Defense Against Multiple Assailants

I spent this afternoon in an advanced self defense class for women - "Defense Against Multiple Assailants". I walked into the practice room and there were five very large men who would be the muggers. Let me tell you, I was pretty nervous!

We reviewed some of the basics of self defense. There are approximately 16 women in the class and all had clearly incorporated what they had learned into muscle memory...awesome!

Then we started to do drills with two assailants at a time. They would charge you and be yelling and/or using foul language to try to be realistic.
It worked! My first reaction - fear. But then as I looked at the mugger rushing me, my next reaction - anger followed by focus. At that point, time seemed like my friend. It seemed to slow down. I would consider various targets on the mugger approaching me. I was totally calm (a definite contrast to the basics class) and then I would aggressively deliver the blow.
One blow at a time, always keeping both muggers in site, always working them to line up with each other using one to block the other.

Each fight (we did about six of them) increased in intensity and difficulty.
We were exhausted (especially me) but kept going. In fact, I think I was dehydrated and at one point i became light headed and fell during a fight and then I got right back up and took out both muggers.

We had learned a couple of new techniques, one of which I had questioned. Its a forward thrust kick delivered with the front part of your foot (toes must be pointed or they could be injured). It turned out that I could determine distance to kick fairly well and became my favorite blow to deliver.

It's pretty amazing to have these huge guys convincingly charging you and to know that you know what to do and that you can stand your ground against them (one at a time) and deliver several knockout blows and if they keep coming at you, you can keep going while you stay completely calm.

FYI, the head instructor is the Director of the Chicago chapter of IMPACT and she is 60ish, amazingly good in her fights.....she is just awesome! Before and after every fight, the group circles up and focuses on what we are saying "No" to (e.g. fear, violence against women, being a victim, etc). In Chicago, we learned that the male muggers join the circles because they are just as committed as all women to ending violence against women!!!
And it shows in their fights, in the advice they offer to the women to improve, in the care they obviously feel for the work they do.

If interested in finding out more about these women's self defense classes, see website at www.bayareaimpact.org. There is a commercial on that site that shows a bit about basics training. There are chapters of IMPACT all over the U.S.