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Anikka'S JOURNAL February 2006 The statistic is startling. One out of every four women and one out of every five men will be sexually assaulted (completed or attempted) in their lifetime. And it is said that these statistics are underreported. Even if you are lucky enough to not be assaulted, chances are high that one or more people close to you will be. One of my close friends was raped by a guy at knifepoint after they had been on a date. Another friend was walking down the street and was grabbed by a random guy and raped. No matter how tall, short, fat, thin, old, young, beautiful, or ugly any of us think we are, nobody is immune to being the intended target of an attacker. It was my roommate Angela who convinced me to take the Full Power class. Full Power is a non-profit company that has branches all over the world, including one in Colorado Springs. Each semester CC pays for instructors to come to campus to conduct a free class in physical and verbal self-defense to the first 14 students, faculty, or staff members who sign up. While its primary focus is on the needs of women and children, its goal is to give everyone access to verbal, emotional, and physical confidence to stop abuse and assault. Everyone had always told Angela how amazing and empowering it was, but she had never really had the time to take the class. Since it is second semester of senior year, she knew that if she was ever going to do it, it had to be now. And because she didn’t really want to do it alone, and I figured that I had a thing or two to learn, I agreed to give up the majority of my Saturday to attend as well. When the day of the class actually approached, I wasn’t too eager to get out of bed by 10:30 to be shut in a room for hours, away from my computer. There were the lines – all in Spanish – from five plays that were assigned Friday and had to be memorized by Monday morning for the current block, not to mention the 30-page paper that I’d been putting off for weeks. But during introductions, when one woman mentioned that she had once learned to protect herself by ripping off a man’s scrotum, I knew I was in for an interesting day. The next five-and-a-half hours were spent talking about, demonstrating, and practicing defensive strategies in multiple scenarios. And the practicing wasn’t just pretending to kick, knee, or poke someone; it was full-force attack on a local sheriff who volunteers week after week to be beaten up by a bunch of amateurs. Granted, he was wearing a 60-pound padded suit. Otherwise there would be no way he could sustain one full-force kick to the groin, let alone multiple ones from the 14 females in the group. We learned what to do if someone is approaching you and you feel uncomfortable (assume the defensive stance with dominant foot back and hands ready to act, and tell him over and over, in a loud voice, to go away), what to do if he attacks you from the front (jab to each of the eyes, palm thrust to the chin or nose, knee to the groin, and then a kick to the groin), or what to do if you are suddenly grabbed from behind (drop your hips, backwards karate chop to the groin, elbow jab to the stomach, upwards elbow jab to the face). I never thought I’d be encouraged or praised so much by a guy who I just kicked or punched multiple times in the groin. The most empowering thing about the entire day was that I realized that there was a way out of every threatening situation, even one involving a weapon. Trained police officers miss what they are aiming for eight out of 10 times, so the chances are very small that the gun your assailant is holding could actually hit you, and smaller still that it could fatally wound you. And while a knife may seem threatening, it is only threatening close up, and there are ways to protect the most vulnerable parts of the body – thereby protecting your life – if you resign yourself to getting a small cut somewhere else. Even if there is a man on top of you, about to rape you, just a simple planting of the foot and a rotation of the hips will throw him off of you, no matter how much he weighs, possibly buying you time to get away or immobilize him in another way – perhaps with another well-placed kick to the groin. I came out of the class at the end of the day with the self assurance that I could deal with just about any situation that came my way, physically threatening or not, because there was a way for me to always be in control. But will I go down a dark alley in the middle of the night to test out the new skills? Definitely not.
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