![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It was definitely a very interesting weekend -- if a rather tiring one.
Yesterday, one of the local high schools had a Women's Summit, and I was invited to hold up to four 1-hour sessions (I did two sessions) on basic women's self-defense. I pointed out to them that there was no way in Hell I could give a meaningful session on that topic in only one hour, but that I could and would give sessions on simple ways to keep themselves safer and not be a victim. Plus, I'm really not used to having to present that information in a 1-hour format, but I didn't mention that part to them. ::G::
Most of the ladies carried cell phones, and were of the opinion that all they would have to do in an emergency was to pull out their phones and call 911. Because most people don't realize how drastically your reactions change when something scares you (it's very common that your fine-motor skills deteriorate so badly that you can't even *work* your cell phone, assuming you even remember to pull it out), I had to have some way to produce a "fear" response in them without raising a panic in the rest of the school. Pointing behind them and yelling "SHARK!" had the most amazing effects, even though their logical minds knew there was no way there was a shark anywhere near the Girls' Gym. I then handed a cell phone to the girl nearest me, and proceeded to bodily drag her from the room, all the while yelling at her to call her home, or her best friend, or whatever other number she could remember.
In the time it took me to drag her from halfway down the basketball court to the door, she never even tried to open the phone -- and this is not unusual!
We covered a lot of information, from local crime statistics, to four different levels of awareness (and when each one is appropriate), to how to actually *see* what's around you, to which targets are and are NOT good ones to use if you should have to get physical with an attacker, to ways to escape from the most common ways of being grabbed without having to rely on strength to make them work.
Frankly, it was exhausting for me... but if it keeps just one of them from being added to those statistics, it was more than worth it.
Last night, four of us went out for a very pleasant dinner at Benihana's. They've been closed for two years because of a fire, and I don't think their chefs are quite "up to speed" yet -- at least, they didn't seem to have the same level of showmanship that I remember from them. Oh, well -- the company was good!
As for today -- it's been a lazy day, but in a little while I have to drive back to Nashville for the week because of work stuff. What's that old saying? "No rest for the weary..." ::G::
Yesterday, one of the local high schools had a Women's Summit, and I was invited to hold up to four 1-hour sessions (I did two sessions) on basic women's self-defense. I pointed out to them that there was no way in Hell I could give a meaningful session on that topic in only one hour, but that I could and would give sessions on simple ways to keep themselves safer and not be a victim. Plus, I'm really not used to having to present that information in a 1-hour format, but I didn't mention that part to them. ::G::
Most of the ladies carried cell phones, and were of the opinion that all they would have to do in an emergency was to pull out their phones and call 911. Because most people don't realize how drastically your reactions change when something scares you (it's very common that your fine-motor skills deteriorate so badly that you can't even *work* your cell phone, assuming you even remember to pull it out), I had to have some way to produce a "fear" response in them without raising a panic in the rest of the school. Pointing behind them and yelling "SHARK!" had the most amazing effects, even though their logical minds knew there was no way there was a shark anywhere near the Girls' Gym. I then handed a cell phone to the girl nearest me, and proceeded to bodily drag her from the room, all the while yelling at her to call her home, or her best friend, or whatever other number she could remember.
In the time it took me to drag her from halfway down the basketball court to the door, she never even tried to open the phone -- and this is not unusual!
We covered a lot of information, from local crime statistics, to four different levels of awareness (and when each one is appropriate), to how to actually *see* what's around you, to which targets are and are NOT good ones to use if you should have to get physical with an attacker, to ways to escape from the most common ways of being grabbed without having to rely on strength to make them work.
Frankly, it was exhausting for me... but if it keeps just one of them from being added to those statistics, it was more than worth it.
Last night, four of us went out for a very pleasant dinner at Benihana's. They've been closed for two years because of a fire, and I don't think their chefs are quite "up to speed" yet -- at least, they didn't seem to have the same level of showmanship that I remember from them. Oh, well -- the company was good!
As for today -- it's been a lazy day, but in a little while I have to drive back to Nashville for the week because of work stuff. What's that old saying? "No rest for the weary..." ::G::
