We take all this into consideration when we teach women how to defend themselves in a potentially dangerous situation and approach it in a completely different manner than if we were teaching their male counterparts.
The second major form of complaint had to do with the actual techniques taught on the courses. Many women found them to be to complex for them to remember and apply under pressure or that they required so much physical force that women of smaller stature doubted they could reproduce them. Women were also finding that at times the course would become almost like a glorified fitness session where participants would leave feeling good because of the exercise but on reflection had gained little idea of how to defend themselves in potentially dangerous situations.
If women want to train in a martial arts class then they will do so and many women go on to become the most proficient of martial artists. But it is not necessary to train week after week in a martial arts class if your only goal is to gain a better knowledge of your personal protection. Every martial artist should be able to defend themselves but it is not necessary to become one in order to learn more about, and take responsibility for, your own safety.
We felt that Women were not getting the service that they deserved when attending
what could be one of the most important courses of their lives and decided to set
a up a professional, no-
The U.K Woman’s Self Protection Association was born after a leading women's magazine ran an article highlighting the complaints of women who had recently taken part in so called “self defence” courses. We decided to look into this and began to conduct our own research into the main flaws that women were finding in current self defence courses.
Overall the feed back was not good and the complaints mainly fell into two categories:
Firstly that the instructor running the course did little more than attempt to
frighten the participants witless by constantly quoting crime and sexual assault
statistics. Then after subjecting them to this barrage of over blown facts, did little to prepare them to
actually defend themselves if a bad situation ever arose. The result of this was that many women left the course more frightened than when they went in.
A greater awareness of potential dangers is a good thing but these scare tactics are just
unnecessary and needlessly upsetting. The basic facts are that although we live in a civilised society where the majority of people are decent law abiding citizens we are all still aware that even in the most safe neighbourhoods there remains a chance that we come across those people willing to disregard all our personal rights in an attempt to make what is ours, theirs.This could take the form of our personal property or far worse mean that they try to involve us unwillingly in their own sexual desires.
We all have the right to live our lives without fear for our ourselves or our loved ones.
However, an encounter with these people has the potential to lead to tragedy. This is true for any person, but if the victim is female then the dynamics of the situation change dramatically due, in part, to two facts; the first is that that the assailant is likely to be male and therefore has a massive advantage in any resulting physical struggle because of his overpowering strength and power.
The second difference is what a woman is legally allowed to do, to defend herself against a male attacker. The law says that a person can use “reasonable force” to defend oneself against physical attack. This “reasonable force” idea is open to interpretation as every situation is different but it’s easy to realise that what a woman is forced to do to defend herself against a rapist (eye gouging, attacks to the throat and groin etc.) would not be deemed as reasonable force for two men having a punch up outside a pub.
UK Women’s Self Protection Programmes 2007
