For Adults, Teens and Families (ages 8+ with parents)
6:15pm - 7:15pm at the Mount Baker Community Club
One Thursday each month - Email to find out when the next one is scheduled and to register!
We can think of self-defense as having three progressive parts:
Prevent a bad situation - Know where danger is and make good decisions ahead of time to avoid or manage it. If this fails…
Escape or de-escalate the situation - This is what we practice! If this fails…
Resort to inflicting harm to protect yourself - This is the worst case scenario and is where many self-defense classes focus their skills.
We’ll talk a bit about parts 1 and 3 so we can see how it all fits together, but the focus of our workshops will be on #2. Our goal is to help everyone develop the tools to take control of a challenging situation, even if there’s a physical confrontation, while avoiding the need to engage in violence. We practice how to expand opportunities for de-escalation.
How does it work?
Our regular aikido practice includes exactly this kind of self-defense, plus a lot more. For these workshops, we simply take the parts of our regular training that are most applicable and easiest to learn in relatively short periods of time. We’ll develop skills to:
Maintain a clear mind under pressure to help make good decisions
Deflect strikes and escape holds in order to be harder to catch and to hurt
Position ourselves where we’re more difficult to attack and have more opportunities to escape if we choose
Use simplified versions of a few self-defense techniques to control an attacker and / or put an them safely on the ground
Each workshop will cover these basic topics, but will focus on different details and address different kinds of scenarios. So, you can come to one to get the basics, or keep coming back to expand and develop your skills!