I wanted to cover somethings I don’t always get around to with training. For one, getting more training is always better. I am not an end all be all for your training, but I am a good filter for gaining an understanding of the problem and a starting point for building out a skill set to make you more capable of defending yourself.
I had a 1-on-1 session with a lady and it was her second time training with me. She has a lot of fear and concern largely because of such an uptick in violent crime locally and perhaps the area she lives in. She expressed how much she wanted to improve and she worked hard in our session. One of the things I wanted to make clear to her is that you’ve got to put in work outside of just when you see me to train, so I gave her some things to work on in the fitness room at the gym, for example, slowly working her strikes in the air while watching her form in the mirror just as we did in our warm-up, doing some hammer fist strikes to a soft medicine ball anchored at different levels, and using a pillar in the room to help her arcing footwork movement in the fence position.
Short-term goals: If I am only going to see someone one time and have two hours to work with my goal is to make them aware of the scope of the most likely problems they will encounter:
- Situational awareness and identifying outliers early
- Managing encroachment from unknowns: boundary setting using voice, movement, and practicing escalating
- A stun and run option to facilitate escape: if the person has the capacity to hit fairly hard, great! If not, this is modified to being a rapid eye attack using similar mechanics
- Becoming self-aware of your own abilities and what you can work on to improve when you continue on your training journey
Longer-term goal(s):
My long term physical skill set goal for students is learn how to hit HARD repeatedly and cause enough damage to incapacitate an attacker or create an exit and be able to sprint to a safe place to escape/call 911. There is obviously more detail to this, such as: being able to identify a threat, determine if striking first is viable, weathering an attack: learning to protect your head and maintain mobility and getting to defense to offense and doing damage.
A 50 year old woman who has not exercised in her adult life is going to have much harder time and slower path doing this than someone in his/her 20s or 30s with an athletic background of years of sports that regularly lifts weights.
Long-term: get in better shape. If you are not exercising at all this can be a long, slow path, but you can improve. I don’t have time does not cut it to me. You can make time. Find some element of fitness that relates to self-defense that you enjoy doing. This will make you more likely to stick with it.
Train smart, be consistent.
Evan
NOVA Self Defense
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