Life-saving techniques are just the icing on the cake when it comes to the benefits of learning a martial art. Here are 5 reasons why you and everyone you love should be trained to defend themselves.
Protection From Violence and Murder
According to the World Health Organization, “Across their lifetime, 1 in 3 women, around 736 million, are subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence from a non-partner.”
What’s worse, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “47,000 women and girls were murdered by an intimate partner or family member in 2020”. If we add up the number of years those women would have otherwise likely lived, these murderers rob us of over 3 million years of female contribution each and every year.
Sadly, these numbers have remained mostly unchanged over the past decade.
We can go through life hoping violence doesn’t cross our paths, but the odds are against us. Self-defense equips us with the tools, knowledge, and willingness to protect our own lives. We can still go through life hoping violence doesn’t cross out paths, but if it does, we can rely on our own skills to keep us safe.
Self-Confidence
Low self-confidence causes feelings of distrust and uncertainty in one's own abilities and judgments. This distrust of self causes a person to be more passive, submissive, and less likely to stand up for themselves. Predators know this, which is why they choose targets who they believe are unlikely to fight back. Training in self-defense sends a message to ourselves that we are worth defending and instills a willingness to fight when it’s necessary. Whether it’s fighting to get healthy, fighting for better relationships with our loved ones, or fighting for our professional goals, learning to defend ourselves from larger, stronger opponents shows us that anything is possible.
Boundary Setting
Boundaries are the expectations set between two people. They are rules we set with those around us to express what we accept and reject as tolerated behavior. It helps to create clear guidelines for how we would like to be treated. Everyone has the ability to set boundaries, the problem is that most women won’t set boundaries that they don’t feel like they can back up. Whether it’s a stranger making us uncomfortable, dealing with a persistent person who won’t take “no” for an answer, or unacceptable behavior in the workplace, training in self-defense gives us tools we can rely on if someone chooses to ignore our boundaries. If predators are looking for a person unlikely to resist, then it’s easy to see how boundary setting is often our first line of defense.
Community Building
Self-defense classes foster connection amongst women in a safe and empowering place. Women form bonds with one another and cultivate a sense of camaraderie with a group. Skills and knowledge are passed from one to another as the group grows, creating a larger and larger community of empowered women. It is through these communities that these skills will reach all the darkest corners of the earth. The personal power breakthrough that happens in people is transformational, which is why it is often eagerly shared with others.
Healing
Many students seeking self-defense training have been affected by violence at some point in their lives. These acts of violence often leave the target feeling helpless and vulnerable. One way the body and mind can recover from the impact of these psychological traumas is by creating profoundly opposite experiences from that of the assault. Learning new skills to defend ourselves from dangerous situations can help us heal from our pasts and move forward with the sense of confidence and control that many of us feel has been taken away.
Aside from tangible self-protection skills, learning to defend ourselves positively impacts many other areas of life. After all, self-defense begins long before things get physical; self-defense begins with the idea that we are worth defending.
Comments