Womans Self-Defense

[Ms. J]

Ok well I have read nearly three pages of responses and replies on this woman’s self defense section. Based on a lot of the postings and some of the sort of miss guided and un educated information I have decided to post an open column to anyone that has questions about Woman’s Self-Defense.

I do not like the word Expert but I am told I am one of the few women in the country that has been and is fully educated on woman and children’s Self-Defense Tactics. I will honestly tell you now that the education I have in this field is based on a lifetime of training and realty base education from using my techniques for my job, my life, and my security. I also work as a domestic violence interventionist and bodyguard for victims of domestic Violence. Furthermore, I teach both martial arts and self-defense.

Understand I stated the last based on MARTIAL ARTS and SELF DEFENSE as two very different types of training. Why? Because the realty is that, most people in today’s society believe that if they take a traditional martial art, it is going to protect them on the streets in realty based situation. This goes for woman as well as men. The stats state otherwise, and the realty’s are much different then the nations misconceptions.

So I am going to put myself here to answer all questions pertaining to: Woman’s Self-Defense & Awareness, children’s Self-Defense, Rape Prevention, Childhood Abduction, Domestic Violence, and Violent Crime realty based street attacks. (Regardless of age or Gender)

See what I find interesting is this; in our society today we classify rape as a female victimization when the actual stats are much different.

The average age and gender for a rape victim is not a collage age woman, nor a woman over 25, nor a woman over the age of 30.

The realty’s are this; the highest risk age for a rape victim is an 11-year-old child, of even gender base. So there are as many boys being raped as girls of the average ripe old age of 11. Nevertheless, society states that women are the majority of victims and because we are so week and frail, we cannot take care of ourselves. Then the realty’s of homophobia and the ties that come with being a boy or a man that has been raped take over and we hide the truth and the real facts because organizations can get more money by re-victimizing woman and keeping woman in a victim state by highlighting only cases against woman. By making rape an only happens to woman situation we are not helping to stop the cycle of victimization we are only encouraging it and increasing it by hiding the realty’s.

Personally, I believe we are doing woman around the world a huge disservice by keeping them in the public eye as the largest case of victimization and violent crime. The realty’s here again are very different then what we advertise and what we proclaim in society. Rape against woman is one of the lowest statistical violent crimes committed in the USA.

NOTE: it is definitely something we have to teach woman to be able to protect themselves against, but its even more important that we start teaching the truth, start taking care of our children and start teaching all genders based on the real case situations instead of the demoralization of woman to gain public support for making us victims in the eyes of society to gain money and funding.

Yes, it is true that the bigger the person your facing the harder it is to stop them without training. But its as equally true that trying to use traditional Martial arts Techniques against someone that is 2 times your size, coming at you at full rage or coming at you wile drunk or under the influence of drugs can get you killed faster then if you spent 25 hours max training in a well rounded self defense and awareness class. This goes for men, woman, and children. You add a weapon to the equation and your even more at risk of eating it during the confrontation if your using TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ART TECHNIQUES. Yes these skills are important and can enhance life greatly, but based on the art taken, they are not going to fully prepare you for the streets.

Yes I speak from experience from both genders and all age groups because I have trained all genders and all age groups. I have trained victims of abuse, rape, assault, domestic violence, childhood victimization, victims of violent crime to fully black belted men, men that have been military, security teams and trained in martial arts. The men that have come to me have been men that have tried to use their 25 years of traditional martial arts training on the streets against a weapon or in realty based situation. When the realty of them almost dying because they used skills that were not intended for today’s situtations sunk in they came to take lessons from me.

I hope I can bring some understanding to the realty’s of what actually takes place and what we can and cant do to protect against becoming a victim of Violent crime in today’s society.

Ms. J bows deeply….


Ms. Johnaleen Castro
CEO-FATE Organization

https://www.FATE-Organization.com

888-526-4626

[Tom Yum]

Its good that you highlighted the statistics and opened up our perception to what is actually happening. We've had many discussions on other boards about traditional ma (karate,taekwondo, kung fu) vs contemporary ma (thaiboxing, jkd, boxing, jiujitsu, weapons training in phillipino ma etc). And we agree that most traditional ma are unsuitable for today's self-defense.

