“As great as YouTube is for sharing ideas and thoughts, make sure you’re not blindly accepting information”
My YouTube homepage recommends me the perfect weird mix of martial arts, drag queens, music, and building things (constant search: real-life web swingers). Often times, I’ll get recommended videos of “Women’s Self Defense Techniques” or “5 Essential defense skills for Women” and others of the sort. Automatically when I see these videos, I usually chuckle to myself: most of them are taught and demonstrated by men, which is a little ironic. The techniques taught usually aren’t necessarily bad or wrong, but there is one common strike that is heavily relied on in women’s self-defense. They emphasize it in nearly every video I see: the groin strike.
Now if you’re like me who’s a fan of YouTube’s Master Ken from Ameri-Do-Te, you may already be hearing in your head, “Re-stomp the groin!!”. We don’t have to go into his ‘100 Ways to Attack the Groin’ video, but sometimes it seems as if self-defense videos targeted at women are taking a page from Ken’s over exaggerated book in the way they rely on striking the groin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a valid target area and when landed, it is very effective and HURTS. However, landing it is the hard part.
Most people with testes are automatically programmed to protect them instinctively; you could just make a slight motion towards or near their crotch and they’re already shifting to protect themselves. Imagine that, plus the adrenaline of attacking somebody, it would be a very difficult target to land a technique on, especially one that you’re depending on giving you time to get away.
A safer bet when it comes to self-defense is targeting soft tissues or unstable areas, essentially harming them to where they can’t follow or chase you. Attacking the knees or even stomping on their foot as hard as you can, can be enough to buy you some time. If you’re close enough, ripping at ears, trying to tear their fingers apart, or clawing/raking of the eyes are some great skills that don’t require much force or technique. Even a good palm strike to the nose is enough to stun someone for a few seconds so you can escape.
As great as YouTube is for sharing ideas and thoughts, make sure you’re not blindly accepting information, especially when it comes to self-defense. Keep this in mind the next time you see a women’s self-defense video online; be skeptical about the attacks to the groin and how often they rely on them as the main proponent of the defense. Sorry Master Ken!
