New Accredited Trainers in the South Island!

A HUGE welcome to the new Protect Accredited Trainers from Nelson and Christchurch!

From left: Aaron Williams (Nelson ITF), Craig Oliver (Pulse Taekwon-Do), Angela Oliver (Pulse Taekwon-Do), Luke Jackson (Pulse Taekwon-Do), Kris Herbison (Riccarton Taekwon-Do), Tomonori Shibata (Riccarton Taekwon-Do), Damon Stewart (Pulse Taekwon-Do).

Welcome to the program team!

For ful list of Accredited Trainers in NZ go the the Protect Group Classes website HERE

Darcy's Column: "Going Training"

How many of us invest in some self defence training for ourselves and our families? Perhaps not many – it doesn’t (yet) seem as mainstream as getting your first aid certificate. Consider that violence is like car accidents: totally unplanned events, can have devastating consequences and affects most of us at some stage in our lives.

Proper training doesn’t need to take months or weeks. You can have extremely effective training within a full day, as long as you know what to look for, so let me provide you with some tips.

Most importantly, a self defence course should be about lifting your belief system – an event where you discover and prove to yourself what you are capable of. Ask the provider how their training will definitely lift your capability. Ask also what the training covers. Proper training will cover all the elements of self defence: Avoidance, Defusion, Physical response and Post event issues including the law.

Though the training has to be “real” that doesn’t mean forsaking safety, both physically and emotionally. You have to be assured that you will be safe and have full control while you are training.

Ask about the types of physical techniques taught. Techniques which are so complicated that can’t be remembered in a week are useless. I’d have serious doubts if words such as: Wrist/arm locks, blocks, pressure points and throws were used to describe the techniques.

Importantly, do some research on the Instructor. Try to determine that they will be someone who’ll make it a great days training for you.

Darcy Mellsop

Protect Self Defence NZ

"Let’s talk about violence" - Latest column by Darcy Mellsop

Let’s talk about violence.

I wonder if we talk enough about violence. I wonder why it isn’t main-stream conversation. We talk about other things prevalent in our society which affect us. We talk about sport, sex, politics, travel, our work, but not violence anywhere to the same degree.

When we do talk about violence, it’s usually to cover 3 things: justice (because we’ve read about something horrible that’s recently happened), what that person should have done to stop it from happening to them and what we might have done.

Is this enough to provide us valuable insight? Or are we simply picking over the bones of something that doesn’t offer us much value – talking about stuff that’s happened is reactive, we are really focusing on aftermath and also, it’s depressing stuff.

I think that we don’t have enough conversations that lead to us educating each other. Ok, so what’s the plan? Let’s share information. When we are talking about violence, talk about what we know. Talk about the things that some guy did that made us feel uncomfortable during the date and why we are not going to go out with him again. Or the time that our ego got in control of us and started to escalate a road rage incident. Challenge and discuss what you and others understand about keeping ourselves safe. Challenge, think and discuss lots. Simple. Because knowing violence, and knowing the early signs of violence, is extremely effective in reducing the balance of probability of being involved in violence.

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.

'Self Defense vs Self Worth'...A Protect Team Member's Perspective

I've been coming along to Phil Thompson’s peace and harmony sessions (AKA "Protect Group Classes" - Phil) for about 3 years now and I’m finding its changing me in interesting ways. Let me explain….. It’s a bit of a journey but bear with me. The perspective might surprise you.

Recently my wife, my 18 month old boy and I were in our people-mover heading
down the southern motorway. I usually travel in the middle lane, today there
was someone in the middle lane doing about 70 kmph, I moved into the far right
lane (aka the fast lane, never made sense to me the limit is still 100 right?).
I moved into the right hand lane and could see a ute coming up behind me very
fast, a big shiny black V8 ute in a big hurry.

I must have been out in the fast lane for 10 seconds doing about 100 kmph, and the ute
was on me, I think maybe 2 meters off my rear bumper. It’s a strange reality,
it’s a bit like it’s all hardly moving, because you're all moving at the same
speed. But imagine if something goes wrong, imagine the tearing, ripping sound
as we all slow down to zero in an instant. So there I am, the guy in the ute
pulls into the middle lane and then passes me. When he’s gone past he pulls
hard right, so hard my wife actually yelped (not a term I'd normally
use!!). As he pulled back into the right hand lane he cut me off so hard that
his rear bumper was perhaps 50cm from my front bumper.

