SUS held a self-defence training class, called “Escape to Safety,” in the Student Union Building on Thursday, Oct. 26. Mike Kendall, the instructor, has a wide range of self-defence tactics under his belt. He is a student of, as well as an instructor for, Jim Wagner Reality-Based Personal Protection. Kendall has been involved in martial arts for 23 years. He is also a student of Gary Herman Clinch Tactical Fighting and an instructor of Jeet Kune Do Concepts and Filipino Kali. You know you’re in good hands for learning self-defence when your instructor has credentials like this.
Kendall made it clear that “Escape to Safety” is a class focused on self-defence; if someone was to assault you on the street, it has nothing to do with sports fighting tactics.
“You don’t bow to each other,” Kendall said. “It’s for when someone says, ‘Hey, I like your cell phone; where did you get [that] from?’ … and then takes it. It deals with pre-conflict, conflict, and the post-conflict.”
The pre-conflict addresses everything that happens before an assault takes place. It could be anything from how you are walking — with your head down or your head up — to dealing with the approach of an unknown person. Post-conflict deals with how things are dealt with after the assault. For example, if you were able to get away and call for help.
Kendall first instructed us to work on our stances — to always be prepared for anything that might come at you. We learned that if you’re right-handed your strong side is your right side and vice versa if you are left-handed. The side that needs protection is your strong side, so in our stance that we learned, we kept our strong side back with our weaker side stepped forward. Then we learned proper footing and movement. How to move side to side, backwards and forwards, to help protect yourself from an attack and how to get away quickly.
For a lot of students, taking a self-defence class is important. You never know what kind of situation you may find yourself in and having knowledge to keep yourself safe might come in handy.
During the class, we also learned how to hit someone properly in self-defence. For example, if an attacker was to come over to you and grab your wrist, we learned how to use our other hand to hit theirs away. We also learned to hit with the palms of our hands, our elbows, and how to kick.
Kendall also teaches a class called “Escape To Gain Safety” specifically for women. In our self-defence class, we learned that each letter in that title for the class stood for main target areas to hit: eyes, throat, groin, and shins.
Overall, the class was engaging. The fact that we actually got to practice the techniques was fun and useful. Kendall is knowledgeable and what he taught us will be beneficial if we are ever caught in a situation that will require self-defence.
