My name is Karen Vance. I have taught a women's self-defense class at the Fairmont Community Center for six years, and before that I assisted in one for three. I hold a second-degree black belt in karate, which I mention only because people ask, and which matters a lot less than you would think. Most of what keeps women safe has nothing to do with kicking anybody.

I put this page together because students kept asking for "the handout," and the handout kept growing, and at some point it made more sense to type it up here where it could be printed at home. It is a summary of what we cover in the six-week class. It is not a substitute for the class. I want to say that clearly right at the top: you cannot learn self-defense from a web page. You can learn some ideas from a web page. The physical part has to be practiced with a partner and an instructor, over and over, until your body does it without asking your brain first. Please read this, and then please go find a class. There is one near you. There is a schedule for mine at the bottom.

One more thing before we start. Nothing on this page is meant to frighten you. The whole point of this class is the opposite of fear. Women who have taken a good self-defense class tend to walk differently, talk differently, and worry less, not more, because they have replaced a vague dread with a small set of specific things they know how to do. That is the goal. Calm, not scared.

In class I say that awareness is ninety percent of self-defense, and I am probably underselling it. The vast majority of trouble is avoided by noticing it early, and most of us go through our days noticing almost nothing. We are thinking about the grocery list. We are digging for our keys. We are looking at the sidewalk.

Awareness is not paranoia and it is not scanning the parking lot like a secret agent. It is simply choosing to pay attention to the place you are actually in, for the few minutes it takes to get through it. Some habits I teach:

• Head up, eyes up. Look around when you walk into a room, a lot, a stairwell. Notice who is there and where the exits are. It takes two seconds and after a few weeks you will do it without thinking.
• Keys out before you leave the building, not while standing at the car door.
• Look in the back seat before you get in. Yes, still. It takes one second.
• Walk like you know where you're going, even when you don't. Shoulders back, steady pace, purposeful. People who look like they are paying attention are, in plain terms, less appealing to someone looking for an easy target.
• Notice the person who is noticing you. Most people in public are not looking at you at all. Someone who is, and keeps looking, and adjusts to stay near you, is information. Not proof of anything. Information. Use it.
• Don't let the phone or the Walkman take you out of the world when you're alone somewhere unfamiliar. Save the headphones for the treadmill.

Every woman who has ever been in a bad situation and gotten out of it will tell you the same thing: I knew something was off. The feeling came first. The reasons came later, if at all.

That feeling is not magic. It is your brain noticing a hundred small things too fast for you to list them: a tone of voice, a pace that matches yours, a door that should be open and isn't. The feeling is the report. Most of us have been trained since childhood to override it, because we don't want to be rude, or make a scene, or be wrong, or hurt someone's feelings.

Here is the rule I teach, and it is the one rule I would keep if I could keep only one: If something feels wrong, act as if it is wrong. Cross the street. Leave the store. Don't get in the elevator. Say "no, thank you" and keep walking. Go back inside and wait. You will occasionally be wrong, and the cost of being wrong is a moment of awkwardness. The cost of ignoring the feeling when it was right is much, much higher. That is not a hard trade.

You do not owe a stranger an explanation for leaving. You do not owe anyone your politeness at the expense of your safety. I tell students to practice saying "No" out loud, in the car, until it stops feeling rude. It is not rude. It is a complete sentence.

Your voice is your first weapon and it is a good one. It is always with you, it works at a distance, and it does three things at once: it tells the person to stop, it tells everyone within earshot that something is happening, and it tells you that you are allowed to fight back. That third one matters more than it sounds.

In class we spend a whole evening on this and people are always surprised by how hard it is. Most women have never in their lives yelled at a stranger. So we practice.

• Use a loud, low, firm voice, from the belly, not a high scream. A low voice carries and sounds like a command. A scream can sound like panic, and it is easier to ignore.
• Use short, specific words: "NO." "BACK OFF." "STOP." "LEAVE ME ALONE." Not "please," not "I'm sorry, but."
• Say it with your body, too. Hands up, palms out, in front of you. This is not a fighting stance, it is a "stop" stance, and it says the same thing your voice is saying while leaving your hands where they can protect you.
• If it comes to that, "FIRE" or naming what's happening ("THIS MAN IS GRABBING ME") gets people's attention better than "help," which many people, sadly, tune out.

Ninety-some percent of the time, in our experience, a loud firm voice and a stop stance end the encounter right there. Someone looking for a quiet, compliant target has just found out you are neither.

