Females get a two-fold lesson in self-defense
Every seven minutes, one rape occurs in the United States, and according to the
FBI, one in every three girls will be sexually assaulted during her lifetime.
Sgt. Joe Huish of the USU police department says many women don’t know how to protect themselves against an attack, which is why he and Officer Jessica Spencer are teaching female students self-defense courses to give them a better idea of what to do when facing danger.
Rape Aggression Defense Systems (RAD) is a national program available to
women, Huish said, and teaches them basic martial arts moves they can use in
real life.
“The purpose of the course is to give you more options,” he said to his class
Monday morning. “A person who has no plan and no training has very few
options.”
Students meets twice a week, one day in the classroom where discussion about rape and self defense takes place, and the other day is spent in the gym learning techniques to fight off perpetrators.
“I’m taking this class, so if someone were to come up to me, I’d be ready for it,” Angie Miles, a junior in speech pathology, said. “I thought it would be kind of important to learn because it’s scary walking alone at night and I
want to take care of myself.”
Miles said the semester course will cover situations such as being attacked
from behind, at an ATM or on a date.
For the class final, students can practice new defense moves on police officers dressed in aggressor suits who simulate attacks.
“It’s cool because [Huish] is a police officer and he knows what he’s talking
about,” Miles said. “It’s been worth it and it will end up being helpful.”
The lessons in class and in the gym are kept somewhat secretive.
The books have to be purchased in class and students are told not to tell a lot of males what they are learning, Miles said.
If they did, the course wouldn’t be as beneficial because everyone would know how females are taught to defend themselves.
Undeclared freshman Jade Argyle said she thinks every woman should take the class to be shown defensive stances and avoidance strategies.
“I heard about the class through Connections and thought it would be good to
know how to defend myself while I am living by myself,” she said.
During the next four months, Miles said students will learn to avoid stalkers,
forcible sodomy, rape and sexual assault.
They will discuss date rape, self-defense the law and common myths and misconceptions.
“Some people think that women are physically powerless against men,” Spencer told the class. “Some people think that only young, attractive women are raped. Some say women secretly want to be raped. Everybody here doesn’t believe that.”
The RAD program teaches women of all ages simple self-defense moves that they can perform when they are in stressful situations.
Spencer and Huish encourage women to scream and resist because often times, doing those things will be enough to make a perpetrator run.
“When we talk to girls who have been raped, they often say, ‘I was afraid. I
didn’t want to get hurt,'” Huish said. “But if you don’t resist, you’re more likely to be raped than if you do.”
Both Huish and Spencer said women should try to not be so afraid of being injured if it means they aren’t sexually assaulted or raped.
“If a woman gets hurt a little bit trying to defend herself, but isn’t raped,
I would opt for that,” he said. “We forget about pain. Rape isn’t like that.”
For women who have not taken a self-defense course, Huish suggests they gain more knowledge on staying safe and become familiar with the options they have if attacked.
For more information about RAD, visit www.rad-systems.com or e-mail Huish at Joe.Huish@usu.edu.
-mnewbold@cc.usu.edu