I have sparred in both traditional ma and in contemporary ma with considerable contact and you can actually inflict more damage in the later. For example, I sparred a western boxer unfamiliar with the thai boxing clinch/knee concept and it put him down for a while, not to mention that he had a 40 lb weight advantage. 10% of all muay thai practicioners die in the ring due to internal damage caused by knee and elbow strikes.

Full contact contemporary MA's are in better shape and are used to getting hit. Not to say that they are not vulnerable, because they certainly are, but if you were a thug and had a choice to attack a female black belt in karate or a decent female amateur thai boxer, who would you pick? Its a shame though that women are less interested in the contemporary ma's and seek MAs like shotokan karate for self-defense. I think women are also uncomfortable with the idea of grappling, but not all women. (there's a lady at my gym who has been practicing jiujitsu for some time and she can submit guys bigger than her). However, she is one of the few counterexamples.

For the most part I agree with you. I am also interested in hearing more about child self-defense, because it would perhaps open our eyes alot more about what a legitimate childrens/womens self-defense class should teach.

[Kingston]

hmm first off i'd like to say thanks that post Ms. J, its some good information.

Im also intrested in hearing more about Childrens self defence.

It seems to me that the biggest problem is, that most abuse kids face, this is only my impression, happens from people who are close to them and who they trust, coaches, fathers/mothers, priests, and so on. I dont know if you know any statistics on that, just the impression i get, bullies and the people they look up to are kids biggest threats. Am i right? Wrong? Close? What do you think?

[terry]

Johnaleen,

So nice to see you contributing to this forum. Thanks.

Terry

[Ms. J]

Answers

*********
Tom Yum Wrote: Its good that you highlighted the statistics and opened up our perception to what is actually happening. We've had many discussions on other boards about traditional ma (karate,taekwondo, kung fu) vs contemporary ma (thaiboxing, jkd, boxing, jiujitsu, weapons training in phillipino ma etc). And we agree that most traditional ma are unsuitable for today's self-defense.
*******

Tom, it is a very important part of what we teach. What I found when I started building the program for victims of violent crime rather shocked me. Here is an interesting fact, over the past 10 years their have been a number of cases where woman have died on the streets trying to defend themselves using their black belted TKD skills, or karate based arts skills. Then a number of cases of woman who survived rape but could not stop the rape that have gone to court after it and have had a full blackbelt in traditional martial arts. They won their cases based on realty of a violent attack against them vs. the traditional training aspects of the arts the woman are black belted in. Taking into account the following:

1) The attack came from someone larger then they were.
2) Sometimes facing a weapon.
3) Facing an attacker with full rage and alcohol or drugs being in the attackers system.
4) In addition, that the traditional art they trained in did not prepare them for realty based street confrontation with the above-added equations.


Black belted men: Then the realty’s of how many men have died on the streets trying to save there lives with traditional ma skills is even hire based on the fact that only 10% of the population that is fully ranked in an art are woman. Based on a sliding scale though there are just as many men eating it as woman that are fully trained and black belted in traditional arts on the streets when facing a violent attack against them.

Traditional moves facing the Knife: It does not help that we have traditional arts using old kicking blocks for knife defense on the streets either. You would be shocked at how many grand pubbas in the traditional arts I have shocked when they came in with cross block of their hands to stop my knife from going into there gut only to have their hands cut and my dagger dug into there gut.

(NOTE; this demonstration is done with a practice knife and no real cutting is done. sometimes for effect though I have taken my aluminum knife and dipped it in water then froze it before doing the demo. The shocking cold of the aluminum practice blade touching you’re skin on contact can help to bring some realism to what your body might do)

Your body getting cut: No matter how well you are trained in a TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ART, your body is going to react to something’s instinctively. Being cut is something that brings a physical response regardless of the mindset you go in with. Moreover, unless your sitting around cutting yourself daily to train your physical response to react differently then normal, your body is going to do what ever it pleases when its cut with a blade.

A few possible body reactions to being cut:

1) It only takes Two inches of a blade entering your body (sometimes less) to cause the body to go into shock.
2) Slicing the hands wrists or face can cause you to respond with either stopping for a second.
3 or Possibly pulling your body part being cut out of the way and possibly opening you up for the stab to the gut.
4) if your in a rage, or under the influence, your response can be to move your self into closer range and causing you to be in even more danger.
5) (Yes, this is generalizing to an extent, as I said your body will do what it pleases and there are always exceptions to the generalized rules. In addition, drugs, anger, and adrenalin can cause your body to do all sorts of neat tricks for you during this kind of confrontation. It can also do things to your opponent)
6) there are many other possibility’s based on the flight or fight syndrome too at just seeing the knife or being in the confrontation that have to be dealt with on top of actually getting cut with the blade.


