Women's Self Defence Day

by Kate Johnson

To start the morning off, Alan introduced himself, Alex and Ryo and began some warm up exercises for everyone to do. These involved running around in a circle facing different directions and some stretching including some pair work.

He then paired us up, trying if possible to do so with people we didn't know, and we attempted various techniques for punching, kicking and generally dodging out of the way of our partners attacks. We tried the same things in groups of five people.

One of Alan's main points was that punching with the fist needed a lot of practice and could do more damage to us than to an attacker. Instead we should learn to use different parts of our bodies, such as, elbows, knees and the heel of our hands. We practiced techniques using these parts on our partners (gently) and on the kick bags (harder!). This was one of the most favoured parts of the day as we had to practice shouting loudly 'get back' while kneeing the kick bag at the same time. Alan taught us some other important techniques to disable an attacker and Alex and Ryo helped us perfect them.

To round the day off, everyone gathered together in a circle, demonstrated a technique and we discussed our favourite part of the day and other useful advice about general safety. All the girls enjoyed the day very much and found it a very valuable experience. We would like to thank Alan for taking the time to teach us in such an enthusiastic way, to Alex and Ryo for your help in getting the techniques right and to Ben for organising the whole day.

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