays him and his greatest weakness is exposed, to unexpectedly ‘touch’ it in a way he would never forget and so teaching him the important life lesson not to kidnap a woman.  

A naked man behaving like this put his testicles at great risk  

In the following sequence she decides not to continue with the play, turns around and leaves, he grabs her by the neck and pulls her towards him to kiss her. At that moment I just wanted to scream out of my lungs “Knee his f.cking balls!” Luckily, I did not, I did not want to upset Tom, last time he already angrily commented in a similar situation that the Linda’s self defense course had some very bad influence on me. Anyhow, the creators missed the opportunity to show an example to follow providing an empowering experience for women with a moral ending that even if a man is an attractive wealthy mafia boss, he still has sensitive testicles and must carefully safeguard their male vulnerability, otherwise kidnapping a woman can go wrong. That was my take on this 'cinematographic gem', if you know any other movies which could have had a similar twist, please feel free to share it in the comments.

I hope this following 365 days 😊 I will be able to contribute to this blog as much I want (hope this year won’t be that busy at work), there are still many techniques I want to communicate and to continue giving some more glimpses on the Linda’s course. Wendy 

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 

Distraction and deception! 😲 (part 1)

Bird guarding its two eggs

Once I saw a very interesting nature documentary. It was about animals working in teams. They showed unique footage of two ravens stealing eggs from a grouse nest. While one raven distracted the protective female grouse the second one stole the eggs. It reminded me how Linda strongly highlighted the importance of the surprise element for female self defense, especially when applying techniques targeting testicles.

Understandably, men are naturally protective of their eggs as was the poor grouse. They learn from a young age that what is hanging between their legs is not only essential for their sexuality and propagation of their genes but is also very fragile and sensitive. In a physical hand-to-hand confrontation, you can see them instinctively assuming a groin protective stance crossing their legs, they cover their crotch with their hands, or/and moving their pelvis back. 

Typical male protective posture 

Many instructors and self-proclaimed experts insist that this conscious protectiveness and the expectation you would go for his sensitive bits make testicles an ineffective target and any failed attempts just make him angrier. Admittedly, this is indeed a limitation, however, it can be to a great extent overcome by using some dirty tricks to get to those guarded jewels. With this post, I would like to discuss one of the ‘Ds’ in Linda’s 4D principle of female self defense – deception, which also includes distraction and all types of trickery.

Linda often used her unconventional approach to make a point and when it came to this important aspect it was no different. That evening Linda was a few minutes late for a class, so we spent time chatting with Bob and Peter. They enjoyed the ladies’ attention and used it to brag about their recent successes in sports competitions. When she finally came in, she greeted us briefly and headed toward the guys. While she passed by Bob, she asked him “Is it your bag over there?” and pointed towards the bench. When he turned his head in that direction, she unexpectedly slapped his testicles with the other hand! It was a gentle slap but because he was wearing just thin gym shorts, we could hear a funny splat sound. Bob yelled out a loud auuu…  

Even a simple 'Wow, look up!'
distraction can be effective

Peter, who was standing next by giggled at this monkey trick and his pal’s stupidity. Linda now turned to him “Instead of acting goat, fetch my equipment basket from the cabinet” and tossed her bunch of keys toward him. The moment he showed his good reflexes and caught the keys in the air, she swiftly kicked him with a snap kick between his legs. She was again able to gauge the kick, so her instep just grazed the bottom of his scrotum, not causing serious pain but rather some discomfort. Now both guys were bending over with some reproachful looks, anxiously covering their manhood with their hands with determination they are not going to receive any more hits.

Linda smiled, stepped behind them, and affectionately patted their heads “Sorry guys I just wanted to show the girls…” before she finished the sentence, she suddenly dropped her hands down and slapped both already disturbed young men’s ball sacks from behind with something called a rear T-tap targeting the testicles’ back side which remained completely unprotected. Although again a rather gentle hit they both sprang forward like a bow. I could see Peter wanted to yell bitch at her but maybe in fear of the possible consequences, he just very quietly mumbled it to himself while trying to desperately drift out of her reach. Although mild, these blows clearly caused the guys some discomfort. Linda kept smiling and finished the sentence “...how to use distraction and deception!”