The ARTS VS SDA: What is a traditional art, a realty based art and Self Defense and Awareness? All are three very different types of training. I may actually be doing an in-depth report and article on this subject for one of CFW’s Magazines soon.

This is part of what I teach in the program for victims; first, they get healing modality’s to get over the negative responses left from the first attack. Then they get 16 hours of realty based training in Self Defense and Awareness. Then we pay for them to take a martial art, follow up SDA program or holistic healing art of their choice with a local outside school for four organized classes of their choosing.

However, before we do this we give them a full outline of the arts, a short history and a break down of them based on what is best suited for realty-based training compared to what they will get from traditional martial arts or from taking a holistic art. I even show them a physical demonstration of the differences between using the traditional arts, realty based arts, and SDA techniques wile facing realty based confrontation.

We teach awareness its what we do best and this has to be part of the awareness levels taught, because its apparent that people are dying regardless of the training, they are getting. The outline is something that is standard and given to all my SDA students regardless if they are part of a victims of violent crime program or just an off the street student in seminar or organized class time.

When I founded the FATE organization it was about bringing awareness and education that would help change the cycles of abuse and violent crime in today’s society from all venues, to all genders, ages, and races. This includes working from the trenches up though to the community at large with prevention programs.

I am told it takes 10 years of work to make positive social change; FATE organzation is 5 years into this process. I believe we are ahead of the game now….J


Definition of terms and Stats: The way our government defines a term has a lot to do with what we get from them statistic wise. When I did my stats work for our programs I did not just take one agency’s word for what was taking place. I went to all government agency’s, private data collection agency’s, community agencies, and then to all of the hospitals for their stats. Then I went and dug in all of the local state agencies and local police department stats to see how different things were across the board. Then I read all of the newspaper reports, of all instances I could find throughout the country for a 10-year period.

The real eye opener came when I started reading the stats from the hospitals and then after looking and comparing them all I realised that a lot of crime never gets reported. Especially knife attacks, child rape, and adult rape, domestic violence of both genders and a lot of what is classified as violent crimes.

On the official reporting end, many times stats gathering and information are paid for by lobbyists for different organizations. These organizations will always to some extent slant a state to suit their needs. I wanted to know the truth so I could offer programs that met the needs of the people and the community. Not some FAT Cat sucking off the government to assist him in using my tax dollar to pay for his new car wile he or his organizations that represent him push for laws and regulations that suit only the needs of themselves.


Domestic Violence: The realty’s of domestic violence is a family crisis and victimization to children of the famleys. These kids are the children that see, hear, and live the real life that will make them into the adults that will continue helping to keep the cycle of abuse going. Therefore, it is not just a woman’s problem. In addition, many many times the children are abused, beaten and neglected in a serous way during the long term DM Relationships.

Here is the legal definition of Violent Crime for the United States
Definition of Violent crime U.S. Justus Department

VIOLENT CRIME TOTAL DEFINITION Violent crime is composed of four offenses: murder, negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. All violent crimes involve force or threat of force.

Can anyone tell me what the highest rate of violent crime we have reported each year out of the list above?

****************
Kingston Wrote:
Im also interested in hearing more about Childrens self defence.
It seems to me that the biggest problem is, that most abuse kids face, this is only my impression, happens from people who are close to them and who they trust, coaches, fathers/mothers, priests , and so on. I dont know if you know any statistics on that, just the impression i get, bullies and the people they look up to are kids biggest threats. Am i right? Wrong? Close? What do you think?
**************

Yes but, based on what we just talked about lets look at the definition that our government has given us for what “ knowing someone” means. Again, we look at the states and they state that most children are raped by someone they know. A childhood molester has to work to get the trust of a child, a childhood abductor does not. There is another factor now in today’s society with children from the age of 9 to 18 is the pedophile rates are rising in the United States due to the Internet. There are many cases now where the pedophile will contact children via the Internet, lie to them, and tell them they are there own age. Working from chat rooms and children’s groups, they easily find ways to talk children into meeting places where abductions are easily done. Futhermore, young woman assaulted and molested or talked into running away because they have been convinced to do so because of issues at home. A number of adult rapes, stalkings and killings of woman have happened this way as well. So yes, many children know the person or have had some contact with them in some way.

