Self Defense Workshop for Women
Schedule
Sun Jan 19 2025 at 01:00 pm to 04:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
332 Harriet St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197-5484, United States | Ypsilanti, MI
This 3-hour boundary setting, personal safety and self defense class will teach you the basics— and add to existing skills for your personal empowerment. According to the CDC, statistics collected on lifetime reports of sexual assault for women report that more than 50% of women report at least one incidence of sexual violence. This workshop will include information about and practice with skills on mental preparedness, verbal assertiveness and physical self protection.
The course instructor, Heidi Sproull is a black belt in Jui Jutzu and a brown belt in Judo with 30 years of experience teaching these skills. She is also a trauma informed psychotherapist and certified sex therapist and educator. This class is open to women, girls and female identified people 12-years and older. If someone is younger than 12 or concerned about accessibility, please reach out to Heidi with questions/concerns. Young teens do best with this content when they attend with a supportive adult with whom they can process the content afterwards.
In this workshop, participants will learn skills for defending against stranger and acquaintance assaults:
Mental Skills:
Cultivate self-confidence and hone personal power
Set Boundaries
Use counter strategies for attacker mentality
Verbal Skills:
Use your voice effectively
Effectively use deescalation techniques
Employ assertive, direct language
Physical Skills:
All physical skills are carefully selected to be usable by a smaller, less strong defender against a larger, stronger attacker. Most skills can be modified for differing ability levels.
We will work with physical skills designed to render the attacker unable to continue the assault—defenses targeted at the most vulnerable areas of most people’s bodies
We will also learn how to block physical blows and how to escape some common body grabs
This class is taught in a supportive, engaging, truthful manner consistent with breaking down patterns of invalidation or self doubt. In this class survivors of assault are never blamed for their experiences as the responsibility for assault always resides with the person committing the offense. We are all worth fighting for! Most participants experience a sense of increased confidence in their sense of their own rights and their ability to set, hold and reinforce the autonomy of their own body and mind.