It was quite mischievous what Linda did to those unsuspecting boys, but their confused faces and the silliness of the situation were so funny we could not stop laughing. Luckily for them, she stopped these acts and let the guys have some rest and time to recover, and ordered us to sit down around her on the mats, so she can give us the introductory lecture. Once we all assumed comfortable positions, she explained to us.

Getting fooled can come
 as an unpleasant surprise 

“For female self defense, psychological tools can be more powerful than physical capabilities. As you saw, I effectively used the element of surprise. I easily managed to put Bob and Peter off guard by fooling them; poor boys did not expect what I am about to do and failed completely to counteract. If they even slightly suspected my intentions, they would be prepared and react differently and could block me in my action. They already knew my hands and legs can be dangerous for their testicles.

To remove the male’s natural consciousness around their testicles, the best is to create the moment their mind is occupied either by distraction or deception. You possibly heard that men are worse at multitasking than we are. They are also not very good at changing their momentary mindsets from for instance sexual expectations and excitement to fight readiness. So you have to diverge his focus, give him one task protecting one of his vulnerabilities just to immediately explore his other one. The best is to aim for the target far away from the testicles first, those located on the face, and particularly the eyes are the best. There should be no telegraphing, the move must come out of the blue.

Besides distraction, you can also use deception. There are many possible scenarios for how to do it, it depends on the given situation. For instance, you can make him believe you cannot or are not going to fight just to create a window of opportunity for an unexpected well-placed debilitating blow. Or you can fake your interest or submit momentarily just to excite him, change his focus, and make him undress. The moment you get good access to his exposed genitals, do a number on his testicles. OK, that’s just a short introduction to what you should know about the concept. You are now going to learn it in practice with Bob and Peter. I prepared a little game for you…” (to be continued)

Busting the ball myths (part three) - leave the groin on the beach!

One day in June I watched a morning TV show, and they talked about female self defense. It was rather a brief segment. A female Krav Maga instructor asked the show’s male host to play an attacker to demonstrate some basic moves. Normally a very cocky personality, he suddenly became quite shy and made a face when she said “…now knee the attacker in his groin” and her knee stopped just a few centimeters from his (quite prominent) bulge. I think these popularizations in public broadcastings are relevant, but unfortunately, often perpetuate some misconceptions. 

Using male hosts for demonstration of female self defense and
mentioning his testicles as a target can be a bit awkward. 

This time I will discuss an important aspect, and although maybe it cannot be classified as a typical myth, it significantly affects female self defense training. In one of my earlier posts, I already mentioned that one of the continuing maladies within the self defense and martial arts community is the inappropriate usage of the word groin. Why is it so important? Because it is incorrect and misleading terminology, and the wrong terminology means half-hearted and ineffectual training. If you looked up the word groin in Wikipedia you would learn that:

In human anatomy, the groin is the junctional area between the abdomen and the thigh on either side of the pubic bone. This is also known as the medial compartment of the thigh which consists of the adductor muscles of the hip or the groin muscles.

As you see, anatomically, the groin is a relatively large area of the human body and relates rather to the muscles forming this region. However, the real and intended target located there are obviously the testicles (although there are some exceptions I have not mentioned yet) and not any muscles or connective tissue. Techniques such as the kick or knee to the groin should therefore be referred to as the kick/knee to the testicles. The same for the hand-executed techniques, an instruction ‘grab his groin’ does not explain that you have to get his scrotum in a tight lock first, neither his penis nor the inner thigh or the perineum. So why do we more often hear groin instead of testicles?

