- [Voiceover] Slightly widen up your feet,
bend your knees, and close your center.
From here, fighting stance.
Step back, steady, go!
- [Girls] Back off!
(upbeat music)
- Being a woman is awesome.
- But sometimes, life can be scary.
- So we're gonna learn to kick...
- Some ass!
- It's lady like...
- And we're taking a self-defense class.
- My mom has taught me to be very hyper aware.
So, even if you're like this tiny little baby
pomeranian coming towards me,
I don't trust you.
- I'm not the type of person that really gets
really afraid at night walking.
- I try to play it safe,
I don't listen to music at night,
or at least I always walk along busy streets,
but I definitely do still go out in the evenings,
because I'm a person living in the world.
- I've lived in cities my whole life
so I definitely do have, kind of, a walking face.
But, I wouldn't say that I know how to defend myself.
- The thing I know about self-defense,
that you want to hit someone in the nose,
or in the balls, or in the eyes.
- Before I went to college, my dad
made me take Krav Maga.
I hated having to learn how to fight people
but I understood why he was making me take it.
(upbeat music)
- My name is Nelson.
I started out this work about 12 years ago
and a friend of my co-worker was attacked in Costa Mesa.
So after that incident, I did a lot of research
on the internet.
And when I found out that every two minutes,
a woman is sexually assaulted in this country alone,
I started putting together self-defense training
specific for women against sexual assault.
So, first thing you need to learn it's your weapon.
What are your natural weapon?
When I come up to you like that,
what do you use?
- Your hands.
- Your hands. - [Nelson] Your hands.
All right, what else?
- Nails.
- Your nails, absolutely. - [Girls] Elbows.
- Elbows are very powerful.
What else?
- [Girl] Feet. - Feet, yes.
But before we use any of this,
there's one weapon we always use first.
- Fucking scream!
- Scream. (everyone laughs)
Okay, yell it out from your abdomen,
to your mouth, to your opponent.
It's an actual weapon you throw out.
Back off! (girls laugh)
Ready? One, two, go!
- [Girls] Back off!
- Nice.
Okay, you guys ready?
- [Girls] Yes.
- All right, let's get up.
Extend your arm, two arm's length.
This is your safety zone.
Outside of here, I have to step
to grab her.
You just slightly widen up your feet.
Bend your knees, close your center.
So from here, any impact,
any force you feel, from forward,
you just step back and sink.
From here, boom!
Now, if I rush in, I want you to
lock me up.
So from here, step back,
lock me up with your elbows first.
So I can't come in anymore, okay?
This is your shield.
If I push really hard, slide it up to my neck.
(girls groan)
As you pull, you hit, so it's all core.
Go. (grunts)
Nice.
Hit. No thumbs. - [Girl] No thumbs?
- [Nelson] Yeah. - Like this?
Oh, okay.
- Now, hit! (grunts)
As you hit, pull me in. (grunts)
- Yes, do that again. - Like that?
- Whenever you're being grabbed like this,
grab my wrist, tug it down as hard as you can.
See how she's using the bending forward
and dropping her body weight down.
Why don't you grab my hand, why do you grab my wrist?
- [Girls] So you have more control?
- More control and also if you grab the hand,
you're scratching your own face.
(grunts)
Protect your face. (girls laugh)
When you're fighting on the ground,
your main weapon are your legs.
Yeah, one foot close to your butt.
And push, no.
Plant this foot down.
So you plant this foot down and lift up your hips., yeah.
Whenever you flip him sideways,
always step all over him.
Boom, boom, boom.
Just step on him to maneuver your body.
That's the first thing you do
is bar my neck.
Then you pop up your hips, exactly.
See how high it is?
If she still has my hand on her chest,
and she pop like that, that's gonna break.
So all of the techniques that we've learned today,
it's all core-driven, okay?
You never go out flail around like this.
It's always with your core, even your hair grabs,
your grabs from behind, you lock it in first in your core.
You only do it once, it's very difficult for you to do it.
But at least you have some frame of reference
on how to respond like that.
Okay? Good?
- [Girls] Yeah, on that note, (cheers and laughs)
thank you so much! (applause)
(camera snaps)
- That was crazy.
- It was a really great class.
I felt like I learned a lot.
- It was great, there were a lot of parts of me
where it was just like really freaky.
- I'm a little more shaken up than
I thought I would be.
- I feel like I learned that there is
a lot more to this than just dick-punching.
Self-defense is the thinking women 's dick-punch.
- Like I said before, I don't usually walk around
at night super scared or hyper aware.
Being made aware today of all of the possible
scenarios that could happen to me really
just sort of brought me down to Earth
and realizing that people are crazy
and it's important to be ready for that.
- The beginning of the class felt pretty easy.
I felt kind of like a water bender.
And then as we got into the getting attacked
from behind scenarios, fending off someone
who's on top of you scenarios.
I found myself getting more and more anxious.
- Even though we were laughing, it's really hard
to really think about something like this happening.
- Even though it was a class, and even though
Nelson was the nicest guy ever, I felt
myself building up this weird stress inside.
- The thing I really feel like I'm going to take
away from this is just the realization that
if someone attacked you, it's like,
how fucking dare you?
Like, how fucking dare you come at me
and that's just what will carry you into fighting
back and hopefully getting out of there safely.
- I didn't anticipate myself being able to tap into
that aggression and really go for it, but for
some reason I was able to so that was good.
And it's good to know about myself, that if I'm
in that situation, I'll probably be able to go for it.
- It is a thing that women should be doing,
learning to defend themselves.
- It's scary because you're not gonna know how you're
going to react until something like this happens.
Like, God forbid if it ever happens.
But I think every single woman should do this.
(upbeat music)