In addition, it is still the fact that over half of the childhood abductions each year that take place are taken via the parents or famleys members of the children. This however is different and easily qualified within a few hours to a few days time of it happening. We also do not have the high risk that the child will be killed, or murdered nessacarly if abduction by a family member.

Again, the crime changes based on the overall realty of why children go poof. Children that run away many times do so because they are being forcibly raped at home by a family member. Sometimes it is happening at school and because of the way we raise our children they do not come to us until its too late. Again more realty’s of the stats the us government has allowed outside agency’s to play with to suit their needs.

School Violence: School Violence for children is a huge problem now to add to the realty’s of what children need to learn to protect them selves against. I grew up in a very intense neighborhood and that was 20 years ago. I would easily state that I grew up in a war zone and I did whatever I could to first survive it and then get out of it. It took me the first 17 years of my life to escape that life; it will be part of who I am now forever.

However, Now all the schools have problems and all of our cities have gangs and warring clans. In addition, they are not all apart of down town Los Angeles or Echo Park in the 60’s to late 70’s. I could go on in depth now and retaliate the realization that we are a terrorist society that doesn’t get the part yet about how we are bombing and killing more people a year on our own then we lose in helping to fight terrorism each year outside of our own backyards. But, I will save that for another venue….

***********
Terry Wrote: So nice to see you contributing to this forum. Thanks.
**********
Blush well, thanks for having me here……

Gentlemen, I will be leaving and going out of town this evening. This will be my last post for at least a week. Please post your replies and I will answer them when I get back.


Ms. J…


CEO-FATE Organization

https://www.FATE-Organization.com

888-526-4626

[Tom Yum]

Wow! You are certainly passionate and knowledgeable about your work. That's great! What do you think about the non-traditional martial arts. For example Kali/Escrima which teach you knife/stick fighting? Its not the same as TKD or any other traditional martial art. Are you familiar with those fighting styles? Do you incorporate techniques from fighting styles like muay thai or jiujitsu? Have you worked with instructors like Paul Vunak or Sammy Franco? Those guys are into reality based self-defense as well.

BTW, I like your knife simulation. That's got to be as realistic as you can get. I am really impressed with your devotion to reality based self-defense and your passion about your work. Do you also do motivational talks with kids/adults?

[hikickinchick]

about tkd...

Even though this might be going back to the very beginning, it's something that I've noticed and bothers me.

Ms. J wrote:
The realty’s are this; the highest risk age for a rape victim is an 11-year-old child, of even gender base. So there are as many boys being raped as girls of the average ripe old age of 11.

That's really scary; I didn't know that.
You said TKD is a traditional martal art and that it doesn't work; you're absolutely right. Besides it being absolutely worthless for self-defense, with the possible exception of teaching a good roundhouse kick, most of the places are really watered down. on top of that, if you really want to teach a kid self-defense, you have to find some way to get them interested, because over half of the people in my class are inder 12 and dont give a crap about the class--it's just time to run around and run off energy, and show off to their little friends, like, 'oooo dont fight me, i take karate!'. Even those who stay for the advanced classes are running all over the place, and keep getting distracted. I think the main thing in wanting to teach a child self-defense is motivation, and most kids these days don't have it.

I even saw one kid come into my class once after missing a previous class; he had a black eye and a few other bruises. I asked him what heppened, and he said he got beat up. I asked if he'd tried the basic things we teach to try avoiding fights (walk away, talk away, make friends, and if all else fails, win), and he said he'd forgotten. He said he'd tried to kick the other guy.

It turns out he tripped over his own feet. If he'd payed the least bit of attention in class, the fight may have been avoided, because what I think happened is he thought that since he took TKD, he could beat up every other person that came along. This is a very common misconception, and he got whooped because of it. And not only did he think he could win; he did the moves totally wrong. Kids these days need to be talked to and made ot understand that these things aren't supposed to be used unless the situation is dire, and if they *are* used, they need to be done *right*.

Even though i *know* it was mean, I went home and laughed afterwards....he's one of the little kids who's always causing trouble and shoving other people around....maybe he'll pay more attention from now on.


Sorry for the long post, and I hope it wasn't too off-topic! It's been bothering me for a while and I just wanted to seewhat you guys think.....