Help on conducting a private lesson

A very dear friend of mine is going off to college, and she is asking on some tips to protect herself from all the "gropers, and pervs" in college. Not a very likely scenario to happen but basically she just wants to know how to protect herself. As we have discussed in YouKnowWho's post, sometimes there are times when people cannot have formal instruction from a very high ranking master/grandmaster. This is one of those situations, I teach my own class of teens but I normally take my time because I have to deal with pinyans (katas), drills, and then moving onto the self defense aspect.

Sadly, I don't have years and years to impress my knowledge upon her. I have about a fraction of the time. I'll probably be conducting 2 to 3 lessons a week for maybe 2 - 4 hours at a time.

Some background on her, she is a soccer player, insanely good looking (just throwing that out there), Asian, and on the shorter side, which is stereotypically accurate.

My initial plan would be to use the muscle mass she already has, which is primarily in the legs, and finding out what naturally is her inclinations. With that I can work around it, find what naturally comes to her, etc. I'm not charging anything, besides the occasional lunch (if she finds the drive to do so out of goodness of her heart.)

Though I teach Kajukenbo, I come to MAP to ask you guys this because I normally have more than enough time to develop the muscle that my students need, and also drilling it enough to be just a natural movement.

If anybody could offer any additional suggests, besides the obvious, have her enter a fine institution of Martial Arts learning; because of her moving onto college, there are financial hardships and time constraints such that she cannot be formally taught in a class. My 2 - 4 hours will be working around her time, and since I'm the sole source, there is a bit of flexibility in it. Just a bit, I gotta have a life too.

tl;dr: Friend who needs self defense tips. Dilemma: Teach her, or don't and have her rely on instinct, that she doesn't trust. Dilemma #2: If I do teach her, do I build muscle mass to make her more well rounded, or due to time constraints, work around what she already has. In a sense: "Use what her mama gave her." Her schedule not reliable enough and too financially unstable to have her enter a dojo/school/dojang/gym/etc for an extended amount of time to have her learn.

I'm quite sorry if this is a very dumb question, and if it goes against the very fabric that we preach of formal instruction is helpful. Atleast she's learning from me, and not YouTube. Praise the Lord. And I also specialize in teenagers, yes I am one too, but I find it easier to teach teenagers because I know what makes us click.

Thanks a lot in advance for the advice!

 

If you try to teach someone just "1 single MA skill" so he/she can use it to defend himself/herself, I'll suggest the "big fist strategy". the reason is simple. If you can protect your head from being punched, you will have "clear mind" to think what to do next.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAd32BavQY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTAd32BavQY[/ame]

 

I'm not a Kajukenbo person, so I don't know how helpful my advice will be for you, but I will offer it anyway. Personally I would recommend not worrying about trying to build your friends strength and fitness as there will not be enough time. If you are talking purely about teaching fighting (rather than teaching someone to be aware and cautious) then I would focus on very simple defensive and offensive techniques. Focus on developing a simple but functional guard (I would aim for a high-guard like the boxing peek-a-boo guard) and then try to get her comfortable with the idea of violence by fast-tracking her into some light sparring-based drills and gradually increasing intensity. If she is concerned about sexual violence, then a bit of grappling would probably also be relevant, focus on a bottom game with maybe just a few very simple attacks from guard and some basic sweeps.

In order to keep things simple I would only teach a few very basic punches, rather than attempt to teach a wide range of strikes. Focus on dealing with the HAOV's like the haymaker or grabbing. Try and instill a plan of action, something along the lines of:
1). Weather the initial attack.
2). Counter aggressively.
3). Escape.
The simpler you can make things, the easier it will be for your friend to develop useful skills.

 

you will not have the time to teach her any complicated skills, or any skill to an extremely high level of development, AND as the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. thus i would say you need to teach her:

1: first, primarily, and above all else to NOT try to go and use stuff at the slightest provocation, because it might just not work, and end up making things worse, but rather to, unless she is in immediate danger of bodily harm, to go the civilized route and appeal to the proper authorities if there's an incident. if she's already scared of any incidents, she may just end up punching someone in the face at minimal provocation, and end up in trouble herself, potentially both legally and socially. plus, martial arts are not a magical panacea that miraculously turns you into an invincible war-god, they're just ways of training attributes that you try to use when you fight (and fights are inherently chaotic, so you pretty much never know what's going to happen, whereas MA noobs think "punch coming, block, counter, win", and then get their asses handed to them for simplifying an extremely serious and complicated affair), so she absolutely should NOT go around thinking "i'm badass, i can fight now, and if a guy tries something i'm beating the crap out of them". technically she shouldn't even be taking martial arts for this sort of thing, because they already risk instilling a false sense of security, and this is compounded when said false sense of security is the very reason for training them.

