Awareness While Walking: A Success Story

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An often-asked question, or sometimes it’s not even phrased as a question, is about awareness while walking.  Students sometimes say, “I don’t feel I’m as aware as I think I could be, or should be,” and leave that dangling; is it a question, like asking for how to become more aware, or simply a statement of something they’d like to change?  Sometimes its parents complaining that their teens are too focused on their phones and not as cognizant of their surroundings as they could be.  Whichever, awareness is helpful.  Here’s one success story.

One of my students, probably about 7 or 8 years ago, was a high school junior.  She was in the six-week Self-Defense 101 class, along with several of her friends.  They were all attentive, and took their personal safety seriously as they were becoming more and more independent.  One late spring day she and another friend (who was not in this class) were walking down California Avenue in West Seattle, near the Junction.  For those not familiar with the area, it’s a commercial street with lots of restaurants, boutiques, and a wide variety of small businesses.  Generally a robust and busy street.  As they walked and chatted, a young male across the street got her attention.  She noticed that he seemed to be keeping pace with her, and each time she glanced over it appeared his head had just quickly swiveled forward.  Red flags, by her accounting.  Because if you’re walking in public and notice that the same person is in about the same location relative to you several times, they’re very likely following you. 

She decided to keep up her awareness while walking, as she and her friend chatted.  But when they got to the next Awareness while walking enhances both safety and your enjoyment of the momentintersection, he crossed the street; some streets are “all ways walk” when the pedestrian light goes green, so you can cross at a diagonal, which he did.  Now he was in front of them.

As they walked, my student noticed this young man began slowing down.  She and her friend were getting closer and closer.  When they were just maybe two yards behind, he just stopped.  Simple stopped walking.  My student and her friend did notice, and moved laterally to walk around him.  As they passed, the young man also moved laterally, literally bumping into them. He seemed to stumble.  

My student’s friend, who was the one who actually got bumped, turned to the man and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, are you OK?”  Apparently she wasn’t sure who did the bumping, even though this guy had to move sideways to bump into them.  The guy replied, speaking VERY slowly, “yeah, . . . I think  . . .  I’m . . .”  That’s as far as he got.  My student linked arms with her friend, made eye-to-face contact, and told the man, “we really need to be going,” and just walked off with her friend.  As they left she began telling her friend about her observations. 

Let’s just summarize the red flags she noticed:

  • He was in the same location, relative to them, several times,
  • seemed to quickly look away each time she glanced in his direction,
  • slowed down directly in front of them,
  • stopped directly in front of them,
  • moved sideways, right into them, as they tried to walk by,
  • seemed to stumble (my student thought it was faked), and
  • tried to keep them present by engaging in a slowed-down conversation.

Note this student could have dismissed any of these behaviors as insignificant, or decided she was over-reacting or even label herself as paranoid.  But instead she recognized the overall pattern, and trusted her gut feelings that her “awareness while walking” sense of red flags was real.  And that is success.

Stay safe, live life.

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More Self-Defense Successes for Women

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Here are a smattering of #selfdefensesuccess stories that have across my screen these last couple of weeks.

Important to remember: I’ll bet none of these women ever took a “self-defense” class (though at least one had military training).  The two most critical factors in successful self-defense are (1) the belief that it can be done, and (2) trying one tool after another until something works.

From Louisiana, a 72 year old woman routes armed attacker with nothing but her steely instincts and a fire extinguisher. Woman’s son later describes his mom as “a pretty strong old fart.” Yeah, that’s how I’d have described my mom too.  http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20131231/ARTICLES/131239885/1320?p=1&tc=pg#gsc.tab=0

Now going north to Ohio:  woman uses voice, attracts bystander attention. Bystanders call police. Police arrive in time to see the woman running out of the house, followed by man with knife. Man is subdued and arrested!  http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/police-man-attempted-to-rape-woman/ncZbw/

Some self-defense stories are more graphic than are others.  This one is graphic.  Let’s jump across the globe, to Bangladesh.  In this instance, a woman fights back against an acquaintance by cutting off his penis and bringing it to the police.  http://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/woman-cuts-penis-man-attempting-rape-her  The wanna-be rapist then claimed that he was the real victim, because they had been having an affair, he refused to leave his wife and children and move with her to another city.  So, he claims, she cut off his penis and is pressing rape charges to retaliate.  This attempt to deflect responsibility is a common tactic among rapists.

And now back to the glorious Puget Sound, the last one for today is from former student “E” who relates a self-defense success years earlier:

“When I was a young college student, I often passed through New York City to get from my parents’ home to my college in upstate New York. On one such visit, I was walking down a street and felt like I was being followed. I made the decision to act irrationally: singing to myself, walking with a twitch/jerking motions. I tried to act like a mentally unstable person. After a while, the man stopped following me, and I’m certain that if I hadn’t, I would have been attacked.”

Do you have a story to share?  Contact me!

Do you want to learn some of these skills that proved successful for others?  A plethora of six week Self-Defense 101 for Women courses are about to begin in the next week.  Visit the page and register today.

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Success Stories: Fighting Assault that Worked

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I’m going to be posting every week or two a smattering of stories ripped from the headlines.  They all will be on women or girls who were attacked and thwarted the evil-doer’s dastardly plans.  They all, preferably, will give some details on what the defender did that worked.

For this week, our first story is close to home (Seattle, that is).  A young woman bit her attacker’s hand, continued fighting, screamed for help, and ran for help.  This story was in The Seattle Times, and you can read it at http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2013/11/young-woman-fights-off-attacker-in-south-seattle/http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2013/11/young-woman-fights-off-attacker-in-south-seattle/.

For our second story, we travel to our neighbors north, to Canada.  In separate incidents on the same night, one guy attacked at least two women.  Each woman did the same thing, according to the new story:  screamed and fought him off until he fled.  This one was apprehended by the police.  You can read the Edmonton Sun article at http://www.edmontonsun.com/2013/11/27/two-19-year-old-women-fight-off-attacker-man-arrestedhttp://www.edmontonsun.com/2013/11/27/two-19-year-old-women-fight-off-attacker-man-arrested.

Our third story is from the other side of the Atlantic.  A man attacked a young woman after she dropped her child off at school.  This woman fought, kicking her attacker in the groin.  And he fled.  You can read the story in the Manchester Evening News at http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/pictured-sex-attacker-fought-woman-6350863.

And our final story is from our nation’s capitol.  A woman attacked while taking out her trash fights of attacker (good job on getting rid of the trash).  You can read this brief story on the WTOP site at http://www.wtop.com/58/3515082/Capitol-Heights-woman-fights-off-attacker

If you come across any self-defense success stories, or have stories of your own you want to share, please contact me.

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