I made a woman cry yesterday in a self-defense seminar yesterday..

I made a woman cry during self-defense work yesterday.  As a man who cares for women,   my initial reaction was to make it better and give her a hug but I know better.  I am a professional teacher and I work with at least a thousand women per year.  I give women opportunities to learn how to protect themselves, their kids and families.  More than anything, I think that I teach women that it is OK to have peace of mind.  After all, heart disease and stress kill people more than bad guys.

I admire women and I understand them.  I choose to spend my time developing skills that allow them to fight better with their hands, guns and in realistic scenarios.  My teaching mentor, Rob Pincus, stresses that all people learn better when they are comfortable.  We all need to be physically comfortable with the movements and intellectually comfortable with the concepts behind the material that is taught.  I think that women need to be comfortable with their teacher.

I like to say that women have perfect intuition.  It is suppressed by thoughts of “craziness” or written off as just “being paranoid” but you are usually right and you know it.  This is your primal survival response making you feel before you think.  Cognitive functions are much slower than intuition, if cognition is even possible.  The ability to recognize a threat early is a much better skill than knowing how to fight or shoot a gun.  Awareness helps but for women intuition is key.  Listen to yourself and give your ancestors credit.  If they didn’t take natural survival actions you wouldn’t be here to read this article. 

Most men instructors don’t talk about emotion when it comes to defending yourself but it is important.  All of your self-defense strategies must fit into your own set of morals, values and ethics.  You have to give yourself pre-permission to use self defense and this can be activated with a personal mission statement.  Here is mine:

“I walk around with a smile and I try to be happy but if someone crosses my path that wants to do me, my family or a person that I choose to protect harm; I will do whatever is necessary to keep us safe, based on my perception of danger.  Up to and including taking another person(s) life.  If it is the only option, I will exchange my life for my wife or children’s life.  If I have to fight, I will use every once of aggression, decisiveness and intelligence in my body to overwhelm my attacker(s). ” – Robb Hamic

This statement makes things simple for me.  It can make using self defense strategies easier for you too. Most women will gladly agree that they would sacrifice themselves for their kids but what would happen if you were killed?  Who would take care of your little ones?  Don’t forget that bad guys have a job just like you do and we cross paths with them daily.  Three percent of our society are sociopaths who have no empathy for other living things.   Six people out of one thousand are victims of a violent assault in the United States per year.  An alarming amount of women will be the victim of some sort of violence and many are raped. 

 What if I could show you some simple things to address your fears and protect yourself?  That is the very question that I asked my client yesterday.  Her fear was being pushed down.  I showed her a very efficient and fast tactic to deal with being physically pushed.  This was not an offensive move.  We tried it a few times and in a minute I was giving her a 100% guy push with total bad guy energy.  She stepped back, having braced herself, and wept.  It was a release.  She had obviously had some injury around this type of aggression.  She continued to look to me as if she was ready for more but her eyes were soft.  I asked her if anyone would ever push her down again and she said “no!”   I am confident in this fact.  Next she was blocking full contact haymaker punches from me with little effort.  Success.

We shared in the success and I can’t claim credit for giving her some secret ninja move that gave her a super power.  She had it in her all of the time and just needed a little refinement to her instinct.  I gave her an opportunity to learn.  I am profoundly grateful for the experience and her work.  Women have the potential to tap into their fears because they are more readily honest with themselves about their abilities.  My clients learn how to tap into their aggression to fight back.  I give tools to them that allow them to reach their goals with less time energy and effort.  It sounds simple because it is.  I travel around the world to learn and bring it to my students like a delivery person.  I am addicted to learning and teaching.

I made three women cry last week but now you can understand how I see this as success.

  ~Robb Hamic provides training locally in Austin, Albuququerque and surrounding areas.  He travels throughout the US monthly, delivering training to women individually and in seminars.  He trains internationally.  Law Enforcement, Military, Executive Protection and individuals are his specialties.  He trains people how to use their hands, guns and almost any weapon imaginable for defense.  Call for schedule and reach Robb personally- 512-284-0087 or robbhamic.com.