Child Self-Protection Course Begins (diary entry)

09.10.17   Tonight I began a special personal training course based on “When Parents Aren’t Around” Self-Protection training for young people. My two clients were children at primary school. We aim to run a 10 hour course on self-protection and then look at other martial arts for cross-training, in an adapted form of what I advise for beginner adult martial artists.   Tonight we focused primarily on specific games to teach awareness, evasion and escape, building up to protecting personal space. Throughout the lesson we discussed the following important soft skills:  

• Exit points in case of a crisis

• Raising the alarm when in danger

• The likelihood that an attacker will be someone you know

• The difference between legitimate threats and annoyance

• The difference between unawareness, awareness and paranoia

  We began with a game of tag/tig (“it”) and then did an improvised obstacle course. The former encourages escape tactics and the latter is a great way to teach children how to use their size to their advantage as well as develop other useful survival skills. We then did a cornering exercise, used to promote better footwork and more evasion work. Next we began a Predator vs Prey exercise, which involves one student trying to get hold of the other for five seconds and using strikes to escape.   We then looked at defending personal space. This began with a simple reaction test that proves blocking is not a realistic option at the interview stage of an attack. From here we began discussing using a pre-emptive strike and where it is justified. This final part of the lesson dove-tales into the fence-work that we focus on next lesson.   Photography by Charolotte Von Bulow Quirk 2013.   Anti-Abduction Game at I seminar I taught in Denmark in 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxEN1u0LxWM&list=UUnk9R9rDgVJPtHLT9CzdFsA&index=9