8-Session Workshop for Women

In this hand-on workshop, you will practice easy-to-learn and powerful physical skills: releases from grabs and chokes, strikes to critical targets, ground-fighting basics and using your voice with impact. More importantly, you'll learn the signs that tell you that you may need to use those skills. Most importantly, you'll also learn to recognize the signs that will let you defuse, de-escalate or evade before an assault ever happens. The eight sessions gives you time between classes to practice your moves to greater proficiency. This class is kept small to focus on developing each person's unique strengths. We will use Debbie Leung's book Self-Defense as a text (yes, there will be readings and homework!).

Next offered: TBD.

Tara, a young business owner, was excited about buying her first home. And then found out a bit more about the new neighborhood:

I’m originally from a small town in the Midwest.  I’ve been a Seattle resident for many years, but recently I moved to a new neighborhood.  My new place was quite different from my old neighborhood—more people closer together, more foot traffic, more drug activity and more vagrancy.  Like any urban resident, I’ve been panhandled a lot.  But in my new place, I was being approached for money while working in the yard, coming and going from my car, and even sometimes while in my house.  I began to feel very overwhelmed and uncertain.  Under these circumstances, could I even say no?  Would I or my property be harmed if I did?  I fell for several embarrassingly common ploys.  I learned a lot in my first months at the new house, but I didn’t want to learn everything the hard way, one lesson at a time, from direct experience.  Like a lot of women, I had never been in a fight or hit anyone.  Now I foresaw a time when I might need to physically defend myself, and I didn’t want my first attempt to be a life or death situation.
 
Taking Joanne Factor’s self-defense course was a big help for me.  Already I’ve used the skills of threat assessment, boundary awareness and assertiveness to feel safer and more confident in my neighborhood.  The knowledge I gained of common manipulations and ploys was immediately helpful, and shed light on my recent experiences.  Like a lot of women, I’ve been socialized to be nice, to be a helper, and to always give people the benefit of the doubt.  These are great qualities, but in the wrong context they can turn dangerous.  Joanne’s class helped me recognize how this timidity put me at risk with a potential predator, and how I could project the assertiveness to protect myself in this new environment.  The physical skills were easy, fun, and very empowering to learn.  My boyfriend is almost a foot taller and forty pounds heavier than me, and he agrees they’re quite effective and intimidating!  Learning to use my hands, elbows, feet, voice, eye contact, and every other weapon at my disposal has been a real revelation for me.  Of course, I hope I’ll never have to use the physical skills I learned with Joanne, but I can and I will if it becomes necessary. 
 
Joanne’s approach is smart, non-judgmental, and welcoming.  She’s very well-read and informed on security related issues, and her class includes many helpful handouts, visual aids and reading recommendations. There’s plenty of time for practice and individual questions, so the information becomes ingrained and reflexive.  I’ve taken short self-defense seminars in the past, and came away with very little helpful information.  Joanne’s course was much more comprehensive, detailed, and retainable.  The skills and information available here are well worth the cost. 

Six months after taking the program, I feel I am still benefiting from it. I think the six-week course really helped me incorporate the information into my everyday life. I feel better connected to my gut instinct, more self-aware, and more comfortable asserting myself. Ironically, as my tool kit has expanded, I seem to have less need to use it. I’ve learned to project confidence, so I’ve been targeted far less. I have the mental skills to understand a threatening interaction and take control quickly and simply—and if that doesn’t work, I know I have the physical skills to back it up. I highly recommend this course to any woman who wants the same empowering transformation in her life.

Holly's husband insisted she take this class, and afterwards she sent this email to all her friends:

Hello, friends! This is the first "group" Email I have ever sent out, so I am a little hesitant to mail to this many people at once.

However, I wanted to let my girlfriends (and their husbands) know about an exceptional self-defense class for women. I just completed it myself, and would highly recommend it to anyone of the female persuasion! I didn't want to do it, but at my husband's insistence, my sister and I signed up for the class. It is one of the very best things I have ever taken, and I'm so glad we did it!

Husbands, this would be a great gift for your wife or older daughters! I originally had a bit of a bad attitude about taking the class, but Matthew said that "I was his greatest treasure, and since he couldn't be with me to protect me every minute, he wanted me to have some skills to protect myself." He told me I ought to include the husbands in my Email, because they all felt the same way as he did about THEIR wives!

Again, I don't often send large Emails or recommend things to friends, but this was so good I just wanted to pass it along!

Come prepared to challenge yourself--emPOWERment doesn't get more fun.