There are many possible reasons. The main one is that self defense is not a pretty topic and many instructors in order to avoid any awkwardness, use more neutral wording to soften the subject a little bit, not to scare away the female course attendees. Yes, the testicles are male reproductive organs and understandably having a casual talk about crushing them between the sturdy striking area of the knee and the man’s pelvic floor on a morning TV show might be too much. A more 'tactful' language conveniently does not cause embarrassment (although it apparently still did to the show’s host 😊), it might not scare away the more sensitive and lenient of us, but it also does not help us in learning self defense in the most proper way and can be critically misleading with some deadly consequences. All women and girls, similarly to me and my classmates in Linda’s course, should be given precise information regardless of the sensitivity and controversiality of the subject. Only then we will be able to bring down our attackers on their knees, securely and in a blink of an eye. To properly kick, knee, or grab testicles, women should understand this prime target well; they should learn not to aim for the inner thigh, penis, or pubic region, they should know the location of testicles depending on the clothing, state of arousal, and immediate temperature and fully understand the desired trajectory and mechanics behind each move and the physiological and psychological effect on an attacker. With a very vague word groin, all of this is hardly possible.

Ring the two bells! 

Linda was very professional, neither she tried to sugar-coat anything, nor she made any compromises in teaching us all the dirty tricks. She did her best to be very exact and spot on, and she mainly used the medical terms testicles and scrotum. On the other hand, I admit her classes were also fun, and she did not refrain from using other metaphorical expressions, especially if it helped with understanding and visualization of a particular technique. 

Although a serious subject, female self defense does not need to be a sterile uptight activity, there is always room for using more colloquial language. There has been already a very interesting discussion going on in the blog comments and just to mention again that testicles can be called: eggs, to signify their fragility, size, and shape; nuts because of the crackability of testes or jewels being precious to the man and anxiously protected; balls as a sports equipment when explaining kicking or hitting or even bells when you need to 'ring the bell' he is about to do something wrong. In addition, sack/ball sack, bean bag, or pouch can be used for the scrotum when referring to this pendant wrinkly skin appendage.

So yes, there are plenty of synonyms and metaphors to choose from. I found out that the English word groin is also used for coastal structures built to prevent erosion of a beach. So maybe we should leave the groin on the beach 😊.

To crack two eggs 🥚🥚

As I already wrote elsewhere Linda always managed to surprise us with some unexpected approximations and metaphors. She initiated one of her classes by showing us a strange metal device I have never seen before. She asked us “Do you know what this is?” Ana raised her hand “I think it is an egg cracker, my grandma has a similar one.”

Egg cracker

Linda nodded “That’s correct. I bought one when I was cooking cakes for my cousin’s wedding. At first, I thought it is just one of those useless gadgets to fill up kitchen drawers, but surprisingly, in the end, I use it a lot. Surely you can crack eggs just with your hand, it does not require a lot of skills, but this tool prevents spoiling the dough with pieces of eggshells and I do not have to cope with all the mess after some occasional failures. I am showing you this thing to explain to you today’s highly effective last resort self defense technique named after this kitchen tool.”

Linda started her explanation “So how do you normally crack an egg with your hand? You hold it firmly in the palm of your hand first and then smash it on some sharp edge, usually a bowl to generate a crack while you separate the two halves with your fingers, letting the content of the egg drop into a bowl or on a pan. In the egg cracker device, this is done by these separate mechanical parts.” By pressing the handle, she showed us what she means and continued. “The egg cracker technique is based on similar mechanics:  blunt support on one side and a sharp blow with a pointy hard object on the other side. A man’s testis is like a chicken egg by its shape and quite often also by size. Well, in some men the size is closer to a quail egg.” Linda smiled.

“Similarly, the testis has also an outer shell, a fibrous tough layer called tunica albuginea which can be ruptured, and the inner content, seminiferous tubules leak out as it was egg yolk and white causing the man unbearable pain.” We all cringed at the thought of such a horrific injury even if caused to a would-be rapist.