So, what now? This was really threatening; in fact it was life threatening for
my entire family. So what now?

Roll forward about 2 weeks, I'm sitting in a friends lounge recounting all
this. I make the point, “ what am I supposed to do, have some kind of suicidal
western style duel at 100kmph on the southern motorway”. Now my friend has heard
me spout the “hoiler than thou” doctrine for years” and he calls me out in the
best fashion.

“But you can’t keep doing that right? You can’t keep just letting people walk
over you with no comeback, you’ve got to stand up for yourself right?”. “So that
guy has forgotten about you as just another twat to shunt out of the way, but
it’s weeks later and your still thinking about it” so somehow he won, I mean,
your still dealing with it, he’s not”.

Well, those comments really made me think about this. But then I realized
something really important, it’s me talking about this to my friends, my
family, my close friends at Protect that is the positive outlet. When my friend
Jim asked, “So aren’t you just bottling this up”. My answer is “yes, kind of".
It all becomes part of the case study….. Part of the testimony that protects me,
my friends, my training partners.

Because I can tell them there is a way to express this without risking life and limb, there is a way to make this a positive outcome. It’s a way that certainly makes my world a lot safer, teaches my little boy how to behave (i.e not like a baboon). It's very cathartic, sure I will chew on these experiences, mull them over, but they are infact a positive, an opportunity to learn about myself. And finally I’m really at a point where I trust myself to make good decisions, that’s a
great outcome!

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.

Knives in schools...

The October 16th edition of the Herald On Sunday (pg 16) featured an article titled ‘Armed in The Classroom”. The front page teaser for the article read “Knives in schools. The statistics that will shock you”

Well, the statistics did not shock me. They didn't even surprise me.

The original article and link to the original is below this blog.

You can read the statistics for yourself and yes, they are not good. They also don't paint an accurate picture of the scale of the problem. I know this because I work with and around violence every day. I have worked in schools ranging from low decile to decile 10. And this problem is a serious one. Of course we could look at the all of the underlying factors here, the issues that cause the violence which is now more and more frequently involving weapons, but I have commented, discussed and written about this before so I want to keep this to the specific subject of weapons in schools.

Last year I was working with a group of year 12 boys in a decile 10 school. The subject of knives came up and I asked them “how many people in here know someone at this school who has bought a knife to school, either yourself or someone else, recently?” There were 27 students in the class, eight raised their hand.

I asked them why they thought “these people” (I knew I was talking directly to some of them) bought weapons to school. The most common answer was ‘Self Defence’. Other answers included “to look tough”, “because they’re marked” etc…

This prompted me to have a very frank and blunt discussion with them about what they ‘thought’ constituted self defence and where knives fall into that equation, the true consequences of the action of carrying a weapon (legal, moral, ethical, emotional, financial, scholarly, career, family), and a look at the real risks associated with this practise vs the perceived gains. The discussion had a profound effect on them with a unanimous agreement that it was a very bad idea. I have worked with students long enough to know when they are saying something simply to placate me and when they genuinely ‘get it’, and this was a situation where they genuinely ‘got it’.

Several of the students made comments along the lines of “nobody has ever made me think of it like that before”, "You (meaning them) just do it because others do it but no-one really makes you think about what could happen” etc…

The HOD for the school, who was sitting in attendance for the session made the comment to me afterwards that this was so valuable because I was able to have a discussion with the kids “that the teachers can’t have and that they don’t get at home from dad”. It had a huge impact on this group and has on several other’s since, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

One such talk resulted in a student approaching me after the session and handing me a makeshift knife. He told me “Thank you sir, I won’t need this anymore” . That is a big impact.

The issues of teachers being able to search students is one thing, but how about fixing the underlying issues? What our organisation does is only a piece of that puzzle I know, and many schools are doing their best to work on many of the issues, but what we can do is make the kids understand the real consequences. We are in a very unique position to be able to do that. And if they no longer want or feel they need to carry knives or other weapons a big part of the issue is fixed right there. Will we get through to all of them and have them all never carry weapons again? No, of course not. But we can make a huge dent in the numbers who do.

