Women's self defense website...

[king of seals]

http://www.geocities.com/wsd4life@sb....net/pics.html

Actually a Gallery of Disaster.

[Equipoise]

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

[king of seals]

Knee the evil robot!

[bad credit]

Are these girls that go to this site gonna get together and have a lingerie sleepover? I got that feeling reading their site. That's cool, as long as they use Escrima patterns when they pillow fight.

Seriously though, if these gals want pics donated, they should search verious martial arts on search engines and then send e-mails asking to link to technique pics. There's plenty of BJJ grapplling stuff online, outlined move by move in pictures. My old Budo Taijutsu instructor taught rape defense courses, and he stressed it in class, too. He said grappling was key because the ground is where rapes happen. Also, the guard is the position they'll try to get you in anyways for the rape (well, for a woman, a man they'd try to get face down) so you should learn how to reverse and transition from it into locks.

[king of seals]

That, plus this says it all: http://www.geocities.com/wsd4life@sb.../pics/b2g4.jpg

I'd STFed it.

STF = Stepover Toehold Facelock != STFU.

[beka]

She responded to my email with that same note, plus the following:


"that is a very negative attitude to take.
this is a group project, we take submissions of information from
anyone willing to volunteer it. If it is so flawed in your oppinion,
submit material yourself! If you think you know more than us, SHARE.
we would be very grateful.

I appreciate your concern, but I think your misunderstanding the
current state of the page. This is not the finished site whatsoever,
it is a site about the project. it is a site to GATHER the
information.

None of the actual instruction is shown at all, just an example page
of what kind of pics we need. How can you have a problem with anything
we teach when none of it at all is posted yet?

below is an email i just finished writing that should shed some more
light on this: [the note above]"

I think the girl must be brain dead.

[saimoon]

I think what you are trying to do on your site is great, but there are
> a few inherent flaws that make it less effective in its purpose.
>
> The first being that you try to make it seem as if self-defense should
> be fun. Aerobics can be fun, but defending yourself on the street from
> a man with the intention of hurting you is nothing to be taken
> lightly. Another flaw that should be addressed is the fact that you
> advertise blows to the groin as fight-ending techniques. Though it may
> let you escape 30% of the time, it will definitely anger the
> aggressor, and teaching it as a fight ender is dangerous. The final
> flaw, possibly the most apparent, is the fact that you teach no method
> of training what-so-ever. When the only sub-text for a technique is
> something like "normally done when aggressor is hunched over" it is
> obvious that a re-addressing of your method is in order. A person
> absolutely will not be able to effectively defend them self should the
> need arise by looking at pictures on the Internet. Though it is fine
> to include examples, a training regimen should be included.

to which was replied:
Thanks for your concerns.
FYI, we have a TON of txt base info that is not up yet.

The current state of the site is basically a placeholder, the whole
thing will go live once someone donates the pics we need.

So actually what you are seeing is instructions on how to take the
photos we need, NOT instructions on self defense. That's why the
subtext seems so small.

All the instruction on how to train and perform the moves will be put
up once we have our own pics (the current pics are examples to show
photographers what we are looking for, we don't have the permissions
to use them on a permanent site)

From the info we curently have, the groin shot will not be taught as a
fight ender but one of many options. all the pitfalls will be
explained such as angering the aggressor, the fact that its a highly
anticipated move, etc..

Right now all we have is a few pages explaining our presentation,
atmosphere etc, the page explaining the photo submissions, and a page
explaining how to submit other info. more like a "heres how to submit
info for the page that will be up ONE DAY" not an actual "this is the
page"

Another small correction.

We won't be telling anyone that defending themselves in a life
threatening situation is "fun"

We will be demonstrating that LEARNING self defense can be fun.

Fun makes an excellent teaching tool, but we will not be
disillusioning anyone into thinking its "fun" when your life is on the
line.

Do you think we'd draw a bigger crowd if we taught the exact same
things in a distinctly UNfun way? (of course not)

Thanks for caring enough about the subject to voice your concerns tho.
Maybe we should make it more clear on the page that this is not a
self-defense-page, its rather a page-ABOUT-a-self-defense-page

The actual page that teaches it is yet to come.

[Random Guy]

Looking at that sight got me thinking, so I asked my girlfriend what she thought the most important things for woman's self defense were. She answered "shoes you can run in and mace".

[Hedgehogey]

That, plus this says it all: http://www.geocities.com/wsd4life@sb.../pics/b2g4.jpg

Is that Tim Allen?

[shadowcat]

They seem to put too much emphasis on having fun rather than serious self defense training. They assume two things.
1) nut shots are fatal
2) the man has no clue what he's doing

still, not the worse I've seen.

nut shots are fatal....my sentiments exactly.

[Rashomon]

What? Nobody is supposed to take her stuff as training advice? It sure *sounded* like she was giving advice, though.

[Mediocrates]

Has anyone attempted to enlighten her about her site yet?

I tried to reason with "her" privately on MySpace awhile ago (she spammed that site to many MA groups), but it became a huge public verbal brawl about the absurdity of the ideas presented.

Her main excuse (and there were many excuses) was that all of those pictures and descriptions were just examples/instructions....the goal being to get various women to recreate the moves depicted and send in photos of them doing so. Nobody is supposed to actually take them as training advice.

She also claimed to be a BJJ blue belt.

Rrrrrrrright.

[PirateJon]

There are some weird self-defense teachers at Harvard. Like, the guy who teaches the tai chi club...

Those poor girls.

[Wounded Ronin]

There are some weird self-defense teachers at Harvard. Like, the guy who teaches the tai chi club...

[sanguine]

My girlfriend and I were appalled to hear an acquaintance describe a "women's self defense" course she attended that advocated dropping to your back and attempting to kick the attacker.

I'll repeat that -- dropping onto your back, on the ground, and trying to kick at the attacker.

There's so much wrong with that, it almost sounds as if it was intentionally designed to get the women hurt or killed. What's worse is that she strongly believed in the advice from the "self defense" instructor, even though we tried to explain that we'd both trained for years, had actually been in fights, and could give solid reasons why dropping onto your back is a tremendously dangerous move.

Unfortunately, I can't give a name for the instructor (our acquaintance didn't recall), but it was a course she attended at Harvard sometime before 1999.