In a perfect world women wouldn't need
self-defense because men
wouldn't perpetrate these crimes but the world is far from perfect. The most important self-defense tool that all women possess is the ability to set boundaries verbal, physical and psychological. The challenge is that most women won't establish boundaries that they don't feel capable of enforcing and that's where the Women Empowered program comes into the equation. Gracie jiu-jitsu has been used to defeat larger opponents for over 80 years but until we created the Women Empowered Program
it hadn't yet served its most important purpose. Law enforcement studies reveal that sexual predators follow a very specific four-phase
strategy when carrying out their assaults. In the Women Empowered program,
we've identified the 15 most common threat scenarios and we've divided them
into 10 one-hour lessons. Women cycle through these lessons as many times as
necessary to develop the muscle memory to execute the techniques without hesitation. At the end of the course women take a test, and if their reflexes
are on point they earn their pink belt. A special belt that we created to signify
successful completion of this amazing program.
The physical techniques are critical but it's equally important to understand
the psychology of an assault. One of the most important things we discuss
is intention assessment. Let's say I'm alone at a gas station,
and a man from a nearby bus stop gets up and starts walking directly towards me and I assert myself, and I tell him to stop and he continues to walk towards me what do I know at that exact moment? I know that he has bad intentions and once I know his intentions
I can start preparing for his actions but until I set a boundary his intentions are unknown.
Boundaries are everything. Women Empowered is so different because
they teach us the scalability of jiu-jitsu
and the psychology of an attack. Whether it's somebody you know
or somebody you don't know and so it's so applicable at work because I know these people have to be around these people but I have the right to be confident and be comfortable no matter who I'm around. What makes jiu-jitsu perfect for women is that it's the only martial art that effectively addresses
what to do when the fight goes to the ground and if there's one thing we know
for sure it's that the attacker will do everything in his power to get us there. My daughter and I signed up at the Gracie Academy because she's gonna be going to college next year and I felt much more comfortable with her having some self-defense training before being on a college campus. I feel much better about
her going off to college next year and I feel safer myself too, on the street. At the end of the day, we know that victory
is getting home safely. The Women Empowered program teaches how to neutralize an assault escape if possible, and if escape is not possible how to incapacitate the attacker
with a joint lock or chokehold.
I really feel like it changed my life
because it brought me back to who I am. I lost myself for a long time.
Finding jiu-jitsu helped me find my strength again. Words can't even describe how much happier I am
how much more confident I am. I really feel like it's changed my life a lot. One of the things I love about being here is how supportive all the other girls are how much encouragement they give us I feel like after the class
like I could conquer the whole world. What separates Women Empowered
from every other self-defense program out there is the Violence Scalability Factor because not every situation warrants
the same degree of violence in our response. This is critical because statistically, 78% of sexual assaults are committed by people that we know. For example, if you're at a work function
and a drunk co-worker starts getting out of hand and getting a little too touchy-feely you're probably not going to feel inclined to
gouge his eyes out or palm strike them in the face but if that's the only self-defense you've learned, chances are you won't do anything at all.
With Women Empowered we teach everything from simple de-escalation techniques all the way to deadly force techniques
for worst-case scenarios so no matter who the perpetrator is
or what the circumstance, we have a plan. I for a long time had thought it would be a good idea for me to take women's self-defense but I was always too intimidated to do so. I was really, really, really nervous because
this was so outside the scope of my comfort level but the environment was so
supportive of that it just kind of pulled me in and swept me up and the next thing I know I'm at
the end of Women Empowered and I thought
"I don't want this to end" and it's such a secure place to be and it's such a cooperative
and collaborative learning environment. And for me, that is every reason
why I'm here.
Once a woman owns these techniques,
and is prepared for worst-case scenarios she's so much more likely to
preemptively assert herself which could really help
deter an assault before it happens. I had an incident where I was in the car somebody was trying to break in my car and he hadn't seen me yet so instead of like panicking and getting really scared I just stopped, thought, and my mind went
super clear, and I still saw that he didn't see me so I thought "what's the safest way
for me to get out of this situation?" I went and just hit the window and started screaming and scaring the crap out of him and luckily it terrified him, and he ran off. I think the most important part is that I didn't feel unprepared, I did feel totally empowered.
I think without my training I
would have just freaked and not been able to handle the situation and even now
when I look back on the situation I'm not scared by it, I feel empowered by it. We kind of defeat ourselves with the perception that it doesn't belong to us or somehow we don't connect and it's really because our own perception of what it is and what we really need to do is get in there
and learn what it's really about
and see how it really is for everybody.
Ever since learning Women Empowered I just never have that
uncomfortable uncertainty anymore I just have this real confidence and it's just so powerful to me that I can, that I can just… It's so funny that it still makes me cry,
it just makes me so happy. As women we have the right to
control our bodies and our boundaries.
Women Empowered
has given me the tools to do just that..
