Who are you? - Brilliant campaign!

This campaign is AWESOME! I love it to bits! Folks, this is worth checking out, sharing, and supporting. Just the video on the front page is highly valuable (8 minutes of your life to watch it, good investment)! Protect stand right behind this campaign, brilliant.

http://www.whoareyou.co.nz/

We had a perfect example of this shared with us at training last night by two of our Auckland group class members (husband and wife).

They were at a campground with a large group for the weekend. They observed concerning behaviour (based on what they have trained to look for) by a male who was using behavioural manipulation strategies on a female (friend of a friend). He was 'feeding her' alcohol and using many of the survival signs that we teach to look out for. This went un-noticed by all of the others, simply because they were not trained to see it.

When he went for the final move, which was to move her to an isolated space (in this case the beach) where he had privacy and control, our team (who had been watching her and him like a hawk) intervened and prevented what was absolutely going to become a very bad situation.

Brilliant work on their behalf and she thanked them the next day. I am very proud of what they did, they saved someone from a lot of hurt. They thanked US at class for teaching them what to look out for, but it is THEM who should be thanked for taking action. But no-one else saw it...

This campaign is a step in the right direction to changing that folks. Please share it.

Latest Column from Darcy Mellsop

Since my last column, I’ve read about further attacks. One victim being a young lady
putting out the rubbish late at night in Newtown, Wellington. She commented "...If anything it's a warning to young girls: Don't go out alone in the dark at all."
We all know that the rules change when night comes. Things are different, and with the darkness, there is a natural fear that goes with it. Of course, I’m not going to argue for a moment that this fear is misplaced – for it is not. I, as we all do, know that it is not misplaced.
But let me ask, do we live in more fear than we should? And if so, what can we do about this? Obviously simply thinking “I won’t fear it any more” won’t work, as that is not a corrective action, it has no real benefit.
So what can we do about this? I’ve a saying that I use to challenge myself when I need to: Run into the darkness. What does that mean? Imagine standing in a silky green field, grass glimmering in the sun, and a warm breeze is the foundation for all your senses being so awake. But next to you just away from you - flat and straight cutting a straight edge across the grassy plain is a forest, dark and twisted and cold - in there only hate and fear and suffering.
So you think that you won't go in there, but guess what, look where you are standing and what you are experiencing. You are experiencing those feelings and you are not in the forest. So really, where does the forest end and your fears start? Not at the edge. No. Where you are now. The only way to truly subside fear is to face up to it. This can free us from a world of fear – how often do
we spend so much time fearing something that doesn’t happen? And if it does happen, we know that we’ll freeze because we don’t have the tools to deal with it - which is the likely reason why we fear it in the first place. Freeing ourselves from fear, gives us confidence. Exuding confidence, importantly, reduces the likelihood that we will be the targets of street violence – it reduces the balance of probability. Sounds good right? You have to be prepared to venture into the forest.
Whatever your fear is, whether it is to do with personal safety for yourself or family or something else, do something about it: run into the darkness.
Hey, if someone wants to bowl some cricket balls at me, please contact me, I’m scared silly of cricket balls and it would be good to get that sorted. The faster the bowler the better. Thanks.

Women's Empowerment & Safety Seminar in RPE newsletter

Rape Prevention Education

We have had amazing feedback from the attendees of the 'Women's Personal Safety' seminar in Auckland! As well as sharing valuable information, we also raised much needed funds for RPE! Excellent result all round, and we would like to thank everyone who helped make it happen, especially Chris Mitch and the teams at PropertyTutors and OBD design. You guys all rock!
Phil

Widen your view - Latest article by Darcy Mellsop

Just over a week ago I provided a self defence presentation as part of a Bunnings Ladies
only night. Before the presentation I was talking to a lady who supplied me
with a pretty simple perspective to self defence: Just punch him in the groin.