This is the section that surprises people, because they came for kicks and punches and I spend a week on talking. But most threats to women's safety do not come from a stranger jumping out of the bushes. They come from someone we know, or someone we've just met who seems fine, who tests a boundary, and then another one, and watches what we do.

So we practice setting boundaries early, while the stakes are small.

• You can decline a drink, a ride, help with your groceries, a walk to your car. "No thanks, I'm fine." Once. You don't have to keep explaining.
• Someone who argues with your no is telling you something. A person who respects you accepts a no the first time, even if they are disappointed.
• Someone who keeps stepping closer after you've stepped back is telling you something too. Step back again, put a hand up, say "that's close enough." It feels enormous the first time. It gets easier.
• Do not go somewhere private with someone you have just met because it seemed rude to refuse.
• Tell someone where you are going and when you'll be back. Not because you're a child. Because it's smart, and the friend you tell would want to know.

Boundaries are not about being suspicious of everyone. They are about being clear, with everyone, so that the rare person who means you harm shows himself early, and the many people who don't will simply respect you. Good people are not offended by a clear boundary. That is one way you can tell.

I'm going to describe two things here, in general terms, because they are the two I would want every woman to have. I am deliberately not going to give step-by-step instructions, because words on a page cannot show you where your weight goes or how your wrist turns, and a half-learned technique can be worse than none. Take these as an idea of what a class teaches, and then go learn them properly.

The palm strike. Most people, told to hit something, make a fist. Untrained people who punch tend to hurt their own hands and wrists. In class we teach striking with the heel of the open palm instead, driving forward and up, aimed at the nose or chin. It is simple, it uses the strong bones of the hand and forearm, it is hard to do wrong, and it does not require any strength you don't already have. We practice it on pads, hundreds of times, with the whole body behind it and a loud "NO" on every strike. The yell is part of the technique.

Escaping a wrist grab. The most common thing a student worries about is "what if he grabs my arm." The good news is that a wrist grab is one of the easiest holds to escape, once you know the trick, and the trick is not strength. It is direction: you move your arm against the weak point of the grip, where the thumb and fingers meet, rather than pulling straight back against the whole hand. A small woman can break a large man's grip this way. It takes about twenty minutes to learn with a partner and about two hundred repetitions to make it automatic, which is exactly why we do it every single week.

That's it. Two things. There are more in the class, and there are a hundred more in the martial arts, but a woman who can strike with her palm, break a wrist grab, use her voice and then run has more than most people ever get. The goal of self-defense is not to win a fight. It is to make an opening and get out through it.

Always, if you can. That is the answer. Every technique we teach ends with the same word: go.

• Run toward people and light: a store, a lit porch, a busy street, a gas station. Not into the dark, not into the alley you think is a shortcut.
• Make noise while you go. You are not sneaking away. You are leaving loudly.
• Your purse is not worth it. Your car is not worth it. If someone wants your things, throw them one direction and go the other. Things can be replaced.
• Do not get in a vehicle, and do not go to a second location, if there is any way at all to avoid it. Whatever is at the first location, you have a better chance there, near people, than anywhere else. Fight, yell, fall down, do anything, but do not get in the car. This is the one thing I say in every class and I will keep saying it.
• Once you're safe, tell someone and call the police. Not because it was your fault. It was not. Because it helps the next woman.

Both sessions are for women and girls 14 and up (under 18 with a parent's signature). No experience needed. Wear sweats or anything you can move in, and sneakers. Class fee goes to the community center, which pays for the pads and the room; I volunteer my time. Scholarships are available, just ask at the front desk and nobody will make a fuss.

Register at the community center front desk, or e-mail me and I will hold a spot. Winter session will be announced in December.

If you are not near Fairmont, look for a class at your own community center, YWCA, community college, police department (many run free ones), or a martial arts school that offers a women's program. A good class will:

• Spend real time on awareness, voice and boundaries, not just fighting.
• Have you actually hit pads and practice escapes with a partner, many times, not just watch.
• Be taught by someone who treats you as capable, not fragile.
• Never make you feel that anything that has happened to you was your fault.

If a class does those things, it's a good class. Take it. Then take it again in a year, because these skills fade if you don't use them and I hope very much that you won't have to use them.

Be aware. Trust yourself. Use your voice. Set the line. And if it comes to it, strike and go.

— Karen