Model Mugging classes offer assertiveness and realistic full-contact personal safety training for women, men, children, youth, teens, seniors, and those with special needs which focuses on adrenalized scenario training for self defense. Their goal is to provide training that empowers individuals to make effective personal safety choices. Classes are led by female instructors as well as male instructors who wear a customized 50 pound padded suit/helmet. This allows students to practice physical techniques full force and full contact. For more on Model Mugging: Model Mugging Your thoughts on its in its use in self defense training.
The full body suit is really cool for practice, as it gives a more realistic feel for force and focus (moving target, full range of targets to strike). I always thought of it as a suplement to self defense training, more than a class in itself though. But I guess that's also a question of how these classes are taught. Basing ALL self defense traing upon the full body suit, to me seems unwise. As cool as the suit is for strike practice, it also narrows down some self defense weapons (like throwing and grappling). I realise that for women's self defense only, focus on strike practice is higher. But no self defense class should go without practising escapes from hugs, defending from a ground position, and other scenarios where the full body suit could com in a bit bulky. The reason I'm not quite sure as to what to think of it, is that we don't teach self defense classes for women only, so I don't have any experience with theaching such a group. All our classes are mixed gender. I know that some women prefer to "be on their own", but we also see lots of benefits from cross gender training.
The Model Mugging program is probably one of the best ones out there for a short women’s self-defense class. They really make the women work hard and really hit & attack the assailant. They cover stand up, ground (bed) work, grabs, holds and also work on awareness. There are a few techniques that they employ that I don’t agree with and have some I think they should incorporate but over all it’s a good program. Sincerely, Teacher: Eddie Ivester
They use suits similar to that in Police Unarmed Defence training. They're known as FIST suits, although i can't tell you why. Apparently they're pretty good fun to work with.
An aternative to this suit is the High Gear Suit from Tony Blauer (http://www.tonyblauer.com/highgear/). While it doesn't have the same "monsterous attacker" look, it's much less bulky and allows almost complete mobility for the wearer in all situations. The benefit for a school is that this same suit can be used for regular martial arts training as well. One thing to note though is the High Gear is designed to be a impact reduction suit. So the person in the suit does feel some impact from attacks on the suit. The defender can still go pretty much full till though without injuring the suited up attacker. Also, Blauer's Personal Defense Readiness system is another excellent self defense system to look at. From what I can tell the material shares a lot of the same ideas as the Model Mugging program. - Matt
FIST is the make of equipment that the police use in this type of training, expensive but very good quality.