I said that self defence is more than physical. To which she replied: Of course, you can just
run. Me: What if you can’t run? Her: Well - just don’t be there.
Me: Is it that simple? There were over 7000 instances of assault and sexual assault
reported to Police in the Wellington region last year, surely not one of those
7000 survivors of those incidents chose to be there, so then, “just not being
there” isn’t that easy is it?

I shared with her Rachel’s story, as I had in this column 6 weeks ago. What does “just
not being there” mean? I put it to her that it can’t be about not going for a
run, not seeing a movie late at night, not meeting new people, and in Rachel’s
case, not dating ever again? Avoidance does require great decision making, but
it isn’t living at home behind a locked door all your life.

Great avoidance is about being able to live a full life knowing that your intuition
is empowered to spark when it detects something that isn’t right. Your
intuition needs to be empowered with information, which is what I shared in my
presentation, I’ve shared with you in earlier columns and will share with you
in future columns. That is self defence.

Auckland Charity Event: 'Women's Personal Safety' Seminar

Hi all Auckland-ites!

We have just confirmed something very cool...We are running a charity event raising money for RPE (Rape Crises) on October 26th! It is a two hour Women's Personal Safety seminar and get THIS...It is only $25 (will be donated to RPE)!

This will be very cool information, supporting a great organisation who do a brilliant job and need our help. SOOOOO...Please help us to support... this event. How? Firstly, if you are a female, book for the event now and get all of your friends and family there too, and secondly please forward this to every female you know and help us spread the word. We really appreciate it and guarantee the event will be worth your time, it will be cool. (BTW, there is no physical involvement at this one, it is a presentation of very cool stuff which will empower you, so just sit back and relax). See you there! Athena and Phil

For full details click HERE

'Don't get into debt'

Latest article from Darcy!

Love these...

'Every Woman's Guide to Being Safe...for Life' available now HERE

Wellington Charity Event: Women's Safety Seminar

Darcy Mellsop doing some awesome stuff in Wellington again! If you are in the Hutt Valley (or anywhere in Wellington, it'll be worth the travel!) be sure to get along to this information event, which is raising money for Wellington woman's refuge, organised by Anna Nankivell from Remax Lower Hutt. What a great community initiative, this will be excellent! Get there if you can! :-) Phil

Dealing with 'Typecasting': Latest column from Darcy

Here is Darcy's latest column. Enjoy!

A nice thank you...

Here is our very appreciated Certificate Of Appreciation from Hibiscus Coast Family Services. We recently held a 'Women's Self Defence Fundamentals' workshop for their team under our community support program. It was a great success with a fantastic group of people.

Times Article: Athena and Phil

'Every Woman's Guide to Being Safe...For Life' is available now at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Angus & Robertson and most bookstores.

Also available at our online store by clicking HERE

Excellent work!

Karate woman floors thugs
NZPA May 30, 2011, 7:11 am
Two thugs got more than they bargained for when they attacked a young Wellington woman as she walked home from her nightshift at the weekend.
They found they were no match for the waitress who floored the pair by using her martial arts skills.
Police say they were impressed with the young woman's bravery.
"Often we don't encourage people to fight back, because it can make things worse, but she acted with a great degree of bravery and she's done a great job," Detective Sergeant Shane Dye told The Dominion Post.
The 18-year-old was walking along Taranaki about 6.15am on Saturday when she noticed a man watching her. When she passed him, he attempted to grab her.
Mr Dye said she had been studying karate for about seven years and knew to elbow the man in the chest and stomp on his foot.
"She was then attacked by a second male who she hadn't seen, and he began to pull at her handbag -- then she punched him in the stomach."
During the scuffle the woman fell to the ground and was attacked again by the first man, but the woman was able to kick him and escape.
Police are hunting the two attackers.

I will choose to assume that the "Often we don't encourage people to fight back, because it can make things worse..." comment has been taken out of context by the media given that is it wrong, dangerous, and irresponsible advice which I am sure no senior police officer would give.