The schools who work with us are progressive and are in many ways pioneers in addressing this issue and the other relevant issues facing their students’ safety. Some others are just plain apathetic and operating in a realm of absolute denial. This issue is real, it is obvious, the signs are there if they care to look, yet when one of their students or teachers is stabbed (again), you can guarantee we’ll hear the same old tune of “there was nothing we could do to prevent it”, or “it came out of the blue” . I am tired of hearing these things. There is plenty that can be done to prevent it and NONE of these incidents (not one) has happened “out of the blue”. Anyone who wishes to debate with me on that, I welcome it.

Anyway, this blog is just me sharing a couple of my many thoughts on this issue but at the end of the day it will be read by those who already know that what we are doing is making massive differences, and is unlikely to be read or taken seriously by anyone in the school system who will take any action. I hope I am wrong about that, I genuinely do, but I doubt that I am.

To end on a brighter note, we recently ran another women’s personal safety course at a decile 10 Auckland College and the results were absolutely outstanding. The feedback has been overwhelming from the staff and the students alike and the difference in the students’ confidence and overall empowerment was incredible. So there are schools who really are making a great difference and it is always an honour to work with them.

Original article here:


Armed in the classroom
By Chloe Johnson 5:30 AM Sunday Oct 9, 2011

Teachers are trying to fathom why an increasing number of kids, some as young as 5, bring weapons to school.

Expand Teachers are allowed to search children for weapons and drugs, but many are nervous of doing this one-on-one. Photo / Janna DixonChildren as young as 5 are among the alarming number of pupils who have been suspended or stood down for having weapons at school.

Figures the Herald on Sunday obtained through the Official Information Act show more than 1000 students have been removed from schools for possessing or using a weapon in the past two years.

At least 700 cases involved knives, blades, hammers, scissors and guns, including replicas.

In one case, a 5-year-old boy was stood down for five days for violent behaviour - brandish-ing a weapon - at teachers and students in the classroom. The type of weapon used has not been disclosed.

Ministry of Education curriculum and performance manager Jeremy Wood refused to name the school to protect the child's identity. However, he said the boy was removed from class after the incident in 2009 and received support from special education services for more than a year.

"He has not received any further stand-downs or suspensions, and no further support is currently needed," Wood said.

Educational psychologist Fiona Ayers said it was a huge concern the boy had become violent at such a young age.

"That's scary. What is going on in that kid's life that makes him feel he is so unsafe he has to carry a weapon?"

She said there were several reasons children carried weapons: protection from bullies, issues at home, influence from television or video games and simply thinking it was "cool" to have weapons.

"It's more the impulsive ones doing it. I have heard of kids who have left school and gone home then come back with weapons because they are upset. They are the ones more likely to use them."

Unskilled parents were a large part of the problem because children were copycats.

'Some of them, we do have to look at the culture of the environment they are in ... if family or uncles or people in the neighbourhood are doing that sort of thing then it might be one option for the child."

Te Puke High School maths teacher Steve Hose, 53, was stabbed in the neck and shoulder four times last year by a 13-year-old student from a dysfunctional family. The student took his own life about three months ago.

Hose said he ran to the front of the classroom after being stabbed and felt the blood dripping down his body. "I yelled at the kids, 'Get out'. I just needed them out of the way," Hose said. He looked in the "wide focused eyes" of his attacker and said, 'Are you sure you want to do this, mate?'. He looked at me dead in eyes and said, 'Yes'."

Education Minister Anne Tolley introduced new guidelines this year for teachers to search students for drugs and weapons which Hose supported. "But you need to get a senior team to direct the proceedings. One-on-one is a bad idea."

FAVOURITE WEAPONS

* Knife: 450

* Gun, including toy: 219

* Scissors: 36

* Blade: 12

* Hammer: 11

Total suspensions and stand downs between 2008 and 2010 for weapons-related incidents:
* Primary (Yr 1-8), 409;
* Secondary (Yr 9-15), 609;
* Composite (Yr 1-15), 49 (2008-2010)

A Protect Team Member's Perspective...

