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Last Wednesday, I attended a self defence class hosted by Colin from SuperParents. I have mentioned Colin a couple of times on this blog and even guest posted on his blog before. Colin has moved on from blogging now, I think, and is currently concentrating of Anti Bullying courses for kids and self defence classes for adults, mainly women. So when Colin mentioned he teaches self defence class, I jumped at the opportunity and ask if I can join him. Colin very kindly said yes I can join one of his classes. Brilliant! I told him. I am so there!
Personally for me, I think it is important to at least know how to defend yourself from harm. The idea is not to beat the crap out of the assailant but to remove yourself from harm, you may or may not come out with out a scratch but at least you are alive. You get what I mean? I take the public transport all the time and in Winter, it gets dark at 5pm. Although I am always aware of my surroundings, i.e I do not walk with ear phones in my ear and music in full blast, bad things do happen and when the time comes, I want to able to defend myself and get away as fast as I can from the situation.
According to Colin, most of the time, I think it was 85%, we would know our attacker. It maybe someone down the street or a friend of a friend of a friend that we met at a party last week. This is where it gets difficult to get into panic mode. Colin and his class teach us how to get from that “comfortable, hey I know you” mode to “This is not right” or “This is rape” mode. I think personally getting to that mind set would be easy for me. As far as I know no one is allowed to touch me apart from M.
The best thing about the class is we get to practice our escape moves. Yes. This means beating up some of Colin’s students! I learnt a very cool move from that night. A vital move if you get pinned down by an assailant. All you have to do is a couple of hip and arm twist and you are free and you get to kick the assailant as well before getting away. I also got to try out a few combos of movement with his students. It was really cool.
It is a full on class. You get to sweat it out if you allow yourself to work hard. There is a lot of information and moves to remember but Colin and his students are so very patient and will go through the moves with you slowly and will even give you encouragement to get your adrinaline pumping. I got slammed on the floor at one point but it was worth it because now I know, not to get my head slammed on the ground. I also got pinned on to the ground by a guy bigger than me to see if I can wiggle myself out from under him. It was uncomfortable at first but once my adrinaline was pumping, I got myself out in 2 moves. High 5!
I have to say, I came out of the class empowered by what I have learnt. I am not a fool to think that now I can go out and fight anyone that comes and attack me. No. No. What I got from this class gives me a little bit of confidence that I can at least try my best to either cause a little bit of hurt or at least RUN AWAY from the situation into a more public place.
If you are in Perth and you are interested in Colin’s self defence class, please let me know or you can find out more from Colin’s Dojo or you can send me an email. There are also some resourses HERE that you can download for yourself if you cant get to his class. You can also go to the Super Parents Facebook to get more tips as well.
