Being able to defend oneself in a moment’s notice is key for everyone, not just for women.
University students and others in the community now have the opportunity to learn self-defense skills during a six-week course offered twice this semester. Each class occurs Monday for an hour, starting at 5:30 p.m. The first session is already in full swing, but another one will be offered after Fall Break.
Whitney Wolff, an ACE Certified Personal Trainer and the class instructor, advocates the benefits of learning self-defense. “Especially for college students — being in the city — there is a lot of drinking going on and everything. … There’s so many people, you never know what’s going to happen, so just being able to defend yourself in a situation that you would need to,” she said.
People can use self-defense skills to fight off a burglar, help a friend who is being taken advantage of or handle a personally dangerous situation by themselves. Though University and town efforts work to minimize these issues, people never know when something might happen to them, a friend or a stranger.
“I feel like women have the thought process that they can’t defend themselves because they’re smaller or not as strong, but if you have the technique it doesn’t matter how big or strong you are,” said Wolff. “You can defend yourself against somebody who is trying to do something bad.”
Second year Andrea Rocca, who is taking the current session, is eager to learn how to defend herself after she was put into a defensive situation in the past.
“I decided to take these classes because I was actually cornered at a bar last semester and didn’t really know what to do in that situation,” she said. “So now if anything like that happens in the future, I know how to get out of that.”
Even if students are interested in learning self-defense but cannot attend the classes, there are many other resources to learn the moves.
“Sometimes the hospital will have one day of a self-defense class, and I think that they are free, so I would check around at different community centers if they are bringing anyone in for different courses,” Wolff said. “It is hard to teach yourself offline something like that, but it is possible if you have a friend or roommate you want to practice with.”
Admission to the program is $20 for students and $35 for non-students. Classes are Mondays from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the Multi-Purpose room located on the bottom floor of the Student Recreation Center.