The below blog was written by Brendan McGrath, a senior team member at Protect's Auckland group classes.

Hi there,

I’ve been one of Phil’s students over the past three years (time flies when your having fun;-). So before we kick off just a quick note to say that these views are not strictly those of Protect Self Defence.



I read something in the paper recently, a 74 year old man kicked to death in an alleyway on his way home by three young men, …… fingers crossed there is something valuable here! We really are trying to change ourselves, our friends, and the world!!!

Some stories are great promotional ammunition for the RBSD movement, a martial arts expert beaten up, mugged or worse, dying because they got in a scrap over a shoulder barge, a drunken brawl outside a pub, mugged at an ATM. Sure, true “self defence” can easily help us to control our environment either thru de-escalation or if need be, ultimately thru physical means. So yes, RBSD has plenty of “Look we told you so” moment’s in the media to draw support from, but that’s just too easy, it’s a narrow perspective.

Some stories that are reported are so sad it’s hard to see how we can take something positive from them, some are simply tragic. Some make you wonder how anything we teach would have really helped.

This old bloke on his way home perhaps to his old dear wife, perhaps from visiting his children, he could have been my late grandfather could have been anyone’s granddad or elderly neighbour. A tragic way to mark the end to a life which if he was like my late granddad was filled with generosity and love.

Self-defence is usually a hopeful and empowering message. But there is something about 3 young men beating a 74 year old man to death in an alleyway that is really upsetting and disturbing, it makes me fear for my little boy. That no matter how much I can teach him that at some point perhaps when he’s 70 that this could happen to him, or my dear old mum who goes for walks on the beach with her dog, how can I do anything to protect her?

In fact this event is tragic for those three young men also, their lives are ruined, they may not appreciate it right now as they sit in jail in some ways riding high on the kudos of killing a man, but ruined lives nonetheless.

There needs to be a fuller solution, teaching people kung fu at some point simply becomes bogus and absurd.




I have a secret, a long time ago, almost 20 years ago now as a young man, in a disturbed moment as a very angry kid I swung a piece of rough sawn wood into the side of a woman’s head.

It’s a long story, but in that moment I could have killed her, I wouldn’t have really meant to but it could have happened. I would not be sitting here enjoying my wonderful life, and her children would not be enjoying their loving mother.

It was just dumb luck I didn’t kill her. In the moment that I attacked her, in that moment, I never gave her a name, never understood that her children need her, like mine need me.

Sometimes I find it all rather hard to reconcile how well life has turned out, but it has certainly been on the good graces of firstly a judge, family, friends, and ultimately society. I’m very thankful for that, and that translates to actions not just words, if I spot you out there in trouble I will stop. I physically can’t just drive by; my stomach starts to twist up inside me. I’ve grown up a lot in 20 years forgotten a lot, but the moment I walked into protect the message resonated with me. I have found a lot of redemption in my time at protect, its cathartic.

Something that has stood out for me at Protect, “lets see if we can ALL walk away from this situation unharmed, we are all someone’s child, brother, sister, mother, father, even the arsehole that’s just called you every name under the sun” that fundamentally we care. This is not a soft line on self defence, but a first line. We also have a very hard line for those that would persist and seek to take us from our family, our friends.

At the core of this what I am getting at here is that we avoid violence because we care, we defuse because we care both about ourselves and the instigator of violence and their families, and ultimately we protect ourselves because we care about ourselves and our loved ones.

There is one take out message here, it is NOT about how the principles that “Protect” teach can protect us physically. The message is about how we who believe in the anti violence principles that “Protect” teaches can thru educating our children and those around us to not use violence, in the long term make a safer world, one with more respect and care. In this way our message benefits not only those who come to classes, to seminars, to courses, but it benefits all of our society.

This is the message that can protect my children, my loved ones and people I will never meet, people that have never heard of protect can be safer because of this message.
Some bloke who rants at me from his car, and I apologise and move along… his kids owe an unknowing debt to my learning’s from protect, today their dad wont be in hospital because I put him there or in prison because he’s beaten me to a pulp.

