10 Everyday Situations Where Women’s Self-Defense Training Makes a Real Difference

The majority of women who enroll in a self-defense class are not trained to defend against that kind of attack, like a scene from a Hollywood film in a dark alley. They have been considering the parking garage following a late shift. Run on a Saturday morning without any other activities. The rideshare driver who had said something and made his/her stomach drop.

Real threats are all around us everyday; this is where women self-defense training makes its strongest impact.

Empower Her at Instinct Defense Academy in Bethany, Portland was designed around real-life scenarios women encounter. Not dramatic hypotheticals. Not sport sparring. Real world, hands-on personal safety instruction that will make every day of life easier and every woman safer.

Below are 10 scenarios in everyday life where self-defense training – and the awareness and confidence it brings – can make a huge difference.

1. Walking to Your Car After Dark

This is the one scenario that most women consider on a daily basis. A late meeting. Shopping for food after supper. Going alone to a restaurant. The walk across a dim parking lot to your car can be quite an experience of being vulnerable – and believe it or not, one of the most common places for opportunistic crime.

What you get from self-defense training: Women who train learn how to be aware of their surroundings and how to scan them for what’s off and adjust their path or posture before it gets there. You acquire the ability to come across as confident and assertive in your body language, which has been proven to lower your chances of being targeted. If someone does approach; you’ve been trained, and practiced, not panicked.

2. Running or Walking Alone Outdoors

Portland’s trails and neighborhoods are gorgeous – and sought after. Walking and running independently is a common part of the lives of many women. However, isolation in the outdoors means vulnerability, particularly in the case of trails where visibility is limited.

What is learned in self-defense training: Training increases one’s sensitivity to surroundings when moving. You’re able to pick up on a person approaching before they actually arrive. You learn verbal boundaries – how to assert yourself, and how to project your voice when someone breaks your boundaries. You also learn a number of techniques for escaping from a grab from behind, a common attack in outdoor scenarios.

3. Using Rideshare Services (Uber, Lyft)

Rideshare is now the go-to solution for millions of women. It’s also raised new questions about safety: What if the driver locks the door? Goes astray? Terribly unsettles you? There is no time to get out of a moving vehicle and there may not be enough time to call for help.

Self-Defense Training Provides: Self-assurance in a controlled environment. You get tips on wrist releases, pressure point control, and mental clarity to act instead of freeze in a panic in the event of a close-range situation where distance cannot be created. You also learn to be assertive and express your feelings early if they feel wrong.

4. Working Late or Commuting at Night

Traveling at night (whether by car, public transport, or on foot) has a different effect on personal safety than travel during the day. There will be less social accountability of potential aggressors and less witnesses.

What self-defense training provides you: An eye for what is normal versus what is an early warning sign. You understand the distinction between walking in the same direction and pacing you. You get used to walking on lighted paths, avoiding using your cell phone in transition areas, and moving around in parking garages, buses, and elevators – simple behaviors that can make a huge difference without taking too much of your time.

5. Confrontations with an Intimate Partner or Ex

This is a talk women’s self-defense classes don’t want to have – but they should. Domestic violence and harassment by ex-partners are a large share of women’s violence. In such situations, the aggressor is identified, bigger and may be expecting resistance.

What self-defense training gives you: Self-defense skills such as escaping and disengaging from a grab, maintaining distance, and getting out of a room. What’s most important is that training gives the psychological insight to see when things are escalating and take some action before they reach their highest point. The Empower Her program aims to teach women about the 10 most frequently occurring attack types they face, even from trusted attackers.

6. Being Followed in a Store or Mall

It is a feeling that many women have had of someone in the store or shopping center willfully keeping close to them. Following your route. Featured in several parts. It’s very disturbing – and most women don’t have a structure for how to respond and not be ‘overreacting’.

What self-defense training gives you: Permission to trust your instincts and a clear plan of action. You practice disrupting a pattern (walking around, entering a store, talking to employees) AND you learn how to verbally challenge the situation in a manner that will get their attention and make them feel attacked. You don’t overthink what you feel, you do it.

7. Traveling Alone – Hotels, Airports, Unfamiliar Cities

One of the freedoms of life is solo travel – and one that women hesitate to take. It’s possible for new surroundings, strange layouts, jet lag and social pressure to be friendly to strangers to all add up to make it more difficult to enforce boundaries.

What self-defense training gives you: A safety toolkit that is carried around with you wherever you go. Techniques to use for alerting to suspicious activities while living in hotel rooms, at restaurants and transport centers, and how to deal with suspicious persons who start talking too much. Another thing that you will learn is how to communicate verbally, with a sense of control and without apology, which is frequently the most powerful form of self-protection.

8. Social Settings Where Alcohol Is Involved

Alcohol, parties, bars, and social events are high-risk situations for women, not due to the environment itself, but because it lowers inhibitions for all people involved, distracts people from the warning signs, and makes it more difficult to disengage from the situation gracefully.

What self-defense training gives you: When and how to get out of an escalating situation, how to respond to someone who won’t accept ‘no,’ and how to use the environment (exits, crowds, allies) as self-defense tools. Training also establishes pre-event habits – checking in with someone, having an exit plan and feeling the discomfort when it feels uncomfortable, even in a fun environment.

9. Managing Aggressive Strangers in Public

Most people don’t realize that street-to-street, traffic-to-traffic, or public-transit confrontations occur more often for women than for men. The stalking behavior after a rejection, yelling from a vehicle or cornering a person in a public place by an unstable person can just get intense really quick.

What self-defense training provides you: Mental model of threat assessment: How serious is this, is it escalating, what do I have to do? Learning de-escalation as a first step and physical response as a last resort. You learn to remain calm in stressful situations – it’s a learned behavior, not a personality trait. Regularly active female exercisers say this is one of the biggest changes that has happened in their everyday lives.

10. Protecting Your Children in Public

Personal safety training has a whole new meaning for mothers. In situations of threat, the instinct to protect a child can take over rational thinking, resulting in actions that are courageous but not strategic. When facing a threat and working with a child, there is a mental and physical toolbox that needs to be used.

What self-defense training gives you: Practice in protecting a child, and in de-escalating from a threat. How to separate your child from an aggressor; how to give clear, verbal commands in a stressful environment; how to use your body position to protect yourself while moving. In general, you cultivate the sense of being well equipped and not a moment’s worry – you pass this down to your kids.

The Common Thread: Confidence Changes Everything

In all these scenarios, the most empowering thing that women learn when they train in self defense isn’t a technique. It’s going from a place of wanting to wish for no bad things to a place of knowing what to do if something bad happens.

The confidence shifts your posture. It alters your room dynamics. It alters your reaction time to trust and act off your instinct. All that before the time a physical technique is even called into service, alters the mind of potential aggressors, and how they choose to victimize.

At Instinct Defense Academy, our Empower Her program focuses on just that; practical women’s self-defense emphasizing situational awareness, intuitive-response, and scenario training based on martial concepts of Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu. No experience needed, it’s for all women and fitness levels.