On the 9th of February, a man came in with his assistant to teach the TYs self defence. He started off by telling them that self defence and martial arts are different and that street fighting is very different from sparring. He then proceeded to tell them that punching someone is not the most effective way to cause pain.
He told them to break off into pairs and he told each pair to get a boxing pad. He demonstrated how to slap and elbow and told them to practise that. He told them that slapping someone and elbowing them is much more effective than punching someone as punching someone in the wrong place could mean that they end up hurting themselves.
He then showed them how to kick and knee someone which he told them would be really effective against male attackers. After practising kneeing and kicking, he then showed them how to escape from different holds. He first told them how to break free if someone grabbed one hand, if someone grabbed them by the shoulder and if someone tried to strangle them.
They spent a few minutes practising each escaping technique and then he moved onto knife defense. He taught them that running away is the best thing to do when there is a knife involved in a fight but if they can't do that, they should evade the knife and get behind the attacker so they can't reach them.
The TYs enjoyed the workshop as it taught them some basic skills to evade and protect against attackers. They may never have to use them but they are glad to know them.