Powerful Stories of Women Who Have Been Assaulted

Recently I hosted a self-defense class at a small insurance company. My friend, Joey and his two partners put on a demonstration. All three of them are black belts in different martial arts disciplines. Between them they have over 50 years of martial arts experience.

Joey and his team did two demonstrations, one before lunch and one after. There were about 20 employees at each session. Amazingly after each session a woman came up to me and tell me about an experience she had.

The first woman told me how a stranger had sexually assaulted her in her own home. The assault had happened many years ago but you could still see the anguish in her face.

The second woman related a story about her daughter who had arrived home from school. While she was entering the garage a stranger forced his way into the home and tried to rape her. She was able to escape the house and run to the neighbors. This scared off the attacker and he ran away.

The woman new that her daughter had been very lucky and the situation might not have had a happy ending had the rapist been more determined.

Why does all this matter? Well think about it. Out of some 30 women (some of the participants were men) two had experiences with sexual assault. This is from a little insurance company in a small, rural town.

Few people think that they know someone who has gone through something so traumatic. But everyone in that insurance company now knew two women who were impacted by a sexual assault.

Both women were asking me how they could stop an attacker before he could commit an assault. Neither of them was willing to get a concealed handgun permit and carry a gun so they needed another solution.

Our self defense instructors were not going to make them martial arts experts in 45 minutes. The idea of the presentation was to learn techniques to buy yourself time to escape your attacker. The more time you have, the farther away you can get from the bad guy.

In order to create that cushion of time to get away you need an edge. One of the suggestions I gave to the two women was to carry a stun gun in their purse. A stun gun is certainly less lethal than a firearm and more importantly it is easier to use under stress.

With a modern Taser, it's not even necessary to touch your attacker. This provides another important element of self-defense, which is keeping space between you and the attacker.
If you can reach out and touch a bad guy from 6 to 10 feet away you have gained space and he is less likely to be able to grab you as he goes down. Your chances of surviving such and encounter will go up significantly.

What is a Taser? The name comes from "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle." The Taser fires two small probes connected by wires from the device. When the probes hit the attacker they carry upwards of 50,000 volts of electricity. Remember it's not the volts that can kill you from electricity it's the amperage. The Taser uses low amperage electricity to stun.

When the electricity goes though the bad guy's body it causes his muscles to involuntarily contract and release very quickly. So quickly in fact that the glucose energy stored in his muscles is used up rapidly and turned into lactic acid. This means he doesn't have the strength to move let alone assault you until his body can replenish his energy stores.

The effect usually lasts between 1 to 20 minutes. As my high school chemistry teacher used to say this gives you plenty of time to "go like 60." Meaning you should get out of their fast.

While the miscreant is getting his muscles massaged you will be far enough away from him to avoid him getting his hands on you. Even if he could grab you the electricity from the Taser will not pass though his body and shock you.

Another edge you can get for yourself is modern day pepper spray. This is a highly concentrated form of pepper juice called capsicum. When it touches the skin, especially the face, it causes a burning sensation and a swelling of the membranes in the nose, eyes and mouth.

Once he has been sprayed with a good amount of pepper spray the bad guy is now more interested in the burning and swelling of his face. Most of the time he will not be able to see you, as his eyes will swell shut. This is a temporary condition but it buys you enough time to say adios to the aggressor and call 911.

Other methods of protecting yourself are personal alarms that make enough noise to call attention to your plight. A Kuboton is a handy little item that can be attached to your key chain. It can be held in your fist and used to strike an assailant.

Also a cell phone is very handy to have with you should you need to call the police. But remember even the fastest response from the police can be several minutes. By that time the criminal could have assaulted you and left the area.

For more information on stun guns and pepper sprays click on the following links. ************************************************
TomMillermailto:TomMillertimiller@bex.net
http://www.tamcodefense.com/
http://www.tamcosurveillance.com/
http://www.tamcomarketing.com