Hello All. I have recently been handed the reigns of a Self-Defense class. This is a class largely dominated by women, mostly young college-aged girls who workout at this gym and women directed here from various shelters and counciling centers. Most of these women are non-martial artist. I have a handle on the mental aspects: observation, judging the surroundings and environment, weapons, etc.... I teach the techniques, then encourage the women to practice on thier own. You can't learn technique in 3 one hour classes per week. My problem is the friends, boyfriends, husbands, etc...who resist the technique and obliterate the girl's chance of completing the technique and escaping or defending herself. The women then come back to class doubting the technique and their ability to use it. Any of ya'll ever experience this? I am thinking of having a free seminar on a weekend where the girls and the guys they know can spend the day learning how to practice outside of class. I want bring in some the guys I train with to help out. Has anyone tried this? Or will this wind up as ****ing contest between the guys showing off for thier girlfriends?
Well there is a difference between training and the real thing. In training, if a 250 lbs hits a 100 lbs person as hard as they can, the 100 lbs person probably isn't going to be around long to continue training. I doubt that the boy friends and husbands are actually going all out total resistance on the women. What is more likely happening is they are giving resistance they feel is realistic and so they are actually trying to help the student. The students aren't ready for this level of resistance. At some point, it you want students to be able to deal with heavy resistance, you have to provide this same level in class. What I have done in the past is have students come forward and say what worked and what didn't work for them. When something doesn't work, we re-enact the situation with the same grab, heavy resistance, etc. to try to make it not work repeatedly. Then after the technique fails, we have all the students work from there with adjustments I provide them to make the technique work under that situation. For instance, we work on escape/counter to rear naked choke. No smaller person could escape the choke even with the provided counter technique. Their application of technique and timing was not good as they were new to it. We had to reduce the resistance so that the students could learn in class. Eventually the resistance was increased until the technique worked against heavier resistance. My point is that you have to bring students to a point of failure to understand the difference between training levels, comfort levels, and training with realism. When we roll, we go for the submission or choke out or tap out, but we also train to learn. It is a constant going back and forth between training to learn at slower speeds or with more compliance, and testing out what you think you know against heavy resistance. If your students were used to heavy resistance, they would know the techniques don't always work and they would have no problem with that. At the same time, they need less resistance at times to learn technique better. I try to tell students that the techniques they learn are just starting points (the basics), that the application is when they actually apply technique in a real situation. Hopefully it will be trained enough to work well and become practical application. I hope this helps. Could work out well, but be prepared because such things can turn out like a school dance with all the guys along one wall and all the girls along the other with only a few people actually dancing on the floor.
Ah, the famous Boyfriend Effect(tm). We all run into it. Here is a couple things which help: 1) Ask them "And did you try this before or after you gave him a Thai kick, a palm heel strike, a couple elbows and knees and a head butt?" Proceed from there. 2) Early on in the course explain that you only let yourself be put in positions as long as it is to your advantage. Once you are about to be worse off you stop cooperating and turn into a chainsaw. Do these before they get stuff like throws or releases that they will be tempted to try out on friends and sweethearts.
