Fighting back - self-defense tips

The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network says that one in six women will suffer a sexual assault, while the risk for girls in college is four times higher. What makes these statistics worse is that sixty percent of rapes and sexual assaults are never reported to the police at all. For young women aged 18 to 24, these assaults could happen at a safe place, like the college campus, and by persons known to them either on a date or at late night parties. In cases of date rape, prevention is the best protection. Set your dates for lunch, use your own transportation, and share the cost of meals, tickets, and so on. Men who spend money come to expect sexual favors in return.

For the dark alley assaults by criminals, prevention is still the best defense. Avoid walking alone on unfamiliar routes, and avoid taking short-cuts. Body language and self-confidence are a good defense, according to several experts, and if you look down or avoid eye-contact it's a signal that you can't take care of yourself. Girls who stay in shape or know a martial art for self-defense are also advised to save themselves by running away, and fighting back only as a last resort. Learning self-defense martial arts like karate, judo, jiu-jitsu, muay Thai, kickboxing, taekwondo, or simple wrestling or boxing, is a good way to develop self-confidence. It also keeps you in shape. There are self-defense tips to protect yourself from assault, even if you're out of shape, and not trained to fight back:

• Have the will to fight: 90 per cent of self-defense is mental. You need to have the will to fight back. Know that you're saving yourself from a lifetime of trauma by resisting violently and verbally.
  
• Verbalize your defense: martial-arts practitioners shout when they deliver punches and kicks. It's a way of tightening the core muscles and generating aggression. Shouting also keeps the attacker off-balance and gives you an opening to free yourself and run.
• Slaps are better than punches: you can put more upper-body strength in a slap than in straight jabs or punches. A stinging slap to the side of the head can disorient your attacker long enough to let you escape.
• Know the vital soft points of men: in self-defense classes you learn to target the attacker's throat, temple, ears, eyes, nose, groin, and chin. An upward palm strike to the chin is pretty effective in disorienting the attacker. Use elbows to hit him in the face and knees to attack other soft points, bite down on his arm till you can taste blood.
• Use non-lethal weapons: a car key jammed between your fingers turns into a knife, heels, keychain Pepper Sprays, tasers, and pocket-knifes are non-lethal weapons for self-defense.
• Take a self-defense class: All the tips in the world cannot prepare you for real-life situations. Paralyzing fear and panic that turns into helplessness are part of sexual assaults. Taking a self-defense class lets you overcome these mental consequences. It also give you the self-confidence to fight back a bigger and more aggressive opponent.