At that moment I briefly looked at Bob and Peter sitting on a bench, playing with their smartphones waiting to be called to ‘serve’ as our ‘darling attackers’. As always, I was relieved to find out that they did not hear these brutal explanations from Linda.

Linda continued her lesson “You often get into the stage of an attack when you need to incapacitate your attacker quickly and securely. A young female hand is rarely sufficiently strong to cause real testicular damage, yet to rupture the testes by squeezing. Here comes the egg cracker technique. The prerequisite is that both of your hands are free, and you have access to his genitals, but such a window of opportunity likely occurs during a sex attack for example during forced oral sex.”  

Linda moved from theory to practice. “OK girls, let me demonstrate the technique on these silicone testicles. Look closely. I am grabbing the testicles with my left hand, securing them in the palm but not enclosing them completely so that half of it remain exposed. This will be the area to strike. Now with my right hand, I make a fist with the index and middle fingers forming the letter V, knuckles pointing out.” She explained further that knuckles are made of hard bone and therefore provide a pointy and sturdy striking surface. Like a spear she mentioned.

“You can now charge your hand and hit the testicles hard, in a way so one knuckle hits one testicle and the other the second one. Do not hesitate to do it several times, with full force for the best effect.” She was then violently smashing the poor piece of silicone repeatedly producing a horrible thug sound with each hit. “And that’s it, your attacker is lying on the floor incapacitated or unconscious with completely battered gonads.” Linda looked at us with a grin on her face and added “There are a lot of variations of this technique possible, you can apply it on one testicle only or as a final move during GTP to maximize its effect. The beauty of the technique is that the grab does not need to be perfect, it just provides the back support so you can effectively perform it on all types of scrota tight or loose, big or small even if the man is still clothed. You will see the versatility once we practice with Bob and Peter. For now, try it out by yourself with these silicone ones.”

Egg cracker technique: (A) grab the testicles with one hand and
(B) smash them with the fist of the other hand knuckles first. Repeat if necessary.

She distributed all the testicle simulants from her equipment basket. We loved practicing with the rubbery substitutes as we could go crazy.  At some point we got tired of repeating the move, we started to fool around, waging the balls, and hitting each other. We all giggled when Emma fastened the faked balls on her shorts, so they were swinging between her legs and let Tania perform the egg cracker. Linda let us for some time but once she saw we are fooling around too much and not focusing on the training anymore she clapped her hands. “OK, enough, it is about time to show you the applicability and the nuances of this technique on real ball sets.” She then waved her hand and signaled the two boys they should join us. 

When they approached us, Ana grabbed Linda’s egg cracker, raised it up for display, so they see it, pressed the handle a few times letting out a squeaking sound, and exclaimed “Guys we are going to crack your eggs!”  We all immediately burst into laughter. They had no idea what the metal device was, but let’s be honest its appearance is creepy, so their faces expressed horror and confusion at the same time. Linda saw they became scared and calmed them down. “Don’t worry no man’s eggs are going to be cracked today, I promise”

Despite truthfully treating their genitals (relatively) gently, it was still unnerving to see Linda using the young men’s testicles (both clothed and naked) to demonstrate the versatility of this deadly technique. Gladly she always managed to stop her strong fist right before hitting the delicate target. Has she ever failed once…

The art of kneeing (part 4)

Some of you asked me lately why I do not post more often. Well, it is always a busy time for me before the summer holiday, plus English is not my native language so writing and replying to comments consumes a decent piece of my free time. Nevertheless, it has been a long time since the last installment of the series about kneeing so I thought I should continue with this highly interesting topic.