And that view, that aspiration, that higher thinking is not common in self defence. Our aspiration is to affect even those that have never heard of “Protect”. To actually make the world a bit safer for all. In truth a self defence course may not have helped that 74 year old man, we will never know. And the offenders well perhaps it’s doubtful for them also. But consider that we are actually trying to teach people to understand and avoid the terrible cost of violence.

If the offenders parents, older sisters, etc had attended a course…. What we are really seeking is to increase the numbers of people in the population who do not resort to violence as a first base for conflict resolution. It might seem like an impossible task to effect change like that, we cannot afford to let that deter us …………


Heres the story that prompted me to write to you all..

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10755600

Daughters account

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10755787

Who are you? Latest article from Darcy

Latest media article by Darcy Mellsop. Enjoy!

Dealing with fear...

Latest article from Darcy...Enjoy!

Seriously...What?

Ok, Prepare yourselves for one of my rants... :-)

There is a lot of junk 'self defence' taught out there, nobody reading this will find that to be new information. Some of it is plain comical and some of it is downright dangerous. After doing this job for so long I normally don't let it get to me when I see this stuff, I just focus on the good things I see and learn from them and aim to ignore the 'not helpful' stuff. But apparently today I must be experiencing a moment of weakness because I let what I just saw frustrate me.

I (and all of our instructors) tell every single person we train to feel free to challenge us on absolutely anything at all, and if they don't agree with us to let us know. There are no sacred cows with what we do, if we can't back up what we are teaching, really back it up, then we should not be teaching it. It is potentially people's lives at stake.

So when a mate of mine forwarded me a link of one of the 'top' self defense instructors in the USA teaching women's self defence (women's self defence is like the centre of the universe for bad advice in most cases) I expected to see quality information. A few things he said were smart and sound, and then I saw what he is teaching women to do against a potential rape...Drop onto the floor from a standing position and kick him. I kid you not. I thought about posting the link up but I think that is unprofessional so I have decided not to and this blog is more about the general problem of blindly following what we are told than this specific isolated (but not uncommon) instance.

What worried me more than the absolute rubbish advice, was that the willing group of participants seemed to be hanging on his every word and NO-ONE challenged him. No-one had a flash of common sense (or if they did they did not bring it up) and consider the real possible consequences of just this one piece of bad advice (there was more but I'll stay with this one as an example).

Drop on the ground voluntarily? Seriously? Come on, give me a break.

Yes, there are always exceptions to every rule, and yes the situation always dictates the response so there may be a time when dropping to the floor is the best option, but those times are few and far between, and to have it as the primary (or only, as in this case) option is more than just ludicrous, it is dangerous.

If I go into all of reasons why this advice is so bad I'll be writing all day, but just a couple of reasons, pre-assuming all of the behavioural, psychological, pre-contact stages have failed or were never available and a physical response is the only option, why would going to the floor on purpose for a physical response be a very dangerous thing to do?

1) That is where he probably wants you anyway. You just helped him achieve his purpose. It also gives him a physical and psychological advantage (at least in his mind).
2) You eliminate or greatly reduce your escape options. How are you supposed to get out of here, to run, to escape now? Do you really think that your kicking him in the legs, on its own, is likely to incapacitate him enough for you to stand and escape. Possible, yes. Probable, no.
3) You are now as far away as possible from the primary targets, you also reduce the grounding, distancing and torque available to you while standing if you are able to achieve a stunning strike/s to enable you to escape.
4) Your access to natural (improvised) weapons is greatly reduced.
5) His ability to stomp and kick you is maximised and the danger to you in that sense is extreme (worse still if multiple attackers). We teach to kick out at the opponent (among other things) if you are forced to the floor (thrown down, tripped, started there etc) but as a means to get back to your feet immediately! We don't want to go there volunarily to start with!
6) Try doing that on concrete by the way. Sure in reality you may have to if you end up there, but rolling around on gravel etc is not fun, it makes a mess. Environment plays a huge role.
7) Your access to your available 'tools' is now massively reduced, and his increases. This is potentially loading the dice in HIS favour and putting yourself in a real bad spot.

These are just a few of the reasons this advice is not good, there are more.

