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Lindy, can you briefly describe what you teach at Vigilant Self- Protection Systems?
My husband and I established Vigilant Self-Protection Systems in 2003, as a company dedicated to providing opportunities to further the understanding and practice of personal safety, self-protection strategies and functional skills in a range of contexts. Our mission/vision is to enhance the safety of people in the wider community and raise awareness. We aim to teach only what is useful in a real situation (less is more). We are based on the Bellarine Peninsula, however, we travel around Victoria and interstate as required.
We presently deliver in a seminar/workshop format tailored to the specific requirements of the group or individual. We are currently developing an ongoing empowerment program to address the problems of kids who have suffered long-term physical and mental abuse within schools or other institutionalised environments, as well as numerous other programs for a range of client groups.
What's your personal opinion on the validity of the ‘self-defence' programs being offered at the majority of martial arts schools, which tend to be ‘traditional' or sport-focused?
I have very strong doubts about their validity. I believe that the majority of traditional martial arts school owners who offer self-defence would not be able to justify their curriculum in terms of techniques that actually work while under stress.
Self-protection needs to be taught within a context; teaching students how to deal with street confrontations requires research and must be done properly. Skills taught for point-sparring, for example, within the dojo are not the same as preparing someone for a potentially violent encounter in the street.
I have a concern with martial arts schools that openly claim the top two benefits of their traditional training are ‘self-defence' and ‘self-confidence'. If they haven't addressed elements of self-protection such as awareness and avoidance, predator-prey interaction, pre-assault indicators, fear management and so on, they are not doing it justice and are, in fact, creating a sense of false confidence, which can be very dangerous. To quote Tony Blauer, "The foundation of a student's confidence lies in their ability to deal with a real-life situation."
Anyone who is actually informed on the subject of personal protection would know that it has been proven that fine motor skills rapidly deteriorate when under stress (such as a street attack) and that much of what is taught in the dojo requires a partner to be compliant and often static. This renders it utterly useless in a real situation, where your attacker is anything but still and compliant.
Instructors need to communicate this difference clearly and consistently to those they are training. Students need to be clear when they are learning functional techniques and when they are learning ‘art'. If this isn't made clear, students can dangerously believe what they have learnt is always functional, when this is clearly incorrect. Teaching an art form and preparing people for the street are two different things.
Without completely changing their style or method, what do you think the average school needs to add or change in order to make their training valuable for real self-protection?
The only way I can answer this honestly is to say that they really do need to make quite a few changes. The problem will not go away if school owners pay lip-service to self-protection. Martial arts schools can obviously still run traditional or sports-oriented programs but when they teach self-protection, they need to do it with integrity. Stripped down to basics, teaching self-protection is about communicating the awareness/psychological component, as well as training the appropriate physical responses that effectively address the reality of a violent attack. This means teaching gross motor skills that take into account what the body wants to do naturally under stress and the physiological effects of imminent danger. This is quite different to what is taught and trained in the average dojo.
Martial arts schools need to take an honest look at their advertising and curriculum and ensure that there is a true correlation between the two. I don't think because you are a martial artist you are qualified to teach self-protection. What you teach should be based on your skills, training and knowledge. You would not coach tennis if you have a football background, for example. If you don't have self-protection training, knowledge or background, what makes you think you can teach or advertise it? Misinformation and improper training can cost people their lives. Clients looking for self-protection should be referred to a specialist. Another consideration that instructors would need to address if teaching self-protection is to understand the legal ramifications of protecting yourself in order to survive a violent altercation. That is, that you need to be able to articulate in a court of law why you took the action that you did in order to deal with the situation.
Reality-based training tends to focus on eliciting an adrenaline dump during training, via scenarios with simulated aggression, physical contact and fatigue, etc. Such training is viewed as the only real way to accustom people to the emotions and adrenal response that would be experienced on the street - but is it realistic to think that the average woman, who's not sporty or inclined to seek physical challenges, won't be put off by this?
This kind of training is the ultimate in testing yourself in a controlled environment. Experiencing the effect adrenaline has on your ability to move, strike, see and hear is extremely valuable.
Yes, I agree that realistically many women will not seek out this kind of training, especially if they do not perceive themselves to be competent physically. However, this is only part of the training and is the secondary part. As an instructor, I would aim to help students with this kind of training by gradually increasing their skill capability, which would in turn develop self-confidence. With gradual ‘stress inoculation' through specifically designed graduated training, women will be better prepared to experience more intense scenario training. There is a range of training techniques available that gradually put students under pressure to respond, to find the targets quickly, to reorientate and to quickly scan and move away. The intensity of this kind of exercise can be controlled by the facilitator and clearly give students an insight into how they might react in a real situation. These can be extremely valuable learning tools. It is also interesting to note that people without any skills have been successful in surviving violent attacks through sheer will.
