Womens Self Defence Free Safety Tips

Within the UK we have a huge variety of martial art styles to choose from: taekwondo, karate, kung-fu, ju-jitsu, aikido, kickboxing and many more freestyle and hybrid styles. All of these styles claim to have the answer to self defence.
When all is said and done it is not the style but what the individual does with the knowledge they have learned. I myself have studied various martial arts for many years and still enjoy learning the arts today. What you have to realize is that there’s a big difference between learning an art and learning self protection. An art form takes many years of practice to master and earn the coveted black belt but self defence is different. In today’s society we need that skill quickly, not years in the future as an attack could come tonight on the way home.
Within a self defence situation you only have a few seconds to register the attack and remove yourself form harm, your technique must be instinctive and need no thought (which block do I use?). With all this said the best defence techniques to learn first are those that come naturally.
At the Solo Martial Arts Academies we have learned what the most common attacks are from basic grabs to ambush assaults. We teach firstly the techniques that use natural body movement to create power and repeat them on a regular basis, developing more power and speed.
Some techniques used are slap, face palm, thrusting knee, elbow, foot stomps and more. We teach women the vital areas of pain on an assailant and then teach them to hit the area and remove themselves from harm as fast as possible.What this method does is give you instant techniques that can be applied with out years of training. Do not get me wrong, regular martial arts training will increase your fitness for the best defence there is: “run away” and also provide you with so many more tools for your arsenal. But learning a basic martial art ‘form’ for 3- 6 month will mean you’ll take awhile before you will be able to remove yourself from harm.
There is one other vital area of self protection: awareness. I’m not talking ninja skills but using commonsense.
· Why would you walk down an alley that is dark?
· Is it worth the extra 10 -20 mins of your arrival time to take a short cut home?
· Why park your car in the furthest part of the car park?
· Why blindly turn a corner talking on your phone when you do not know who’s lurking around it?
All it takes is a bit of commonsense and thought about your personal protection to keep yourself out of danger. Try your best not to put yourself in dangerous situations.

Here are some free tips for staying safe out side;
· Always take corners wide when walking to give you a chance to see if anyone is lurking there. This stops people being able to grab you.
· Look for shadow, when walking at night down a lit pathway a shadow may be peeking out, this lets you know someone is there.
· In the winter months try and walk with a friend or in groups.
· Don’t walk and talk on your mobile phone, your attention is not on who’s around you.
· Never walk past people with your hands in your pocket. It stops you from being able to defend yourself quickly.
· Cross over the road and walk down opposite side if you don’t like the looks of the person coming towards you.

There are many more simple things you could do to keep yourself safe. I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and it has given you food for thought, I wish every reader the best and please do think about martial arts training. It is a life long journey that will give you so much more in return including:
· A enjoyable workout
· Protection skills
· Greater confidence
· Social environment
· Meeting new and interesting friends
· A great stress reliever

For more information about our short courses, seminars and workshops please go to:
www.solomartialarts.com


This article was written by Mr Darren Hunter founder of the Solo Martial Arts Academies. If you would like to know more about our organisation please feel free to visit www.solomartialarts.com