by Daisy Luther
Self-defense courses sound hard. Aggressive. Intensely physical. For some women, darn near impossible.
When we reach a certain age, gain a certain amount of weight, see a drop in our fitness levels, we sometimes thing, that’s it. It’s just me and my gun because there’s no other type of self-defense that will work for me. (Or taser or pepper spray or baseball bat….you know what I mean.)
Sometimes we get to the point, as women, where we feel very vulnerable because we don’t have the strength, speed, and agility of our younger selves. Sometimes, we suffer a health problem that has caused us to be this way. Sometimes it’s an injury. Back problems, knee problems, shoulder problems, even hip problems. Our joints have turned against us.
Sometimes we feel like we’re no longer able to defend ourselves like we once could. We steer away from self-defense courses, martial arts classes, and other types of training because we don’t believe we can do these things anymore. We feel like that’s the only way (aside from weapons) to protect ourselves.
But that’s completely wrong.
What if I told you there’s an entire, virtually untapped world of self-defense out there for any woman, whether she’s young, old, fit, out of shape, overweight, in a wheelchair, using a cane, or a marathon runner?
Because even if you are able to take someone down hand-to-hand in a fight to the death, this should not be your first resort in self-defense. It’s the last line. It’s what you do when everything else has failed.
Women’s self-defense as an industry is missing something vital.
There are all sorts of classes you can take to learn to shoot or to gouge someone’s eyeball out with your thumbs or poke them in the face with your keys between your fingers. You can go to a one-day class and learn how to break various holds. (But if you never practice it again, you probably won’t remember it when you need it.)
We might love our weapons and our gadgets, but there are a growing number of places where we cannot have these tools. So what do you do then?
You learn how to avoid the fight altogether. You learn how to leave a dangerous situation. You learn the right things to do and say to de-escalate an increasingly dangerous situation. You learn how to break free of the bonds of “courtesy” and be “rude” when someone is encroaching on your boundaries. You learn to trust your gut if something feels wrong.
That’s just not something a lot of self-defense schools pay a whole lot of attention to, is it?
And that stuff is within the ability of any of us, regardless of our age or weight or fitness levels.
I found an instructor that teaches all of this and more.
In September, I’m going to be driving up to Ashburn, Virginia to take a one-day course with Dr. Tammy Yard-McCracken. She has a doctorate of psychology and she is a talented Krav Maga instructor. If some predator things she’s going to be their victim, they’re really picked the wrong woman.
Dr. McCracken is the owner & Global Solutions Director of Personal Defense Industries (PDI). As PDI’s owner, she serves as program director for Kore Self-Defense & Krav Maga, the company’s Northern Virginia training center. She is a certified Conflict Communication Instructor and is one of four directors with Rory Miller’s Chiron Training. Her training programs have been sought out by safety and security professionals, members of law enforcement, first responders (EMS), and national security professionals. She has a bio that will blow your mind. (You can find it at the bottom of the page, here.)
In other words, she knows violence inside and out.
We’re going to learn about protecting ourselves using our superpowers: our brains and our instincts. You know how you get that feeling that someone is sketchy? Well, you’re probably right.
There are a lot of things that you can do to avoid the dangerous situation altogether if you know the things to look for. There are a lot of ways you can de-escalate a situation that is intensifying if you understand the psychology of violence.
Fighting is the last line of defense – there are other steps you should be taking before it comes to the fight.
Want to meet me in Ashburn, Virginia?
I’ll be heading up to take this ground-breaking course for women – the first one of its kind to be offered to the prepping community. It takes place on Sept. 21, 2019, and Dr. McCracken is letting me offer my readers an early-bird, $50 discount if you register by Sunday.
Go here to learn more about the course.
I’m definitely going and I’ll see you there – maybe we can grab lunch together and get to know each other?
Ashburn is 45 minutes outside of Washington, DC. and 15 minutes from Dulles International Airport. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants if you want to make a weekend of it. You’ll also find Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home, just an hour away.