By Alia Smith

with Alan Lipton

Pretty Brainy Offers Self-Defense for Teen Girls and Women

This post is the second of a two-part series introducing Essentials Self-Defense. Find out why a STEM nonprofit is taking on self-defense here!

Pretty Brainy is offering the Essentials course in partnership with Model Mugging, a nationally established women’s self-defense program. Model Mugging has spent more than forty five years developing its training by analyzing thousands of crimes, completing comprehensive literature reviews, and interviewing predators and survivors to determine the what, how, and why of effective crime prevention.

Register Now: Self-Defense for Teen Girls and Women Age 16+

Model Mugging believes that being prepared often reduces the chance of ever having to use the skills learned in self-defense training. The course is built on the foundation of avoiding and de-escalating conflicts and being prepared to fight if a situation calls for it. 

This course focuses on the outcome of building inner resources that participants can draw on for the rest of their lives, including:

  • Verbal self-defense
    • How to say “No” confidently and effectively
    • How to set boundaries that others will respect
  • How to de-escalate conflict
  • How to activate the fighting spirit needed for self-protection
  • How to identify predators’ ploys and tactics
  • How to fight when you need to fight
  • How to stop bullying

Our goal is that girls and  women will emerge from Essentials training with increased confidence, personal safety skills, and the know-how to protect your most valuable asset – your own smart, beautiful self.A woman using an angle grinder. This image highlights the kinds of fields in which women are capable of working, where self-defense for teen girls and women may be needed.

Essentials: Self-Defense for Women and Teens Age 16+

The Essentials course for women and teen girls age 16 and older requires two full days of class time. This course addresses and prepares girls and women to handle sexual assault scenarios. Given the significance and weight of these topics, more time for education and discussion is required. There is more involved with this material than simple martial arts skills, as the mind, body, and emotions must be developed simultaneously. If a student is a survivor of molestation, incest, sexual battery, rape, or other violence, we encourage the family or individual to consult with a psychologist when making the decision for enrollment.

The self-defense techniques in this course are no-nonsense fighting skills geared for real-world street violence. Developing in-class fighting experience provides the foundational confidence to be proactive with safety and not wait for a bad situation to become worse. However, Model Mugging has found that graduates of this program rarely have to use their physical skills. Most often their increased awareness and assertiveness skills carry over to stronger boundaries and reduce the risk of sexual assault.

Day One

By combining martial science and extensive research of many disciplines into this comprehensive self-defense course, Model Mugging has been able to reduce the training time needed to learn new skills while still improving the personal performance and proficiency required for a real-life assault. A major component of this is reducing the psychological inhibitions related to striking with full force.

We’ll cover the Five Principles of Women’s Self Defense:

  1. Understanding crime as an emotional and physical problem
  2. Options in women’s self-defense
  3. Proper preparation in self-defense training
  4. Recognizing that mind, body, and spirit are one
  5. Awareness in self-defense training

By providing realistic self-defense experiences, we help students develop their fighting spirit, assess realistic strategies, and choose appropriate options for deterring and countering criminal behavioral patterns. While practicing verbal de-escalation and negotiation, boundary setting, and physical self-defense skills, students learn to develop assertiveness under stressful conditions. Skills are practiced in high-stress and fast-paced environments to lock the skills into muscle memory.

Material covered on Day One:

  • Foundation needed for full-force fighting
  • Mindset for fighting back
  • Crime prevention pyramid
  • How crime is an emotional and physical problem
  • Criminal mindset
  • Origins of predator motivations
  • Boundary setting and conflict de-escalation
  • Full-force scenarios against padded assailant

Day TwoThree women in the field– one carrying a butterfly net, and another carrying test tubes.

During the second day, we focus on the dynamics of sex crimes and the motivation behind predators’ behavioral patterns. Students learn that when boundary setting and conflict resolution are ineffective, Adrenaline Stress Training will come into play. Students participate in a series of realistic full-force scenarios, built on their acquired knowledge about predator typologies, as they assess our padded assailant’s weaknesses and strengths and maximize their personal advantages as needed. Viable options during an attack can and should include leveraging intense emotions, such as fear. With natural and automatic expressions of mind, body, and emotion, students develop the ability to choose the most effective self-defense response during potentially violent real-life situations. Graduates from this program will possess a set of reflexes for carrying their new self-confidence to other aspects of life.

Material covered on Day Two:

  • Dynamics of sex crimes
  • Four phases of assault
  • Rapist typologies
  • Drug-facilitated sexual assaults
  • Options for women
  • Options when facing assailants who may be acquaintances and strangers
  • Legalities of self-defense
  • Full-force scenarios against padded assailant while lying down
  • Physical skills if boundary setting and conflict de-escalation aren’t effective
  • Full-force scenarios against padded assailant 

Empowering Girls and Young Women to Take Charge of Their Safety

Pretty Brainy is partnering with Model Mugging because these skills are vital for girls and women learning and working in STEM fields. In our pursuit to prepare girls to be the thinkers and leaders of tomorrow, the ability to defend themselves is critical. Our mission through this program is to provide girls and women with:

  • Psychological preparation to reduce inhibitions and increase preparedness
  • Successful options to resolve fears about street crime attacks
  • Successful options to resolve fears about crime committed within relationships
  • Empowerment through embedding effective, free-flow fighting skills in long-term muscle memory.
  • The ability to leverage options not previously known
  • A safe way to learn what it feels like to hit and kick an attacker full-force
  • The skills, confidence, and practical experience of full-force training against a single, unarmed attacker
  • The ability to channel fear into strength
  • The ability to transform fear into a powerful life tool

 

Author Bio

Alia Smith on her graduation day, holding her diploma from Colorado State University

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alia Smith is the programming associate for Pretty Brainy. She recently graduated from Colorado State University with a master’s degree in Ecosystem Science and Sustainability. For her thesis, Alia studied the use of citizen/community science to study pollinator decline in National Parks. She is passionate about science communication and connecting people with science.