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SURVIVAL SPORT
Author: Adrienne Lee Bell
A 29-year-old woman was attacked while running along a beach in San Diego, California, when a naked 190-pound man unexpectedly jumped out from behind a bush.
The assailant managed to wrestle the female onto her back. After several seconds of struggling, the woman took a deep breath. Mistaking her subsequent exhalation for a sigh of surrender, the attacker briefly lifted his head away from her body. When he did, the woman planted her fist into his face. He immediately released the iron grip he had on her waist.
Recognizing that moment as a turning point in her struggle, the woman arched her hips upward and pushed the attacker away. By maneuvering the man’s body with her hip and leg strength, she was able to roll him off her and onto his back. She then sprang to her feet and fled from her worst nightmare.
The attacker did not think his victim would fight back, and that certainly worked to the woman’s advantage. But she had another ace up her sleeve, one which she still credits for her quick escape: Rorion Gracie’s RapeSafe program.
JUJUTSU IN AMERICA
Gracie is the Brazilian martial artist responsible for introducing his family’s brand of jujutsu in the United States.
In 1993 he helped create the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a mixed-martial arts event designed to test the practicality and durability of his art when pitted against more traditional systems. The bouts were conceived as realistic representations of a street fight, and they did not end until one contender knocked the other out or forced him to submit. Gracie entered his younger brother Royce, then 27, in the first few UFCs.
Royce’s adroit movement on the mat made him appear invincible. Tipping the scale at a meager 178 pounds, he defeated Dan Severn, a wrestler who outweighed him by 80 pounds. The victory proved to the awe-struck audience that size and strength did not guarantee victory on the ground. Gracie’s ground-fighting tactics rapidly garnered attention from sports fans and martial artists alike. Women in particular stood up and took notice— not only of the ground techniques but also of the art’s scientific upright selfdefense methods.
“After the first Ultimate Fighting Championship, I just had to learn a little of that [art],” says Meg Thayer, 41, a screenwriter and martial artist from Southern California. Thayer went straight to the source: the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Torrance, California.
There, Rorion Gracie advised her to enroll in RapeSafe, his eight-week selfdefense course based on the jujutsu tactics that worked so well in the UFC. Since he had recently reconfigured the family art into a methodic self-defense system specifically designed for women, Gracie said it would be an excellent way for Thayer to learn the fundamentals.
“[Because] Gracie jujutsu is a sport that relies on leverage rather than strength, it is also an effective self-defense system for women of small stature,” Rorion Gracie said. Thayer enrolled in RapeSafe and the men’s open jujutsu class. She claims the ground fighting she learned in Rape- Safe was comparable to the techniques taught in the men’s course. “It is very practical for women since they have very good lower-body strength,” she says.
The RapeSafe curriculum recreates 12 dangerous situations a woman might find herself in and teaches the most effective ways out. Six of those scenarios are standing, and six are horizontal, meaning the victim is lying on her back. Because of space limitations, only five of those defensive methods and techniques will be discussed in this article.
RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE
Controlling where your body goes is important in any fight. “If an attacker can pull me toward him and keep me off-balance, I am vulnerable,” Thayer says.
Consequently, it is no accident that the first lesson Gracie teaches is how to create a strong base. “If a woman doesn’t know how to stand properly, she makes it very easy for an attacker to drag her into a car, dark alley or building,” he says. The following are his tips for attaining stability on your feet:
• Stand with your knees slightly bent.
• Angle your feet so they are perpendicular to the front of the assailant’s body, and place them a little more than shoulder-width apart.
• If the attacker pushes you, lean in the direction of his force.
• As the intensity of the push increases, the intensity of your resistance must also increase.
“If you brace your legs and position your body [properly], the attacker will have one hell of a time getting you to go where he wants you to go,” Gracie says.
THE SLAP
Once you’ve mastered the base, you are ready for the RapeSafe slap technique.
Gracie elected to include it in his program because it’s simple and it makes sense. “Unless you know how to throw a proper punch, it is safer for you to hit with an open-hand slap than with a closed fist,” he says.
He reasons that the bones in your attacker’s head are much harder than those in your hand. Hence, whenever your clenched fist makes contact with his hard head, especially if you throw your punch in a less-than-perfect way, it is your hand that absorbs most of the punishment. Here’s how Gracie advises his students to execute the slap:
• Begin by adopting the base stance described above.
• Loosely dangle the arm you will use to slap the assailant.
• Slightly rotate your shoulders to launch the arm on its trajectory toward the target.
• Once the arm is fully extended and traveling at maximum speed, make contact with your hand. Your palm should collide with the attacker’s ear, thus causing a stinging sensation on the surface and a ringing sound inside.
Be forewarned that wearing thick gloves can severely reduce the effectiveness of the slap. That’s why it is seldom seen in mixed-martial arts events, where grappling gloves are now mandated.
However, Gracie teaches the slap for self-defense because women seldom walk the streets with padded gloves on their hands.
ESCAPING FROM A FRONT CHOKE
Because it is common for male attackers to choke their female victims, Gracie made certain RapeSafe contained surefire defenses against the basic stranglehold. The one described below is intended for situations in which the assailant stands in front of you and clasps his fingers around your throat:
• Start by clenching your teeth. Tightening your jaw causes your neck muscles to contract.
• Step away from the attacker and simultaneously bend forward at the waist.
• Forcibly turn your head to the side and maneuver it out of harm’s way by slipping it under the attacker’s arm.
If the environment or the attacker prevents you from escaping, you can break his grip by reaching behind your neck and peeling off one of the fingers of his choking hand. Then simply bend it backward to force him to his knees, where he can be stunned with a quick knee thrust to the face.
STRANGLED ON THE GROUND
For chokes that take place on the ground, RapeSafe offers a different but equally effective response. It begins with you lying on your back and your assailant sitting on your abdomen:
• Choose either of his arms and trap it with both hands. At the same time and on the same side of his body, place your heel on the outside of his foot.
• Arch your back and thrust your hips upward, causing him to pitch forward.
• Roll on your shoulder so you eject his body in the direction of his trapped arm and leg.
• After he lands on bottom and you rise to the top, scramble to your feet while you control his knees with your hands. Then make your escape.
A KNIFE ON THE GROUND
Because women often fall or get knocked down before they are attacked with a weapon, RapeSafe teaches an efficacious knife defense for times when you’re on your back and your attacker is kneeling near your feet:
• Immediately raise your hands in a defensive posture.
• As soon as the situation allows, grab the wrist of the assailant’s knife hand using your closest hand.
• Sit up and wrap your other arm over his shoulder, then lock that hand onto your other wrist.
• Lie back down and rotate your upper body to leverage his knife hand behind his back.
• After inducing a sufficient amount of pain using the shoulder lock, take away his immobilized knife. You can then use it to attack him or bargain for your escape.
MENTAL COMPONENT
The worst part of being attacked is feeling helpless because you don’t know what to do, Gracie says. Our society affords males many opportunities to learn about the options for offense and defense, but it isn’t quite so fair when it comes to females.
That’s why women need to enroll in a course that will provide them with a comprehensive overview of the types of dangerous situations in which they may find themselves, as well as a rundown of the best defenses for those situations. Gracie is quick to point out that once you have acquired even a basic measure of familiarity, your common sense and ability to relax under pressure will become your best tools for self-preservation. ...
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