Why Should Women Have to Learn Self Defence?

We are often asked why women should have to train in self defence - and shouldn’t the focus be on educating men and changing the culture of violence against women.

We couldn’t agree more that there needs to be a massive culture change. Since modern civilization began, women have been subject to violence, inequality and dominance by our patriarchal society. In the last hundred years, there has been great progress made in creating equality but there is still a long way to go, especially with regard to violence against women.

An ongoing conversation on this topic is very much needed at all levels of society and especially with the next generation via education at school. It is so sad that we wait until a tragedy such as Sarah Everard’s rape and murder becomes a headline before action is taken.

Let’s be clear - the responsibility for violence always sits with the perpetrator. Women should never be blamed if they can’t or don’t prevent an attack against themselves.

In an ideal world, the best way to stop violence against women would be for the perpetrators to stop committing it. Unfortunately, this isn’t the world we live in yet and the sad reality is that the majority of violence that occurs against women is from someone already known to them. Women need to be aware of this and to be mentally prepared for when someone starts to groom them or escalate inappropriate behaviour towards them.

We hope that with this dialogue about the reality of violence towards women, and with women standing up and saying ‘no more’, as with the #MeToo movement, change will come.

We see self defence training as being part of this change too. Our focus is on giving women the skills and confidence to avoid dangerous situations and protect themselves. We want all of the women we train to feel empowered, to know they are worthy of being safe and to be tuned in to their gut instinct.

The training we provide is so much more than the simple but effective physical techniques we teach. Undoubtedly, these can save your life. But the psychological knowledge we share about attackers, their rituals, how they profile victims, how the body reacts to attacks and how you can avoid these situations, is where real change can happen.

This is why we are so passionate about training in schools and colleges - often with mixed groups. If we can start to educate large numbers of young women and men then hopefully we can make progress with a cultural change.

SELF DEFENCE TRAINING FOR WOMEN

If you would like to discuss self defence training at your school, college, Uni, workplace, group or for your family, please get in touch.

We also have an affordable online course ‘Self Defence for Women’. This can be purchased online and features around 4 hours of video content where you can learn the psychological and physical aspects of personal safety, violence prevention and self defence.