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Health & Fitness

Safe running for women part 1

Women self- defense: part one

When running for exercise—

 

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I have always been fascinated by the general  one thought that 95% of women about being attacked  while running,  and that is, “It won’t happen to me,  it happens to the other person.” Or they  will say, “ This is a safe place or time of day to run.” Answer, there is no such place as a safe place.  There are safer places and if you barricade yourself in a safe room that might be safe for a while. But if a bad person wants to get to you, eventually he’ll figure out a way.

 

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So that would mean that the least safe place to be would be out just standing in the world, where people can see you and walk or drive up to you. But the worse place than that is when you run for exercise. Your area keeps changing and what you are doing most of the time is running into an area where there might be is a bad guy just waiting for you to come to him. Your running takes you into a different area every five seconds with different people waiting.  Now there’s a thought.

 

What is the best way as a female, to defend yourself when running? One way is to adjust your breathing. Some female runners constantly run to exhaustion so if attacked, they have no strength left to fight back. But how do you fight back if you do not know how to fight back?  The best way is to have a black belt, but let’s face it, it’s hard work to earn a black belt. I teach private lessons in a effective street are and I have a female student that comes for lessons once a week and has been doing so for six years. She just passed her first degree brown belt and will now be training for her first degree black belt. The percentage of females willing to do this much work is about 3%. So what is the next method of defending yourself?

 

The next step would be to take a self-defense course. The only trouble with that is, if you attend classes and afterwards you never practice, then it’s more than useless. But if you get a manual (I give manuals) of the techniques, then you should practice them three times a week for a month and then drop down to two times a week for a month and finally drop down to one time a week for as long as you want to be safe. That’s the only way taking a self-defense class will truly help you. But what if you’re so lazy you do not want to take a self-defense class?

 

For these type of people, there is only one thing left: run with some sort of weapon that you have and should train with once a week. Any weapon you pick from my list, the techniques of which can be found on the net somewhere or even purchasing a DVD or book. Lastly, the weapon you pick should be determined by your physical ability to use it. A weapon on its self will not protect you, only your mind and proper body movements will enable the weapon to defend yourself. These weapons with my professional opinions are:

 

  1. Pepper spray—I wouldn’t use it. Once a dog attacked me and I used the spray and totally missed him. Where he was a second ago, he wasn’t anymore. A guy can block it and grab your wrist, then what?

  • Knife—Many females are squeamish to use a knife. If you feel a hundred percent you could use a knife against an attacker, then a knife is an excellent weapon. There is the regular straight blade and the karambit (look it up) they both have different uses. There is a lot of information on how to us a knife for defense. If you put the knife away in your pocket, you might as well not have it. That’s right, you run with the knife in your hand, a high quality pocket knife picked just for defense. You need one where you can flip a lever with one finger and snap the blade out. This way you run with you finger on the lever. Part of the blade should be serrated. They will feel the slice of the serrations quicker than they would from a smooth blade. The blade I have at the moment is very nice in that it snaps out quickly and with a nice sound, all of which may intimidate the attacker and stop him from any action. The knife is a Smith & Wesson Black Ops pocket knife. It has a lock to keep the blade from coming out, but when running that lock should be unlocked.

  •  3)Collapsing baton—Some police department use these. They are made of steel and if you know how to use them, then can quickly put an attacker down. But you must study how to use it from an instructor or other sources. Baton techniques will also work well with knifes and visa versa. There is a lot to learn to be safe, but it’s worth it. You deffinetly need to learn all the techniques for both the above weapons to escape from his grabs to your arm or wrist and hand 

    4)Pocket stick or Kubatons: These are round stick like objects that you can purchase at a martial arts store on or off the net. Usually they are about 5-6 inches in length. They do not cut but enable you to strike “vital spots.” There are all kinds of pocket sticks. Some you can have ends sticking out of ends of your hand. You use them for raking and stabbing. Two ends sticking out gives more chance for it to slip out of your hand and you can only hit so hard. I like using an aluminum pocket stick with a somewhat sharp point on one end. I then grab it in a tight fist and place my thumb against the other end. This way the stick is not going anywhere. The only thing is, you have to be trained or train yourself, to move your arm and hand in various position to strike. But you use a back fist to a target to open him up to use your active end of pocket stick.

    A folding pocket knife that feels good in your hand, can also be used as a pocket stick. But for females I recommend a regular pocket stick with one sharp point. Again there’s all kinds of information out there on it’s use.

    5)   Stun baton: These are great for walking your dog or running. The thing is, you have to not be self-conscious when running with it in your hand. You can get a small one, but make sure it has a lot of voltage and a loop that will tie around your wrist so in case it gets knocked out of your hand. I use a black baton stun gun that I carry in my hand or in my jacket. Remember, when you’re attacked it will be a surprise and probably from behind, so what weapon can you use to attack your back without looking? Just about all of the above, some need more training than others. Like all weapons, if it’s not in your hand ready for use when running, it’s useless.

     Sifu

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