But what I want to stress is that if someone teaches you something about self defence, and they are doing it from the perspective of 'this is what you do in reality' as opposed to learning martial arts self defence etc, then think logically, ask questions, and challenge them. It is your life on the line. It is not a game. There is no way this instructor could back this up if any of our students or instructors had a debate with him on it, it would fail. It doesn't make friggin sense.

Rant over. I'll do my best to ignore the rubbish that is out there again, but just occasionally, like today, it gets to me.

'Child Power' Article: The Aucklander

'Child Power' Article: The Aucklander, August 4 2011

'Empower Your Kids to be Safe...For Life' available in most bookstores or from Amazon.com by clicking HERE

Avoid, defuse

Latest Article from Darcy...Enjoy!

Workplace 'Bully' loses his advantage...

At Protect we don't use the term 'bullying' for any situations involving anyone older than around 10 years. After that age we call it what it really is: 'Peer Aggression'. By giving the issue the mantle that it deserves people tend to take the issue more seriously, and it is a serious issue. It causes loss of confidence, self esteem, and self belief, it has caused suicides, murders, assaults, and substance abuse, broken up families and ruined countless people's lives. It is not an issue that should be tolerated, either at school, the workplace or in any other facet of life.

Yesterday I received an email from a man who attended one of our recent 'Best Defence (phase 1)' courses, I'll call him Joe, which is not his real name. He explained how he had been the target of a 'workplace bully' for the past year. He had bought the issue up to management only to have it 'played down' and to a large degree, dismissed. It has caused him huge stress and affected his home life and his health. He told me that he has been looking for another job unsuccessfully, and that the sole reason for him wanting to leave his employer of six years (at a job that he otherwise loves) was because of this person.

At 'Best Defence' (as with all of our core courses) we address the behvioural and psychological aspects of self defence as well as the physical. Because of the way we train attendees there is an immediate shift in belief systems, resulting in greater confidence and a feeling of personal empowerment. This is the basis of effective self defence.

Jow explained that the course had such a deep impact on him that he walked into his office on Monday morning a different person, different to the person who left on Friday night. He took immedite action on the issue of his tormentor. He had a meeting with his boss where he confidently explained what was happening and what the options were for them. His boss has now taken the matter seriously and is standing behind Joe with the support and action required.

He then met with the man who has been causing the issues. Joe told me that he would NEVER have been able to have the conversation, with the degree of confidence and certainty, prior to the course. He addressed the issue in a non-challenging, non-threatening way, but with a confidence and focus that left his prior aggressor under no illusions of his options. He also did it in such a way as to let the man save face and have a 'way out' (which we teach), and the man took it. He has gained an apology and the past week has been a different experience for him when he arrives at work. In his words: " The weight is off my shoulders and I am actually enjoying going to work again"

How did this take place? Because self defence (real Self Defence) training empowers you with a confidence and belief system which all on it's own makes you a 'hard target' for aggressor's, it grows you as a person from your core.

Emerson once said: "Who you are screams so loudly in my ears that I can not hear what you are saying"

Joe told me that he originally attended our course (thinking like most people that self defence is all about martial arts and/or solely physical moves, which it is not) to learn to physically protect himself becasue he expected the situation to get so bad that he would be assaulted physically. He said that what he gained was infinitely more, it made him a strong person, with the confidence to stand up for himself and the skills to do it in a way which made the situation better and not worse.

I acknowledge Joe for realising the need to imporove his situation, for attending the course, for taking the action, and for sharing his story with me.

This is what self defence at Protect is all about.

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.

Best Defence (Phase 1) course Wellington

The team at the 'Best Defence (Phase 1) course - Wellington, May 2011

Jogging Safety Tips

From the Dominion Post.

Latest Column from Darcy: 'Bully Complex'

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...:-)

Awesome...

Hi all!

I hope you all had a great break over Easter.

I had a call last night from one of our group class students (who is also a friend) with an interesting story to share. He and some friends and family were out fishing on their boat on Saturday, over 5km from shore in decent swell, when it capsized. In short, they were in very cold water for over 5 hours before being discovered and rescued. It was a very, very serious situation. I am just so glad that he and his family got through it, as it was very close to having a more dire outcome.

