Self Defense for the Masses

Los Angeles Times Headline on May 4, 2010: “Knife-wielding woman stabs 4 in West Hollywood Target store”. Can you just imagine? Walking through your local grocery or convenience store to come face to face with a crazed person with a knife? This could never happen to you, right? Think again.

Crime statistics are staggering, even though reports say the violent crimes are on the decline. Even so, there are ample reasons why any person of any age could and should learn self defense. Self defense comes in many forms and styles today. In fact, there is some debate on what really makes up true self defense and what doesn’t. For all intents and purposes, self defense is anything you can do in an instant to protect yourself or your children from harm.

Learning self defense is not difficult, so there is no reason for you not to do it. Clearly the time is now. Stories like the one mentioned at the beginning of this article are not few and far between; they are becoming more and more prevalent. The woman in this story clearly had some psychological issues causing her to behave in such a way, making the instance an extreme one.

While your chances of meeting a knife-wielding person in some random act of violence may be somewhat low; your chances of being targeted for a crime; whether at home or in public, are great enough to warrant your attention. Even if you are not yourself the target, countless people are caught in the middle of violence between others just because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

To stack the odds in your favor, learning self defense should be a must on your list of things to do. When you take steps in other parts of your life to take care of yourself, this should fit right into the other things you do. You eat well to protect your health and live longer. You exercise to lose weight and live longer; you should learn to defend yourself in case of violence in order to live longer as well.

Now just some tips on learning self defense. There are tons of programs available and they are not all created equal. Even though self defense is available for the masses doesn’t mean that one class is as good as the next. There are aspects of crime that need to be understood; and laws that also need to be understood. The worst thing a person can do is learn some form of martial art, for example, and go out into their neighborhood using their newly acquired skills to pummel people who may not deserve it. Even when you act in self defense, there are parameters that regulate how far you can go to do so.

Because of the extremes of violence, and all that goes into learning self defense properly, care should be taken to find the right program. Single classes do not fit the bill because once you go home; you slip right back into forgetting that violent crimes occur at all. Self defense can be learned in a class that meets regularly, or right at home with a dvd. As long as the program is comprehensive and teaches the right movements, you’ll be set for life.