A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Crash courses are like crash diets The days following the Delhi gang rape have been disconcerting for many reasons Thousands of women jolted by the incident have signed up for crash courses in selfdefence And while I am glad that women are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to their safety women need to read the fine print before enrolling for these lsquocrash coursesrsquo guaranteeing safety Bruce Lee always believed that one had to finish a street fight as quickly as possible to avoid getting hurt Bogus As someone who has been practicing a martial art for the last 20 years I believe that these twothree week courses that are offered to train women are quite bogus And herersquos why For anyone to master a certain number of movements though they might look easy a minimum of a month is required Locks which are now being shown as effective ways to fight off an attacker have to be continuously practiced with someone for them to be effective If you believed that you could learn it and then carry it out a day after training you will be shocked to find that the movements will be ineffective leaving you stunned and even more vulnerable to an attack Jawans showing martial arts expertise Trained personnel already have a base of physical fitness strength and endurance Flee Secondly several of these crash courses have failed to identify a manrsquos weakest spot Though showing women how to do high kicks is impressive in a fight they are of no use and a waste of time and energy What women should be taught but arenrsquot is that the manrsquos thighs his groin his ears and his throat are his weakest spots A kick to his groin or his thigh a slap to his ear or a jab to his Adamrsquos apple will give one enough time to flee Residents walk at the memorial for rape victims during a protest against the gang rape of a student in New Delhi PicAFP Strength One must also understand that for any kind of offence to be effective a woman needs to develop some kind of strength in her body And though some may argue that at the time of an attack adrenaline pumps in making one strong enough one is also left in a certain state of shock Hence people who claim to be providing training or selfdefence lessons should first teach some core strengthening exercises that women must practice for longterm results Proponents of Kalaripayattu one of the oldest fighting systems show their expertise It is important to make a distinction between sport martial arts martial arts for exhibitions and demonstrations and training in martial arts for actual combat Useless In the end women must understand these crash courses are like fad diets Initially you might witness the euphoria of immediate weight loss but in the long run you will be unhappy Even though these selfdefence classes may instill a sense of confidence which is a necessity at this juncture they might prove useless in attacks like the Delhi gang rape where the victim was overpowered by a ratio of six to one or in attacks when men use weapons Activists hold placards during a protest at the district court Saket in New Delhi on January 21 2013 PicAFP Not selfdefence self deception Post the Delhi gang rape the operative words today are selfdefence Martial arts teachers and some selftrained selfdefence experts are offering defence classes to women There are some fundamental problems about this enthusiastic rush to get enrolled in selfdefence classes wellintentioned though they may be Incidentally while there are exceptions of course not all these teachers have the best intentions in mind Students watch an exhibition of basic judo skills as they participate in a camp Picture used for representational purposes only PicAFP Fake and fraudulent Many selfdefence courses already saddled with the bogey of bogus instructors and fake black belts that coveted degree in martial arts peddling questionable degrees seem to be quick to offer solutionsBut like those who have sweated blood and tears practising the martial arts will tell you there are no short cuts in selfdefence Women cannot get ready to face a street situation and hope to overpower men by learning some quick moves or indulging in slick footwork As women they start at least 1520 kilos lighter than men Their physical structure itself puts them at a disadvantage These classes are like throwing one into the deep end of a sea without first learning basic swimming skills Never let the knife out of sight and disarm the attacker as soon as possible PicAFP Give them time While there are some tricks women can learn when caught in a potentially dangerous situation on the road they involve an element of surprise like startling your attacker This might range from throwing something in hand like keys a water bottle or even a bag at the opponent these at best can be used to keep the attacker at bay and give time to women to make a getaway Women must realise though that these are distractions at best that may work in a dangerous situation but they have the potential to backfire too The biggest drawback in most of these judoinajiffyandBruceLeeinablinkofaneye kind of courses are that most do not teach women a vital aspect of fighting on the road that if you hit your attacker he will hit you back Even if it is a hard slap the fact that somebody has hit her can send a woman into shock Women are not taught to take blows in many of these classes A fight cannot be onesided Bruce Lee had once smirked at a martial artiste practicing his moves on a boxing dummy ldquoBags don39t hit backrdquo he had said That was not just another movie line put in there to evoke claps from the audience Bags donrsquot hit back but your opponent most probably will Women will have to face a moving thinking and brutal opponent Would a woman be strong enough to absorb the impact of a strike by a man It would be hard without specific training The hard way It takes years of conditioning making part of the anatomy strong enough to withstand a blow Two hours two weeks or even two months is never going to give a woman that kind of conditioning Shockingly there are classes now that claim they can teach women selfdefence in a matter of hours Ask any woman who has actually trained for physical combat and they will corroborate how it takes months if not years of training to be ready to fight off attackers in street brawls There is also the aspect of physical fitness Combat requires fitness to be able to last in a fight you need a minimum level of endurance Are these women doing requisite endurance training to back up what they have learnt Will they be able to sustain a fight Even if the aim is to disarm or disable the attacker not to prolong the fight and move away things donrsquot go to plan on a street While many courses do teach women how to strike at the anatomyrsquos weak points how to use the knee elbow fingers to devastating effect at times one may not be able to strike the vulnerable points quickly enoughu00a0 For a woman to kick or strike at the groin a man needs to be standing at a certain distance and face one in front To hit the eye a woman needs to at least as tall as the manrsquos shoulders What women can do then is to join a bonafide teacher and class and train the hard way because frankly there is no other way to selfdefence Practice the martial arts and workout in a class as if onersquos life depends on it Because on the roads it does