This is my 1,000th post but it isn’t the topic I was ‘saving up’ for the landmark. I'll save that for my 2,000th . Please bear with me while I build up to my point… I came home from training last night. Bad weather had kept most people from attending so the class (4 people) benefited from more teacher attention. We spent most of the time pulling out applications from “Continuous Hitting Hands”, a wonderfully vicious form. Afterwards, I got back to my fiancée’s and, still buzzing, was keen to show her what we’d been working on. All I was going to do was demonstrate some apps on thin-air but she wanted me to do it to her. So, I went in pretty softly: seize arm, yank her forward onto my raising knee. She’s leaning forwards overbalanced with my knee in her ribs – drop my knee to place my leg behind hers and thrust forward with a claw at her throat. The surprise was that she didn’t get as far as being amazed () at my skill because she was fazed and dazed by the actuality and physicality involved. It was a lesser variety of paralysing “this can’t be happening to me” shock. There was no pain involved: I was fast but gentle; firm but considerate -I’d even told her what was involved but still her body/mind system was unprepared for it and had no response to it. She had a minute of silent thought before saying that she never knew how helpless and vulnerable she really was. Just about the next thing she said was “maybe I should learn some self-defence”. It wasn’t my intention to recruit her for kung fu or anything and I was shocked myself by the turn of events. How can I let my baby out the door knowing this about her? This weekend we’re going to go through a women’s self-defence tape that I have at the bottom of my pile. Still, I don’t think this will be enough: the acclimatisation to hard-knocks can only come from regular experience of it. Knowing self-defence methods won’t necessarily be enough if the shock of attack still has the same effect on her. We’ll see how this situation develops, now that it’s been highlighted. I'm just thankful my beloved discovered this in the way she did. This isn’t the most original or insightful post in the world but it’s clearer than ever to me that some/most women are walking around in a dream. Many of the threads on this forum talk about the same basic situation but I don't think you can come at it from too many angles nor emphasise it enough. Take care everyone, David
Better she find out that way than in a worse scenario where she may have been at risk of getting hurt. I think its one of those 'wake up call' moments. Training in an MA can't hurt, and may make her feel safer and more confident in herself. Congrats on 1k btw
Yes I have to agree with Kgirl. It seems that women who do not put up a defense because they go into shock or freeze, or fear fighting will only make things worse are the ones that suffer the worse consequences. Have your fiance read "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker and then look into some self defense classes offered in your area to learn how to deal with the shock response. Congrats David .. looking forward to that landmark!
Congrats on the 1000th post, Well looking forward to another 1000 posts, till you reach that landmark
Though there are many men who have the same shock-response deficit, the issue of women's self-defence is of another order, hence this forum. There's a lot to think about in how you get a person to seriously consider and then do something about getting wised-up and trained when that person isn't already in that zone. Bullying and cajoling often create resistance: you run the risk of being seen as a bit of a thug. I don't think the hard-sell will engender the desire for her to start MA training but I'm pleased that she is prepared to explore this area now it's been revealed. Thanks for the book recommendation, KC. The poor thing has such a reading list already with various studies, I think it would be unfair to give her that now. Soon, she starts tai chi... She has agreed to come and see our training soon, ostensibly to merely wait for me to finish whilst surreptitiously taking mental notes to see if it could be her kind of thing. We'll see what happens. Rgds, David PS KE: you're a nutter
Um, sorry about that... Yeah, it's true. Not just for women, either. Often, if you jump a guy the last thing on his mind will be actually defending himself.
Congrats on the big 1000 I hope she loevs Kung Fu, or whatever she ends up doing, and that you don't have huge fights over who gets to use the computer for MAP each evening
