Hello,have question

Threads like this make me feel so useless because all I can do is add my voice to those people who have already replied and said we are so sorry to hear what has happened to you. You have serious guts to even come on here and talk about this - and by doing so you may just encourage others to look at their own self defence so thank you for that.

The only other advice I would offer is to look into the well qualified self protection experts there are - Geoff Thompson and Richard Dimitri spring to mind though others have mentioned them already I believe and there are others.

I wish you all the best both in dealing with this and with everything else in life.

 

First, thank you for coming forward. Even with the anonimity of the 'net, I'm sure this wasn't easy for you.

Second, I'll have to echo what some of the others have said: there's more to rape defense than defending against a single move. I can understand your obsession with this particular maneuver, but I would suggest it's a scenario you're not likely to contact again. You had the misfortune of encountering a predator who happened to actually have some training. That said, groundfighting is excellent in how it teaches you to move on the ground. I would again suggest Judo, BJJ, or wrestling. I'd look in to wrestling for its emphasis on having the top possition (escaping a pin, creating opportunities for escape) and BJJ for its specialty work off of the back. The self-defense tape kmguy8 recomends will give you the basics of escaping the bottom, and I've recomended it to all my women friends. Geoff Thompson, as has been mentioned, is another good self-defense expert. I'd also add Marc MacYoung and Meredith Gold as folks to look up on the 'net.

As to the actual hold-down, two ways I can think of to beat a grapevine are:

1) collapsing your legs by kicking straight out. Must be done explosively.

2) "outrunning" his legs by kicking out to the sides, then bringing them up and over to close them up near your butt again.

The grapes are actually a favorite hold of mine. I'll get to working with some of the ladies I work out with to look for other ways to beat them. I'll keep you posted.

RAD is free and it's a good start. From what I've seen, though, it certainly wouldn't be the only thing I'd recomend. I'm certain with your "never again" mentality you will exhaustively explore all your options. Best of luck.

 

i'm surprised at how long it took for the word "grapevine" to show up in this thread.

 

this is not a thread for jokes :bang:

 

what the hell are you on about? the lady asked a question, and it wasn't answered until post #37 - and that was in japanese. the english term didn't show up till the op herself found it elsewhere and mentioned it in #39.

nearly everything before that was entirely off topic for the question asked.

 

dude this was an atempt for her to find out about a move that was used on her while she was being RAPED , where's the humor in that :bang:

 

...

do you speak the same language i do?

 

There was no humor whatsoever in what he posted. He (and I have to admit I am as well) was simply surprised that it took so long for someone to give her the answer she asked for. Yes, that move is called a "grapevine." He was simply surprised it took 30 something posts for this answer to come up. He was NOT making light of her situation, as it is a terrible one.

 

It's not as though "grapevine" is the only term for that move.

My problem with the term "grapevine" is that I've seen it used to describe a number of dissimilar techniques, all of which have more common names anyway...

 

Grapevine is the only BJJ term I know for this move and is very common. I don't think he inteneded to play on it as gRAPEvine, just a bad coincidence.

I have never heard of it being used as a submission as previously posted, but a way to control the mount position. Though it is painful and a weaker person would probably be in a ton of pain from it.

Going to a BJJ school might be traumatizing as it will put you in the exact same positions during the rape. However it would be the best art, the other grappling arts are great but for addressing this situation it can't be beat. Maybe try some privates at first or get a girlfriend to join with you so you have a female partner.

 

In regards of how to get out of it; You'll have a very hard time escaping from someone bigger and stronger then you even if you had more training then him. Don't think of it in terms of out grappling, simply fight much dirtier then him.

For example two stupid kids from a local school tried to rob me one day so instead of saying no and trying to out fight them there I said my wallet was in my car. We went over to my car and I pretended to get it from my center console even though it was in my wallet the whole time. They left thinking they got away with it, but I grabbed the bat from my trunk and hit the big one in the leg as he walked away. The other one was more then willing to give me wallet back.

Not really a story to brag about but it got the job done. I'd recomend learning a guilotine choke(really easy and effective) or eye gouging.

 

There is a certain sense of reality that strikes you when you realize you are dealing with a rape, a violent and horrible crime. To take lightly what art you take to defend yourself would be horrible.

If you are being raped, you are most likely on the ground. You need to learn how to grapple. The guard is where youll be, also in mount and some others. The movement on the ground you will learn, as well as quick fight ending submissions, will save you. Even a simple sweep and run will do if needed. Knowing you can break any of your attackers limbs or choke him out is security.

Grappling will allow you, the victim, to control what happens once he brings you to the floor,bed or whatever. Thats pretty empowering right there.

