Women's self defence - falsehoods

Or being the lazy person I am, chin jab (tiger claw) and slide the fingers up the face (under the glasses) into the eyes (1 knuckle deep min). Major advantages over traditional eye gouge: 1) chin jab gets a bit of "stun" attention; 2) works with or without glasses; 3) we (people) won't see the fingers coming until they are in the eye; 4) natural jerking of the head back puts the gougee in postion for a neck twist takedown.

 

Hello grimel,
If you are going to go thru all the trouble of getting to the eyes then you might as well target the exposed throat.

 

Thomas and MMAFiter have it spot on I reckon. It's all about aggression and violence, it's a whole new ball game on the street.

Never mind the pressure stuff and wrist locks....that's fantasy world. Teaching this stuff would make your hair stand on end as every woman has a different attitude and very few are prepared to get realistic with this subject.

Some of them even burst out crying if the instructor comes over a little aggressive........jeez

 

Good advice and I TOTALLY agree with you! I am a woman and I am physically weaker than a lot of the men that I teach & train with. I have had guys built like a brick outhouse in my lesson who try to undermine me by acting awkward and using their physical weight and size when demonstrating a technique on them, only to prove them wrong by adapting the technique to suit my physical size and ability (I usually say "if at first you can't succeed - cheat!").

I have since gained the respect of these tough guys who know I mean business and I'm not a pushover. The only thing I can say in a self defence point is that you can use their physical size against them and no matter what size or sex the attacker is, everyone has weak or tender points to attack - even if it gives you just a split second to make an escape.

It's a shame you have given up teaching, you seem to have a good understanding. Women need the confidence to do something when attacked not just stand there and be a victim. It seems a lot of the good self defence instructors have left because of the commercial gits who talk bull!!

 

Eye gouging, throat striking, WAY TO GET WOMEN KILLED.

God this stuff disgusts me.

You have no proof of it working. A woman would be much better off in an MMA school if she wanted to learn self defense than any form of TMA or RBSD.

Why? Because in vale tudo a woman gets to feel a man's strength for real. No acting or pretending, he's really trying to hit her and wrestle her down. If a woman can tap out a man there's a damn good chance she can beat him.

At least in vale tudo we've seen smaller men beat up much larger men with our techniques, analogous to a woman beating up an average sized man.

 

Yes I have proof of it working - it has happened to me and worked!!

Yes I train in MA I teach womens self defence and I am a woman and I put the women I teach through a semi realistic scenario under controlled conditions where they have to fight or they do not get free and I explain to them before and after what will happen for real if they do not fight back!! Shock tactics I know but all students are informed that they may not like all aspects but one day it might just save their life!! I've had women and men cry in my lesson because of the mixed emotions they go through just to get out and survive!!

OK Vale Tudo may be good for getting out of it when you're already on the floor, but the last thing you need when you are a woman is to get into that situation in the first place!!!

GET REAL!!

 

I'm sorry but you seem to have a misconception about Vale Tudo. Vale tudo means anything goes and covers the freestanding (kickboxing) clinch and ground ranges. This is because Vale Tudo competition is "anything goes".

In addition the ground has been proven to be the place where technique matters more than strength. Quite a bit MORE than standing, where strength and reflexes are more important.
Does this mean you always go to the ground in a OMG STR33T Situation? No, that depends on the situation. But it is the one place where technique really DOES overcome strength.

Is your sparring full contact as in when the attacker is attacking he's not complying with the technique and is really trying to hit/wrestle the defender?

 

Apologies. The only time I've seen Vale Tudo has been with the emphasis of taking them to the ground, most of the time using an arm bar when on the ground. As with all martial arts it has its value or it would never survive!!

In a self defence point, the attacker is padded up and is attacking eg anti rape techniques where the defender will be in a situation where they will be attacked to the point where they end up in a rape scenario. The anti rape scenario is voluntary - we don't force people to participate but we encourage them to.

I try to teach (especially) women not to be afraid to hit people as a lot of the time you get a situation in class where they couldn't fight their way out of wet paper bag.

We don't practice this all the time as it can be detrimental to the training process as they become complacent and think "Oh if I fight for a bit, she'll let me off easy". All of the people who assist in these lessons are fully police checked and trained and the women are given a 'safe word' in case it gets too much for them. I'm terrible when I have to practice this!! I cry, scream, shout, and generally do whatever I can to escape, I've ended up an emotional wreck after one situation, wracked with guilt because I just flipped - it's a good job the attackers are fully padded up!!

 

Are the attackers attempting to hit the defenders or wrestle them down? Not pretending to, trying their hardest.

Is the padding realistic? (no huge head or eyes, no tiny arms)

I don't mean to sound like a penisface but in women's SD the hard questions must be asked.

Anyway, the reason an armbar is done a lot in vale tudo is because it's easy to do.

Oh yeah, that reminds me. In vale tudo there is a position called the guard where one person is in between another's legs. The bottom person has the advantage and can attack with locks and chokes.
So what does that look like to you? Yep, rape attempt. Perfect for a "rape scenario".

If you've never seen vale tudo I would highly reccomend it. It is a testing ground for different styles to prove their techniques.

 

A bit of both really, they know when to pull their punches (especially to the face and sensitive areas) sometimes we mark the padding so they know how many times they were hit etc (You can get blue 'chalk' knives that mark). It really depends on their age. The older ones teenage upwards get it more intense when they do have to fight and not just resist. I do volunteer work with local schools & community groups where I teach younger students - it is so important to have police check to prove you are legit and not a perv if you are going to teach this kind of stuff!

The padding does not cover the face and only occasionally we use a head guard!! how can you simulate realism unless your attacker comes dressed in padded gear??!! It is as minimal as possible to add realism, but padded enough so as not to seriously damage. My poor boyfriend volunteers for this job and has come home battered and bruised and calls it 'good body conditioning'!! LOL

It's good that you ask questions. Without asking questions how are we supposed to learn and progress? Two very important lessons my Instructor teaches; 1. Never be afraid to ask questions and 2. Never be afraid to admit that you do not know all of the answers.

We were supposed to be having a mixed martial arts lesson on groundfighting earlier this month but had to be cancelled. Stuff like JJ, Judo, Vale Tudo, BJJ as well as other stuff we've picked up from cross training. A couple of friends were supposed to be teaching stuff from Vale Tudo - I'll make sure they do 'the guard' as it sounds like a really good 'rape scenario' technique!! we try to make sure we do cross training to keep ourselves on guard, to widen our knowledge base and coz it's fun hitting new people with new found techniques and strikes- it gets boring hitting the same people all the time!!

 

the techniques to get out of that position would be golden for women's self defense from jj or bjj (mount) .

 

The only problem we have is running self defence as non profit we ask for dontaions from the places we teach to help cover costs and we can't pay out huge sums of money to do this kind of training. Most of it comes out of my pocket and can be expensive to keep up that kind of training and learn it effectively.

I have to rely on people I know to volunteer and teach what they have learnt regardless of the level they have achieved as most instructors charge huge fees or will not teach at a cross training course due to conflict of interest or fear of losing their students!!

For example, I had the chance to learn groundfighting / BJJ from Royce Gracie within my own art but it cost too much. The travel was approx £75 each plus accomodation in London and it was £25.00 for about 2 hours training!! It wouldn't have been too bad if it was the weekend! :cry:

 

And what kind of useful groundfighting doesn't involve grappling?