Recently, at a Pramek seminar
Recently, at a Pramek seminar

A friend of mine recently began studying a great martial art, and he wanted to show me some of the techniques he had been training on.  We had been checking out Combative Striking and he had to show me his new style.

After working out for a while (and being someone else’s tackling dummy) he was quite proud of his new found hobby.  We sat on the floor of his basement and I asked him…

‘Have you shown your wife?  Can she do this?’

He looked at me, confounded, and said, ‘Why would I show her?  She’s got me, the dog, a handgun, rifle.’

I asked had he shown it to his sister, his mom, his 10 year old daughter.

Eventually he ran out of weapons, bodyguards, extreme scenarios that I am pretty sure turned his dad into Delta Force, and he said, ‘You know, I don’t even know if _wife’s name_ could do this against a robber.’

Bingo.

In Nordic and Germanic history and mythology, shieldmaidens were women who chose the fight as warriors.  Sometimes because they wished to, other times because they were forced, they took up arms to defend themselves, their homes, their families.  It was not uncommon at that time, and still today is not uncommon for women to come up learning to use weapons and fight in many cultures.

But, unfortunately, I used ‘not uncommon’ as opposed to very common.  We simply are forgetting to teach what is real to those who need it most.

While we all wish the women in our lives were shieldmaidens, we quite often forget that is becomes necessary for any variety of reasons for a woman to learn to defend herself.  When this realization happens, we also forget something else that is very important – they are women.  While a weapon may be an ultimate equalizer, combined with determination and spirit, it is not always that a woman will have a weapon with her.

A woman has to learn to fight to escape and win.  Not survive – the lasting of psychological damage of a brutal rape is not an ideal state of survival.

I am not going to regal the principles of physics and how they are an equalizer, nor will I talk about how one style is worse than another (though the whole swing the purse thing is a bit ridiculous).

I am going to ask you to do something you may have never done – teach the women in your life a skill from your martial art, and then test it and see if they can pull it off.

When you take responsibility for your own life by learning martial art or how to defend yourself, you gain knowledge that is vital to those around you, especially of the female persuasion.  If you are teaching your wife how to defend herself with something she can not pull off on you when you are play-fighting – you need to rethink what you are teaching her.  Pick up Combative Striking, perhaps, and learn some basics.

Take some time, find something that she can use, get proficient with her at it, then go back to your own personal hobby of martial art.  It’s not that tough…eyes-nose-throat-groin is pretty simply and effective.

For a martial art to transfer between generations, like most knowledge, it must benefit it’s user through victory or success.  That which does not is left behind.  I encourage you to see if your martial art can overcome the generational transfer challenge…if it can’t, find something to protect you and your loved one’s first, a hobby second.

Be safe…oh, btw, new videos coming soon, so be on the look out.

Matt

Quick Shop