 

Im sorry but this is just wrong. There is noe xcuse to believe that, unless you dont train against stronger guys. As we should all strive for, technique outperforms strength. I have grappled men 40 pounds more then me who were very strong and simply choked them or did whateevr I wanted too. Of course though strength is a factor, but it is not the only one is my point.

You did however give me a great idea. To the victim : workout. Not Tae Bo but get stronger. Most girls dont want too but a stronger women is a harder target, no matter the training. Mix that with some good grappling and you will defend yourself well.

 

Yeah, another factor is weight.

And when you say they had 40 pounds on you, what does that mean? Being 200 pounds and going against a guy that's 240 pounds is a lot different from being 120 pounds and going against a guy that's 160 pounds. Also, your isolated anecdote isn't the be-all-end-all of these situations. On some occasions, I've easily held down people (of both sexes) with years of experience to their advantage, simply because I weighed 180 and they weighed 115-130. I think it's well-established that the bigger and stronger an opponent is, the harder it becomes to escape a mount, even if you do have skill.

Edit: Oh, and in your case, how skilled were the opponents? Anyone with significant skill can toss around big guys and say size doesn't matter (I know, you didn't say this, but I have seen it in the past), but if the big guys are skilled too (even if there's still a gap), it's suddenly not so easy...

 

Im 180 and I train with two guys who are much bigger then me. One is 220 and an equally skilled grappler, actualy a little better then me, the other is 240 and less skilled.

I can usually pin both and play top, I dominate that 240lb guy.

Your right in saying that size matters. Im just pointing out that thinking its pointless to learn how to grapple a man who is larger then you is not right. If you you have a BJJ blue belt lets say, you should be able to do anythng you want with an untrained opponent, that is if you train right and also train yourself physically.

Grappling training will always help you on the ground, because thats the range that grappling deals with. I also wanted to point out that if you are serious about protecting yourself, you should be improving your endurance and strength.

 

Well I called around some places. He lives about 1hr 30min away so I tried to find somewhere where I think he would never go to travel that far away from his town There weren't many at all, but I and asked if anyone by his name[and description] trains there, after him being reluctant to tell me he said no. I'm still afraid he might show up,I'm sure they have matches where they compete against surrounding dojo?!

I know a few asked where I was located but I don't feel comfortable revealing that here. Anyway I wanted to know on average how many women attend these classes? I don't want to be a sore thumb sticking out if I so choose to check it out. Thanks.

 

The amount of women that attend BJJ classes is generally lower than men but there's always at least a handful at the places that I've seen.

And grappling training really does give a huge advantage versus an untrained opponent.. I'm 155lbs and there's a shaven-headed, buff, ~220 lb biker-looking-dude (obvious ufc wannabe...) at the gym who refuses to roll with me anymore because of how badly I beat him. I imagine this will eventually change, but for now I'm a better grappler and this means that I wouldn't be very afraid of him even in a real attack.

 

tournaments are common, but completely optional pretty much everywhere (and thus avoidable); however, people do visit other schools from time to time.

it varies. ask the instructors - in some areas, there are dedicated women's classes, other places are necessarily coed. some areas actually have whole schools just for teaching women basic jiujitsu... i believe there's a group called the pink shirts in new york, and others elsewhere.

if you ARE the only woman there, it's really not a big deal, and you'll make it that much more likely that another will join. bjjers generally care about how hard people train and how eager they are to learn and share, not age, size, strength, or gender. those matter, but they don't determine who stands out on the mats (though it's a different matter for the people looking through the window, admittedly).

additionally, since female students are hard to find and harder to retain, you'll probably find yourself paired with slightly more suitable than average training partners, at least at first. people who are more experienced, closer to your size, or who you're just plain more comfortable working with.

if you'd strongly prefer to have more female training partners and there aren't any at local bjj schools, look for judo as well.

 

Fewer women train than men, but don't let that stop you. We've got a few women who train at my school, and any school worth its salt will welcome you. That said, here's an excellent article written by a woman on training in BJJ: http://www.grapplearts.com/Girl's-Guide-to-Grappling.html

There's also a real sense of trust in BJJ. I know that if anyone were to act innappropriately toward any of the students, particularly any of the females, it would go very badly for him. Visit the school, talk to the coach/instructor and trust your instincts. It took a few weeks before I could muster the courage to go into my current school. They were all so good and the coach is 6'5" and 250. I'm not ashamed to say that I was intimidated. But immediately after I stepped through the door, I got a good vibe. Trust your intuition. Find a school that feels right to you.

 

Well, sounds like I'm in the same boat as you, or a similar one, at least. But what I was getting at is that saying it's hard to escape from a bigger, stronger opponent is not "just wrong." I don't think it's pointless to learn how to grapple a larger opponent, but that wasn't what Agutrot was saying.