Impact

Wow.

I just got home from taking my first self-defense class from Impact Bay Area, previously know as Model Mugging. Wow. It's really hard to explain the intensity of the whole experience, even just day one. Each of the students escaped a full-force attack by fighting back eight times, and it was just the first day. One of the most thrilling things about the experience was really feeling the adrenaline and the fear and the power that it brought up from within myself. During the first exercise, I felt like I was in my body, and full of adrenaline, and fighting really hard; we elbowed and kicked in the face after being grabbed from behind and taken to the ground, and even the times when I wasn't quite doing the kicks right, I was still really impressed with the power of my legs, but when you line yourself up like they tell you to, you really send the assailant off of his center and through the air a bit, which I guess I never really knew I had the power to do. For our last attack, we could choose which one we wanted to do or choose to have the mugger decide how they were going to attack us. I chose the latter, and I was most impressed with the fact that not only did I beat him off of me, but also that I was really thinking of what my openings were, despite being scared and full of adrenaline and in a mental state totally unfamiliar to my own.
The most intense part of the day, though, was definitely the "reversal," which is when you start lying down on the floor and the assailant straddles you and holds down your arms. Basically it's a rape scene, but I am sure that the rape scenes will get more intense next week. This week he was just silent, and your legs were together, but even so, the idea of letting this huge man get on top of you threateningly was terrifying. Mortifying. We were all emotional just getting in line to do it. When I laid down on the floor, I said, "this is really scary," and just started bawling. I just couldn't even begin to control myself, and the instructor lady said that it was okay, and they would wait until I was ready. So I pulled myself together, and I said to myself, "I want to be ready. I want to be able to do this." She gave the go-ahead to the mugger, and I shut my eyes, and already started bawling again. He got on top of me, and I opened my eyes and looked up at him, and "went to zero," which is when you let your body go completely limp in order to trick the assailant into thinking that you will cooperate, so that you can look for your opening. I did it, but I was totally balling. Just sobbing, and then I felt my cue, and I flipped into crazy attack mode and I moved and bumped him back with my body weight and got in my position and started madly nailing him in the head with my heel and I was balling and crazy scared and angry and screaming.... and I kicked the shit out of him until he was "knocked unconscious." Even though I was totally bawling; and moreso because of it. They talked about, afterwards, how the thing to realize was that even though I was "out of control" or "hysterical" that I was in fact in no way out of control, and in fact I was more powerful and stronger than I would otherwise have been. They talked about how women are told that they are weak when they are emotional and that they shouldn't be that way precisely for that reason; women are crazy powerful in that head space, and I could think well enough to handle myself and look for openings, and to fix my technique on my kicks to make each one hit the mark stronger and better. It really makes me feel so much less scared already; not just to know how to fight back, but to know that I don't need to be afraid of feeling fear and adrenaline and hysteria.

There was awesome support and bonding that went on between the women, too; I really feel at a loss of how to share the experience of this all with everyone else, but I can't wait to go back, and I really really encourage anyone else who can to take this class. I can already feel that it has changed me on a deep level. Wow.
If anyone wants to know more about it, I'm open for questions...
Wow.