The Mind-body Connection in Self-defense Training for Women

What do you think of when the term “self-defense" is used? Most commonly, a woman associates self-defense with protecting oneself against violence by becoming more aware of one’s surroundings and learning to strike an attacker to get away. Because of the serious nature of self-defense, self-defense is not an activity that a woman would necessarily seek out to improve one’s health and fitness on a long-term basis or use as a stress-reliever. Instead, it is an activity that a woman commits to on a short-term basis such as a 2 to 4 - hour seminar or limited weekly sessions. In contrast, women may join yoga and pilates on a long-term basis. Both activities improve one’s core strength and flexibility and make women feel good about the positive changes in their bodies. Consider this – a self-defense system which increases a woman’s confidence to deal with “what comes at you” by incorporating core strength, flexibility, speed, and a strong body structure. This is done by training one’s reflexes through ReVat training It is a novel self-defense system which has its fundamentals from wing tsun kung-fu, and this system teaches a woman to learn how to use reflexes efficiently and successfully.

Research has shown that learning self-defense skills not only increases a woman’s ability to defend herself but also raises her confidence and self-esteem immediately after classes. In addition, effective self-defense training, similar to yoga and pilates, provides a woman with greater awareness of her body. She learns to utilize her core strength in creating power. She learns how to maintain balance as she coordinates her footwork while using her arms, elbows, and fists to defend and attack to disable her attacker.

In Wikipedia, a reflex is defined as “an involuntary and almost instant movement in response to stimulus.” Acquiring muscle memory for a reflex requires repetition of a motion over and over again until the body automatically responds in a certain way. Key to learning self-defense is the ability to act instinctively and to react immediately. In any situation, the time to react in an attack is less than two seconds. During those two seconds, the woman may freeze which wastes valuable time in getting away or she can defend and launch her own counterattack. To do this, the woman has to mentally commit to defending herself. A woman can learn many techniques but if the commitment is not there, the fight is already lost. Next the woman needs to have the physical training to get her reflexes responsive. However, what does it take to train one’s reflexes? How does training one’s reflexes benefit the woman in an attack situation? Below is one example of what we teach in our ReVat training to integrate the mind and body.

For women who have never participated in any self-defense training, there is usually a hesitation initially to punch an individual. One of the reasons is that women have been raised traditionally to be polite. To achieve the goal of teaching women to punch effectively and reduce their fear in punching, we use first use form training to show the proper positioning and structure of a punch as well as other arm movements. Form training in the beginning stages requires no movement of the legs so that the woman can concentrate on how to maximize a punch by learning proper placement of her arms in relationship to her body. The fist is in a vertical position as this position follows the natural line of the arm. Therefore, energy efficiently goes straight from the body through the arm through the fist and into the attacker.

Next we introduce the concept of chain punching. In chain punching, the fists are in a vertical position and the power of the punches come from the elbows. The right punch goes over the left wrist followed by the left punch over the right fist, and so on in rapid fashion. Therefore, every punch is immediately followed by another punch without hesitation. The person faces the opponent and each punch hits the opponent with equal force. We encourage women to practice this form of punching in the air to better understand the mechanics. With practice over time, women find that their bicep muscles become more toned and they become faster and bolder in getting effective punches out. Chain punching exercises are also integrated in other regular exercise routines as well, such as punching while doing squats or punching while doing sit-ups.

Finally, another component in the training of punches is that the women work with other male and female partners in various punching drills. These exercises teach women how to feel and understand different energies and speeds that come from different people of different heights and weights. These exercises are effective in reducing one’s reaction time to punches coming from another person. Thus, over time, the skill of punching becomes second nature to a woman and more importantly, is a skill that can be applied instantly, reflexively, and with assurance.

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