We  had to go through some
awkward situations

Quite hesitant, despite the tall tents pitched on the boy’s shorts, we continued with the exercise according to Linda’s instructions. When it was my turn with Bob and I slowly raised my knee and felt the area, I immediately noticed the difference. What was before soft and wobbly, now became firm, fixed, and clearly much more sensitive as evidenced by frequent sudden jolts of Bob’s body even after relatively mild pushes with my kneecap. Suddenly my concentration got interrupted by a loud whine from Tania, who covered her face with her hand and turned around in disgust. The moment I looked down I noticed a small wet spot of precum that appeared on Bob’s shorts on the place his penis was projecting towards us. Soon Peter’s group was evidently dealing with the same ‘problem’ as their loud chuckles got intermitted by some sarcastic comments.

Both boys tried to inconspicuously cover the result of the male natural physiological reaction with their hands. They were blushing during the whole exercise but now they become red as two boiled lobsters. Emma tried to mitigate Bob’s embarrassment and gently caressed him on his shoulder to assure him that’s perfectly normal, it is nothing to be ashamed of and he has our sympathy, and we appreciate his dedicated involvement.

Despite the awkwardness of the situation, Linda, as always, kept her poker face, acted like the whole thing was expected (well it was), and clapped her hands “OK, that’s enough for now. I see you all have become exhausted so let’s have a short break.”

Boys tried to cover their natural
physiological reaction

We got relieved she is not going to insist on the continuation of the exercise after this delicate development. She then reached into her basket and tossed a new pair of shorts toward Bob and Peter with an order they should clean themselves in the bathroom and prepare for the next session.

After the break, we surrounded Linda on mats for a short reflection on the previous activity and instructions on the next exercise.

Linda started her talk “Girls, keep in mind there are two key elements of kneeing you must master: precision and force. With this first exercise, you just started to work on precision. Automated proper aiming is important and is not easy to achieve without an understanding of the male anatomy and continuous long-term practice. In the beginning, you all most likely went off the first time, and your knee rather got to their upper thighs, pubes, or perineum, but by utilizing visualization you improved with each new take until you could find the right spot by heart. Shorter girls probably realized it is not easy to lift the knee all the way up.

“You also learned something important about the dynamics of the testicle target and how it is affected by a given situation in this case a man’s arousal. I guess you all noticed, at the beginning when the guys came from the shower their testicles hung low. Probably you felt their flaccid penises on your knees as well. Following arousal their scrotum sacks became tight, the testicles got lifted up and their erect penises were no longer any obstacle to your knee. For these reasons kneeing a man in the state of arousal is much easier. But this was just the first of the series of exercises to master full proficiency in correct aiming. Later I will tell you about some exercises you can practice at home, so your targeting becomes automatic.”

“The reason I gave the boys time for a little rest is that they might experience something called ‘blue balls’. Have you heard about this effect before?” Linda asked the girl audience. Susanne as a young medic already knew and raised her hand.

Blue balls can be sensitive

Linda called her on. Always ready to show her medical knowledge Susanne explained to us “Colloquially called blue balls, in medical terms epididymal hypertension, is a condition when testicles get engorged by the blood flow during arousal which stays accumulated if there is no release by orgasm and ejaculation. Apparently, it can be a quite painful experience for men but should dissipate relatively quickly.”

I immediately wanted to ask… but Ana was faster and inquired with a high level of curiosity “Do they really turn blue?”

“Well, indeed, they can get a bluish hue. That’s because of all the blood in the scrotum” explained Susanne to her less educated friend.

“Can we see it on our guys?” Ana now turned to Linda.

But this time Linda resolutely declined the request. “I think it was enough for the boys for today, you can test it with your boyfriends if you want.” We all sighed in disappointment. Most of us, including me, have never heard about this condition and wanted to see it in real. But you know me,  I just could not get the idea out of my head, I was just thinking I should really try it out with Tom this coming evening.  

Speedbag as testicles

Linda then continued with an introduction to the next exercise “Now we will start with the second key aspect, and it is the force. Not enough force, little effect on a man.”  She then added “An accelerated woman’s knee can exert a pressure up to 20 kilonewtons. This is more than enough to rupture a testicle, but not all women have this capability without proper training.  So, now on we should work on your muscles of the upper leg which are the most involved in the upward movement of your knee.” She went with her hand along her thigh so we can notice that area; hers was nicely formed after regular workouts.

