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Seminar Report
Absolute Female Self-protection seminar
Wednesday 25th October 2006 saw the first female 'Absolute Self-protection' seminar hosted by the Tokon Academy and in association with the Self-protection Network. 20 women attended the 3-hour workshop that covered basic issues of self-defence and the law, various case studies and looked at the ever-worsening issue of drug-related rape and 'drink-spiking'.
Course instructor, David Webb said "just 5 years ago the idea of self-defence/protection was completely different. It involved some Karate 'master' or kung-fu 'Sifu' showing various moves in various sequences that could be practiced on a equally masterful and compliant student, obviously every attendee was in complete awe of the stuff being shown but lets be fair, what was being shown wouldn't even serve the attendee with enough knowledge to fight a cold let alone a determined assailant".
"Obviously as time has changed so has the idea of Self-protection, nowadays people need to be educated more about issues of drug-related rape, identity theft, dealing with Road Rage and the like as this now is far more commonplace than most would appreciate or like you to believe. Today Self-protection is more about being pro-active and pre-empting situations not waiting for the situation to explode then applying some crap block or wrist escape. For a start attackers are very clever and will generally attack 18 inches (if you lucky) not 6 feet away from a stance and pose only seen in the movies ".
The philosophy behind all the 'Absolute Self-protection' workshops is to lay the issue at hand out in a frank and honest way and this seminar was no different. "Everyone here tonight was asked to question everything I was teaching, to question what to do if the attacker was not as compliant as my assistant. Do not just take for granted what someone is teaching simply because they seem to know what they are talking about. Just because an instructor has trained martial arts for years doesn't make them a good coach in self-protection terms including myself and all the Self-protection Network instructors ".
Content
The seminar started with the theory section concentrating on various statistics from the British Crime Survey, this attempted to provide some justification to the way society and criminality within this social framework in which we live is developing.
Four case studies continued the pace and indeed set the scene for the rest of the work to be performed: cases such as that of Amanda 'Millie' Dowler, Sally Ann-Bowman, Abigail Witchell and Daniel Pollen were the unfortunate examples from which lessons should be drawn; the most simple being that each case occurred not a million miles from the victims abode- places where we would normally feel quite at ease with the environment and unfortunately where we would least expect an attack of sorts and a place where we are normally least aware of our environment and people within it.
The theme of the whole workshop centred on the use of and instilling the '3 A's': Awareness, Anticipation and Action [Avoidance] after discussing each in its entirety and the framework or relations between the three the class moved onto its original modus operandi- 'Drink-spiking' and surviving it.
Definitions of drink-spiking and drug related rape, advice and steering clear, devices currently being designed and available and examples of the most prevalent drugs used were all examined throughout the final part of the theory section and all attendees remarked just how much the session had opened their eyes to a problem that is worsening by the month.
Practical
Time was a little lacking at this point but the session continued at a good pace first utilising the 'power-slap' with a double-hip movement then onto examples of secondary strikes. Accuracy and ferocity were the key issues here and utilising and offsetting the centre line.
Moving to the ground the session then covered various means of escaping the mount position and working escapes and strikes from the bottom (guard position). Ably assisted by Jo Sharman the class moved swiftly through 'dirty' more effective grappling methods: the fish-hook, the bite, the eye-gouge all used in real time on David during the session (Ed. note: yes, she did bloody my nose and yes I did promise to do the washing up when we got home).
Overall the seminar was a great success and all in attendance commented on how informative they found the evening and especially how much they "had their eyes opened" on various topics not necessarily thought of during self-protection. For a copy of the slides used on the evening please feel free to email me on davidwebb@tokonacademy.com all those in attendance on tonights seminar qualify for a 50% discount on the Self-protection Network's next workshop so book now to secure your place as I anticipate the next being far more popular.
All the best!
David Webb
Head coach of the Tokon Academy
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