What was awesome though is that he thanked us for giving him tools to get through it. He is a very emotionally strong person so in my opinion although he may have used some of what we teach to assist him I have no doubt that it was in large part his character and emotional fortitude that played a big part too.
He specifically named four different tools that assisted him, and I thought it was important to share these here because it highlights again that what we teach goes far beyond simply defending ourselves against violence.

We have a training concept known as ‘Protect’s Stress Inoculation Training’ which helps people deal with highly stressful situations and remain calm(er) and maintain the ability, at least as much as possible, to respond rather than to react under pressure and stress. Although when we train it it is specifically against intra-personal human aggression, development in one area helps to bridge the gap a lot quicker in any other area of high stress/ high pressure situations as well. We have countless examples of where our students, course attendees, or ourselves have used this concept in situations such as motor vehicle accidents, personal accidents, natural disasters, as well as dealing with aggression and/or violence. In this situation, a serious boating accident, it was again used to help him remain as calm as possible, make rational decisions, and control the actions of the group which ultimately led them to being found.

Additionally, there were also four distinct tools that he used to help get through the situation:

Autogenic breathing – We teach this highly effective method of breathing to help to lower the heart rate in situations of high stress or pressure. It has multiple benefits from reducing panic, to enabling a clearer decision making process, to reducing the degree of emotional trauma suffered after the event, as well as many others. In this case he used it immediately upon surfacing while he worked to keep the others as calm as possible, and also after several hours in cold water he was shivering uncontrollably and his breathing was labored so he again used it to help gain control over his breathing and autonomic functions.

Positive self talk – The importance of positive self talk can not be over-stated. It helps control the overall state of the mind, and since the ancestor of every action is a thought (and taking the right action in these situations can be the difference between life and death) it is important to ensure that those thoughts are controlled and condusive to a positive outcome. He made the conscious decision that he was getting through this no matter what, and so were the others. And in this case, he not only used positive self talk for himself (constantly, for 5 hours!) but also for his group. He kept them focused on the future, what they were going to tell everyone at home about this, what they were going to eat for dinner, what they were going to do later in the week etc. The discussion helped him and the others stay focused on a positive outcome, and reduce panic (panic is a killer, especially in the water).

Choice speech – We train constantly on de-escalation and defusion to enable us to talk our way out of situations or psychologically and behaviourally manipulate a situation to stop it (if possible) escalating into physical violence. And these skills are transcendable into all other areas of life too. In this case, he used our basic principles to ensure that his speech patterns helped to keep the situation as calm as possible, define a leadership role, and stop any unhelpful discussion early.

Fitness – Although fitness is not necessary to be able to protect yourself, it can certainly help. And because we train for the ‘total defence of the self’, our group classes include a fitness component to them. This undoubtedly helped him physically manage in the water for so long, even though his legs were cramping and he was shivering uncontrollably.

He told me that if this had happened a couple of years ago, before he started training, he knows it would have had a very different and far worse outcome.

In my opinion he did a brilliant job, and may have saved the lives of others in his group by his actions.

Additionally, he has known what to expect from an emotional perspective after the event because we constantly train and discuss ways to manage the effects of high stress situations. He has been prepared for it, and taken the steps to help to reduce the effects.

We receive emails and calls all of the time from people who have used our training to help keep themselves safe. When it relates to an act of aggression or violence against them, the vast majority of the time the person shares how they managed to recognise, avoid, or de-escalate the situation allowing them to avoid physically defending themselves. As this is what we train for it is always brilliant to hear. Sometimes the situations could not be avoided and they have had to physically respond in order to ensure their safety, which is unfortunate but at least they have the tools required to get out of it. Just as frequently though we get the emails or calls like the one I have been talking about here today; the ones that say that the tools they have learned have helped them survive an accident, or manage a highly stressful work situation, or helped them become a more patient person in general, or helped with the communication in their relationship etc. These emails/calls are often the highlight of my day. Self defence is about empowerment, when I hear about examples like this I know that what we are doing is making a big difference.

Ps. Thank you for the amazing support and feedback for our new book 'Every Woman's Guide to Being Safe...For Life', it has been awesome. It is available at Amazon.com or by clicking here