By Rachel Belle

Listen to Women: Learn to Defend Yourself

I was walking home alone last night, through downtown Seattle around midnight, and I wondered if I’d be able to protect myself if I was attacked. I decided I probably could not. April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the self defense trainers at Krav Maga Eastside Training Center want women to use that as an excuse to learn to fight back.

“Krav Maga is the official hand-to-hand combat system of the Israeli army,” says trainer Chris Masaoka. “We teach them how to kick and punch. Someone could be trying to choke you or put a headlock on you. We want them to respond from a position of disadvantage because when someone comes and attacks you on the street, you’re not ready for it.”

Chris described his student, Cathy Contoni, as a ‘wet sock’ before she started learning self defense.

“When I was 18, I actually got beat up by two girls and it was really [terrifying] for me, I held that for many years,” Cathy says. “I just always seemed to feel intimidated if I went out, and it seemed like I’d get bullied, and that was probably because of the way I carried myself.”

But Cathy, with her long eye lashes and pink workout top, took to fighting right away.

“Right away, in the first class, I just totally felt like ‘Oh yeah, bring it man! I’m gonna kill someone!'”

Besides the basic self defense, Chris, and his brother Nick Masaoka, teach anti-rape seminars and give instructions on how to get a guy off of you.

“One of the hardest things we have to teach, when we’re teaching the anti-rape seminars, is just getting a woman to scream,” Nick says. “They go mute. That’s one of the first things we do is show them to just start yelling, and even that alone gets the blood pumping!”

Then, of course, there are the actual moves.

“We gotta go with either the face or the groin,” Nick explains. “You don’t have to kick nuts, you just have to flick nuts and that hurts. So even if it’s dark, even if you have heels on or maybe you’ve been drinking, you’re still gonna get through there somehow, and that’s what we’re gonna show you how to do.”

Kelly says that a lot of women let men take advantage of them, because they don’t know how to say no.

“I didn’t feel confident or secure in myself then to have the right to be mean to somebody. I realized I’m not being mean, I’m just being assertive and taking charge of myself. Women do not feel like they have the right to tell people to get out of their space. We have to be polite, we’re raised to be polite, and I still am sometimes but not as often.”

Click here to find out how to take a Krav Maga class with Chris and Nick.

Who is Rachel Belle?