Great job by this young lady and I hope her emotional recovery from the event is strong.

Footnote: Another article from NEWSTALK ZB gives further context to this situation in case anyone was thinking "It was a robbery, she should have just given over her bag" with:
Detective Sergeant Shane Dye says one man grabbed her from behind as she was walking down the road, trying to drag her towards his car. He says she used her karate to fight him off, but then a second man tried to grab her handbag over her shoulder.
The young woman continued to fight and managed to escape, but has been left shaken with a knee injury.

Jogging Safety Tips

From the Dominion Post.

'Safe For Life' Wellington

Protect Instructor Darcy Mellsop with the team at the Wellington 'Safe For Life' course - May 2011

Way off the mark; Women's Self Defence Training

Every single member of our team believes that every woman has the right to live free from un-necessary fear and worry, and that they have the right to be empowered with the confidence and skills to know that they can stay safe from predatory violence. We have helped thousands of women achieve that through our courses, classes and seminars. But still we are only scratching the surface as so many more women live with an attitude of apathy about learning to protect themselves and their loved ones. When we work with survivors of past assaults, so very often we hear the comment “I wish I had known this before...” as they realise that the skills that we are giving them to recognise, avoid, de-escalate, or physically protect themselves against male aggression could (in many cases) have helped provide a very different outcome for them.

So then why is there such a resistance to attending a self defence course? Money is not the concern, we have a community support programme to enable people who can’t afford the course fee to be able to attend. We have done courses and talks for free and had only 1 in 3 women who could have come actually attend, even though we are the nation’s leading experts (I don’t like that word) on this subject. The people who do attend give us overwhelming positive feedback, so what stops the rest from attending?

The biggest reason is a complete misunderstanding of what women’s self defence entails. As we wrote about in ‘Every Woman’s Guide to Being Safe...For Life’, most people think of ‘self defence’ as martial arts, or physical fighting, or they remember the ‘self defence’ course they did at high school where they learned how to release from wrist grabs and kick at his groin. In truth, these things have very little, and in some cases nothing, to do with real self protection (especially for women). One of our jobs as the industry leader is to change the public’s perception of what self defence is actually about, or at least what is SHOULD be about, and we are working very hard to do that. The more people who understand what self defence really is, the more people will take action to attend a course and gain extremely valuable knowledge which positively affects all other areas of their lives.

So it was frustrating to me last week when one of our group class senior team members (and friend) called me to say that the news-talk station was discussing ‘Women’s Self Defence’ and asking callers to call in with their opinions. I tuned in and listened for 30 minutes and was genuinely saddened by what I heard. The level of ignorance about the subject was truly astounding. Interestingly the great majority of callers were men. And the entire perception of the subject revolved around physical ‘moves’. In other words everyone thinks self defence is all about how to physically fight off an attacker. One gentleman even called in to share how he used to practise ‘milling’ when he was in the army and thought that was a good idea for women! (‘Milling’ is where your partner puts on gloves or pads and throws repetitive punches at you from multiple angles at close range and you have to cover and/or block and evade. There are some limited benefits from a self defence perspective but they are limited at best and for women even more so.)
The show’s host was the only one to even mention that he thought that confidence was a big part of it, but even then I deduced that he believed that women could attend a course where they learned to physically fight, but it was the confidence that it gave them that would be their biggest asset. And, to a degree that is true, but it is a myopic viewpoint is still like looking through a pin hole trying to see the whole. There is just so much more than that.

The four stages to self defence that we teach are:

1 – Recognition to enable avoidance: This includes developing strong self beliefs and conviction, separating awareness from paranoia, recognising the psychological and behavioural manipulation strategies that males use against females to lure them into dangerous situations, heightened situational awareness, understanding fear, understanding intuition, recognising behavioural cues (what our organisation calls ‘Pre-Contact Indicators’), Predator Types and their methods, Predator motivations, survivor mentality, and a lot more...

