Fight Like A Girl

Fight Like A Girl is the name of a self defense class I took last Saturday. It was incredibly informative, hands on (so much so I was sore for a couple of days post class) and really was a lot fun. If you're a woman and you've never taken any kind of self defense class, I highly recommend you do so. When I say self defense I don't mean a class that teaches fancy moves and complicated routines, but one which teaches you moves that will quickly (hopefully) enable you to get away from an attacker, which is what this course did for me.
We learned basic kicks and strikes. I loved the kicks! I'm a good kicker. Shocking. (read that last word with sarcasm) Here I am practicing kicks. Wait, not kicking, kneeing:

We learned how to increase our weight (you can add 4-7 lbs by base dropping or going limp in an attackers arms). And no, you do not stay limp. That's just a starting place. We were shown many ways to loosen the grip of an attacker: head butts, ear smashes, gouges to the rib cages and inner hips, to name a few. We practiced each attack scenario over and over, which may sound tedious, but the repetition helped create memory and shift the moves closer to instinctual. And speaking of instinctual...


I had a moment during a practice attack when I went all instinct. I do not like feeling someone has control over me. I do not respond well, even in play, to someone holding me and saying those challenging words, "I've got you and you can't get away." Even goofing around those words send me into a little place I call Wacky Land. It's my Ego and control driven self that goes mad at the idea of someone having the better of me. So, when I was attacked by one of the instructors and the "taught" response I first tried didn't work, I just threw my shin into his ball region. As my leg was brushing into him, he was letting go and moving back. To his credit he said something like, "Not regulation, but it worked" and gave me a high-five. That's how the scenario you see below ended. You can sort of see me and my "attacker" in the mirror. I believe this was taken just before I went for his groin.

Gentleman, no worries. I'm not normally that sort of ball buster. If you grab me against my will though, it's game on and I'll do whatever it takes.