What is the solution to making women safer, then, if most won't undertake such confronting training?
A great deal can be done to avoid and survive a physical confrontation without adrenal-stress training, which is always taught with all the other essential elements of good, basic self-protection instruction. These include awareness and avoidance, fear management, positive mindset, psychology, trusting and listening to your instincts, and intuition. I strongly believe that if students learn these well, they greatly minimise their risk of being involved in a confrontation. Empowerment can come from knowing what a predator is looking for and by [the student] having confidence in their ability to make themselves a ‘hard target', because they have practised it and understand it. Essential elements include the development of assertive body language to create a strong physical presence, heightened awareness including use of peripheral vision, learning how to set boundaries, using hands and voice, and to run/escape if possible... And if not, choose the time to explode and incapacitate the attacker sufficiently to make an escape. All students can rehearse awareness and avoidance every day and just get better at it. It is commonly accepted that awareness is 90 per cent of the battle.
So, do you see it as a moral issue, then, when schools advertise self-defence but address none or few of these factors in their classes?
I do see it as a moral issue and it concerns me greatly. Some schools, unwittingly or not, are potentially exploiting people at their most vulnerable, at a time when they are proactively seeking help. I see it as immoral for anyone in the martial arts community to take advantage of someone, who perhaps due to a violent encounter, may have taken six months to summon the courage to enter the school/club.
The very least schools can do for new students is to treat them with honesty and integrity. There is a responsibility to clarify exactly what will be taught and how. As stated previously, if self-protection is not part of the curriculum, the potential student needs to know - don't teach them outdated, unrealistic techniques and call it self-protection. I have witnessed women, who have been victimised, openly experience a physical and emotional release through training. Experiences like this are a reminder that we are dealing with the whole person; spirit, mind and body. We should never treat them lightly.
At present there is a lot of focus in the media on violence occurring in the community, whether it be edged-weapon attacks, home invasions, alcohol- fuelled violence or sexual assaults. There is a lot of fear. People are coming to martial arts schools wanting to learn how to defend themselves. It is negligent if instructors are not honest about their ability to offer and deliver a viable self-protection program - ignorance never was and never will be a valid excuse.
Those who specialise in teaching functional self-protection skills need to speak louder and become more visible.
What drives your passion for this line of work? Was there a personal experience that spurred you to get involved in learning and teaching self-protection skills?
My passion comes not from a negative personal experience but from two simple facts: firstly, being female, and secondly, my discovery that traditional training did not lead me to feel confident about protecting myself. In fact, the more I studied and trained, the less relevant and less realistic everything became. It seemed to become more about collecting techniques with countless variations that didn't have any useful application. Ancient weapons can be beautiful to work with, but they did not fulfil a purpose in my life of working, raising and protecting a family.
Through research and training in combatives, I discovered self-protection concepts such as pre-fight awareness, pre-emptive strike theories and the need for a strong mindset. I trained with people such as Mick Nicholls, and after studying Tony Blauer's approach for a long time, trained with him last year. I have also been very much influenced by Kelly McCann, Geoff Thompson and Melissa Soalt. They have all proven there is a way to train effectively in a short amount of time and they have a commonality in their approach, such as minimal techniques and a focus on awareness and avoidance. They fine-tune and adapt their curriculum to a changing world and contextualise the training based on the needs of the students. Their work is alive and dynamic, continually improving - quite the opposite to traditional training. In Bruce Lee's words, when he questioned the masters who claimed that the ‘martial arts were life itself', his response was: "Life is constant movement; life is a constant change and not stagnation."
In relation to training women, unfortunately, there is still an acceptance in our contemporary culture of the ‘helpless female', who requires protection from someone else, typically a male. Sometimes it is these very same males (a date, a partner, an uncle) who are the ones that women need to protect themselves from. Clearly women need to learn to ‘do it for themselves'. I'm also motivated and appalled by the fact that in 2011 there is still a huge global problem of gender-based violence, as well as many cultures in which women are treated as second-class citizens. In Geoff Thompson's words, it's important to think global but act local. This is what we (Vigilant) aim to be doing for as long as we can: training people to be as capable and as ready as anyone can be in a potentially violent situation; it is our way of contributing to the balance.
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