Sorry for the confusion, I use 'women' and 'girls' interchangeably, qualifying with 'junior' when I am describing someone under 18.
Hi Not sure if I'm going to be able to add anything to this thread, but at least I might learn something. My perspective is this. I work in an all girls school (11-18). I'm also a martial artist, with nearly 20 years experience. I've wanted for a long time to develop a self-defense class for women. I have to deal with some of the terrible things I hear from the girls at school who have been raped or assaulted and so treat this aspect as being very serious. The way I'm thinking is this..... There are no quick and easy solutions for defense, so I intend it to be a permanent class where women can come and practice/learn regularly. The mental aspects must be dealt with, with as much seriousness as the physical. I see the mental aspect in two ways. 1) Mental awareness...the ability to perceive and read a situation and so invrease your chances of avoideing a situation in which you are put in to physical danger. 2) Mental toughness...dealing with the fear/adrenaline that accompanies an attack. This is very important as I have seen highly trained martial artist crumble because they neglected this aspect. All the techniques in the world won't help you if you are too scared/intimidated to use them! For the physical, the techniques have to be simple and repetitive. Too complicated are almost certain to be forgotten or just not work. I also think they should include all the dirty tricks in the book, as these are often ways of allowing a weaker person to overcome a much larger and stronger opponent, which in the case of attacks on women by men will almost always be the case. However, experience has taught me that sometimes this strength does not lie in the physical but in the mental toughness and authourity the man has over the women by creating a feeling of fear and intimidation. I've read in a few places that very often the woman knows the attacker! Also, does anyone here consider physical conditioning in women self-defence classes is important? Fitness can improve awareness and a bit of extra strength wouldn't do any harm when applying techniques.