Linda got on her feet and started to build a setup by hanging a heavy leather speedbag on the rope from a crane at the height of the testicles of an average man. I noticed Bob and Peter returned from the bathroom and inquisitively watched Linda’s preparation…

To be continued…

Busting the ball myths (part two) - the center of the male body

David and his testicles 

It was springtime and it means time for the annual spring cleaning! Not only cleaning our apartment which was, after all the lockdowns, in a total mess but also cleaning the mind. While I was removing dust from some old things in cupboards I came across a small replica of David from Michelangelo. It was a gift from my aunt when she was traveling to Italy, sadly she passed away a couple of years ago. I used to have it on display, but it always triggered some giggles and female banter on penis sizes causing some awkward situations especially when male visitors were also around, so I decided to take it out of sight. It is pity because I like the little statue so much. I like the curly hair and nicely build body in a fighting stance. 

Holding this little statue in my hands brought back some memories of my aunt. When I was an inexperienced teen, she gave me some pieces of advice on dating and relationships with men. Among many of her wisdom one stuck in my head, she used to say “A man’s heart and his balls break easily, be careful with those.” 😊. While recalling memories from the past, I was cleaning the dust from the statue’s tiny male parts carefully and gently, like they were real testicles.

Genitals as the center of the male body

Renaissance art is so beautiful, the artists resurrected the ancient Greece aesthetics, they were not ashamed to show the male body in its purest form. Although David’s penis is cutely small—our art teacher said a small penis represented decency and good manners—his testicles are of normal size, very anatomically correctly shown with the left one being a little bit bigger and hanging slightly lower. They are presented proudly, uncovered as an essential part of his torso. It reminded me of another Renaissance piece, Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. It is a famous study of the human body proportion. The genitals clearly represent the center of the male body; it somehow signifies their importance to the man. Why am I telling you all of this?

With this post, I would like to debunk another self defense myth that seeks to discourage women to target testicles by saying that testicles are not easily accessible and a target difficult to aim for. If we look at David or Vitruvian Man, their reproductive glands are positioned in the center of their body, hanging outside not protected by any muscles, bones, or cartilage, but by their penises and the thin scrotum skin. Is it a very small target?  Surely not a huge one, but testicles’ surface area is similar to any other prime target; are eyes or Adam’s apple any bigger? Its position in the center of the body makes the testicles a very convenient target for attacks either with hands or legs from most positions: standing, sitting, or on the ground. In some situations, a woman can even use her head, elbows, or butt. 

Testicles are approximately on the same level as hands, so regardless of the type of attack: a GTP, punch, or a chop with the ridge of the hand, or the position of the attacker: standing in front or behind you, it is extremely easy to get to them, without needing to generate much of a movement and it happens in the periphery of his eyesight. Hence, such an attack can be quick and non-telegraphed. This contrasts with the techniques using the hand for instance to attack points on the face when the woman’s hand often needs to go all the way up giving the attacker a chance to react and block it.

When attacking testicles with the knee, this does not need to go on a very long trajectory; just quickly and sharply lifting the knee enables it to gain enough acceleration and power for a deadly strike. When front kicking with your foot, the testicle is the target closest to you when he is in the most distant position. Moreover, his thighs will ‘guide’ your foot to the right spot. The same is true for a back kick with your heel. 

If choosing to kick the shin or kneecap you might not get enough room for sufficient acceleration and force and kicks ‘above the belt’ or even high kicks to the head are not suitable for female self defense; let’s leave those for action movies. I am not saying a woman should forget other vital points of the male body, there are some other valuable besides testicles, and Linda’s course covered those in detail as well. In conclusion, attacking testicles is by no means bulletproof but saying it is a hard target has nothing to do with reality; just looking at classic statues or your naked male partner should clearly tell you otherwise.