2: to hit as properly as possible, REALLY goddamn hard. and i mean REALLY, REALLY, REALLY GODDAMN HARD. i'm talking numb legs, liver knockdowns, etc. and she needs to be doing this under pressure, preferably involving contact, so that she can actually do it if she needs to. too many people train super hardcore in a sterile and controlled training environment, and then they get hit and collapse in a sobbing heap because of the shock. needless to say, that's not very practical. she also very much should to learn to STOP attacking when attacking is no longer necessary, because that makes her the aggressor, and is a big legal no-no (and let's not even think about what'd happen if this happened if she WAS the aggressor in the first place because some dude looked at her chest and she decided to teach him a lesson and bust out the judo chops).

also, make her read marc macyoung's website for legit non-combative self-protection information (which you're probably not qualified to give first-hand, else you wouldn't have to be asking for help, and for that matter neither am i, else i'd simply give you the relevant info ), and consider anything i say superseded by anything stated by the mappers with actual experience teaching self-protection, such as jwt or marc himself, who very occasionally pops by.

 

Thanks for all the replies guys! I was planning on following the acronym: K.I.S.S, Keep It Simple .... Stupid.

I wasn't going to teach her the magic success to surviving anything, and I was going to pressure test her to a fairly large amount. I'm also going to teach her a few things that deal with scenarios. Dealing with a big right cross, etc, using that quickness and explosive power that she has from being a forward in soccer, and being small. I wanted to work on some ground game too, and yeah primarily ones where she is on the bottom because she's more likely to be taken down. ... when I said small, I wasn't kidding, I was talking 5'3'', 5'4 maybe, 120 lbs maybe? Never asked her, and don't plan to. ... never ask a woman about her weight. Sweeping her is like, sweeping .... a teddybear. Her sweeping somebody, will take a very malleable person, and also somebody of like size. I wasn't going to focus so much on sweeping, but more on some stand up and ... on the bottom grappling.

I was also going to emphasize that once somebody ceases to be a threat, book it. Maybe work out some scenario training with a Kaju buddy or two of mine, and her being the poor sap that is attacked.

These are all great replies and are noted.

 

If you are a ksdi (emperado original) I would suggest that you teach some of the grab arts.. I worked with a couple of ksdi blackbelts for years and to this day the grab arts are some of the best self defense techniques I had ever had the experience of learning..

 

I'm Chuan Fa, specifically Gaylord's Method, but my instructor works with KSDI from time to time.

I love my grab art #15 in KSDI, its break the shoulder after the throw, in ours, its a punch to the face. Just minor differences

 

I'm planning on ingraining that situational awareness bit into her. Stressing that what I teach her is last resort, like she cannot run away.

I was initially going to just do some grab arts and some ground work, but then I thought to myself what would happen if yes, she did break the grab, but wasn't able to follow through on striking/finish, and the guy recovers and punches. She could freeze because she isn't used to that situation, and it wouldn't be very good on her part (putting that lightly) if she froze.

That is a very good point you made there that grab/hold defense should be emphasized, didn't think about that part initially. Going to keep it simple and pressure test those to oblivion and back, multiple scenarios, etc.

 

I think Aaradia made a good point. If you've got very limited time to work with before she goes away, then concentrating on situational awareness would probably be much better use of that time than working on techniques which she won't have enough time to master.

 

You mentioned soccer, is she going to play for the college if so fitness will take care of itself. Have her research student clubs and courses martial arts tend to be prevelant on campus. I would work fundamentals, awareness and other self defense topics, and keep striking to something low risk like palm strikes. Punching bare knuckle without practice and training in a high stress situation can lead injuries to the hand pretty easily.

 

As much as not to reiterate, but agree upon what some people mentioned, I would add; the college should have self defense, safety courses, info, etc., to also help.

Another thought; Do you think "every" female going to college has taken a pre-self defense course?