2 – De-escalation: We teach conflict resolution skills which work under stress and pressure. These include psychological manipulation and behavioural tactics to enable a situation to be defused (literally ‘talk your way out of it’) if possible, or to set the person up psychologically to enable the effectiveness of your physical response to be maximised if it is necessary. And again, a lot more...

3 – Physical Response: This is when we are left with no other choice but to physically defend ourselves using what we call ‘Protective Offence’. Whatever physical response is given needs to work against a much larger and stronger aggressor, in any environment (sitting, standing, in bed, in car, dark etc), in any situation, while under the effects of extreme stress, fear, and pressure. Fancy moves such as wrist locks, ‘milling’, Jiu Jitsu locks or flash kicks and punches have nothing to do with this. It is just an illusion (albeit an all-too-common one) to believe otherwise. But this is what is passed off as ‘self defence’, basically 95% of what is generally taught is the physical aspect only, and even then 95% of the physical aspect that is taught is usually unrealistic and not functional anyway.

4 – Post event Issues: This stage includes such things as what to do after an event, how to get help, how to deal with Police, court, counselling, PTSD, possible retaliation, emotional effects on spouse and other family/friends, and a whole range of other things.

All of these four pillars have benefits which positively affect most other areas of a person’s life as well, outside of protecting against violence, but that is a completely different series of articles.

This is what true self defence entails. And although it may seem like a lot, it does not take long to learn and more importantly learn in a way that will be retained and recalled when it is required. Contrary to popular belief (and mentioned on this radio show half a dozen times) people do NOT need to train for years to learn to protect themselves. One-day courses do provide a massive benefit provided they teach the right stuff. We have had multiple people who have been training in martial arts or fighting systems for years (even Master Instructors, people who have been training over 30 years, Police instructors, and many more) tell us that they learned more about real self defence in our one day course than in all of their years of martial arts training. And that is not surprising, because most martial arts and fighting systems are NOT self defence systems despite their claims, and never will be. This is not to say they are not good for other things, because they are. Martial arts provide amazing benefits for many different aspects of life, and there are often things that they will teach you that you can use to defend yourself, but they are not self defence systems. (Disclosure: I trained in martial arts for over 20 years and held black belt levels or higher in several different systems)

Unfortunatley until the perception around what self defence is really about changes, more people will refuse to attend a course because they “Don’t want to be scared”, “Did a course at High School”, “Don’t think I could fight off a man anyway even if I learn that stuff”, “Live in a safe neighbourhood”, “Have a big dog”, “Am too unfit”, etc... And other common objections, all of which are completely irrelevant, misinformed, or just plain wrong. But I can see where these come from given what the public are generally sold as ‘self defence’. Most of what is taught is done in such a way as to make reality fit around the technique, as opposed to the other way around. People are not stupid, they instinctively know deep down that that stuff would never really work so why bother going at all. Who can blame anybody for that? It is worrying to me and my team that this is the case, but at least we know the problem and can keep working at changing it, even though we are one organisation swimming against a very large tide. I know that we can do it though, we are doing a little more every day, even if it is just one person at a time.

Ps. The reason I did not call into the show was because they give a maximum time slot of 2 minutes and there is no way I could put things in context in that time so it may do more harm than good. Give me an hour though and look out...:-)

Latest Article from Darcy: 'Promises, Promises'

Coming soon! 'Every Woman's Guide to Being Safe...For Life'

Our new book is available soon!

We have two dozen advance copies available for readers of this blog. Click here: http://www.protectselfdefenceshop.com/Specialised-Products-Shop(2388220).htm

Wellington Charity Fundraiser Event Announced!

Wellington Ladies!

Check out the awesome Charity Fundraiser event on the 5th of March! This is a women specific (and women only) Personal Safety seminar, with all funds going to support Wellington Rape Crises.

This will be a great seminar supporting a great cause.

To book visit our events page by clicking HERE.

See you there!

Latest article from Darcy: 'Fearless Dating'