Safe and self-assured

When Christy Adair decided to take a self-defense class, she figured it would come in handy when she was traveling solo in foreign countries for work. What the production auditor didn’t count on was how it would help her handle volatile producers, negotiate for better jobs, drop annoying friends and give the boot to her boyfriend.

Going through the program, she says, “was almost like a rebirth. I became the person I always needed to be.”

It’s not what most might expect from a self-defense course. But the Impact Personal Safety program seems to offer participants more than a way to avoid being attacked and assaulted.

By facing their biggest fear -- being harmed or killed -- and knowing they have a good chance of protecting themselves, women also begin to handle tough situations and flawed relationships with far more assurance.

The multi-week program, which can cost several hundred dollars, trains men, women and children (all separately) against attackers.

In class, a mock assailant, his body padded, creates real-life situations such as being grabbed or thrown to the ground. The course also offers role-playing for potentially dangerous situations, such as sexual harassment and stalking.

More advanced courses cover defending against armed assailants and group assault situations. Many people who come to the program have been victims of assault; others sign up on the advice of a friend.

Impact was created in the 1970s by a group of martial artists who wanted to create a self-defense program tailored to women, training them in realistic scenarios. It’s now taught in cities across the country, including San Francisco, Boston and Indianapolis.

It’s one of many self-defense programs on the landscape offered at a wide range of prices and locations, including community centers and college campuses.

Krav Maga, for example, the official self-defense system of the Israeli Defense Forces, teaches people how to defend themselves from various attacks and to function under stress.

The Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women offers self-defense classes, as do YMCAs and gyms. And numerous martial arts courses are geared toward self-defense.

Although all such programs can help people defend themselves, programs such as Impact also stress keeping cool under pressure and teach women tactics for successfully handling nonviolent situations.

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Multipurpose techniques

Impact students are coached in what is called “adrenaline-state training” and learn to fight in various attack scenarios.

Although they know the person tackling them isn’t really going to do any damage, the adrenaline rush is still there.

So students are taught to think clearly, assess the situation and not panic -- tools that come in handy for all sorts of situations, even simply saying “no.”

“The class teaches you to feel safe in your own body and in your environment,” says 34-year-old Sascha Ferguson, who owns the West Hollywood fitness studio Absolution, one venue where Impact is offered. “It teaches you not to second-guess your intuition and that ‘no’ is a complete sentence. It makes you at ease.”

For Ferguson, taking the class nine years ago was a powerful catalyst for change. She quit her job at a record company, took Pilates teacher training and opened Absolution, which also offers Pilates, capoiera and yoga.

“Taking Impact is like having the static turned down,” she says. “You don’t realize how much compulsivity and nervousness play into your life until your body learns it can handle anything. Having a man throw you down on the ground and tell you he’s going to kill you now is about as throttled as your body can get.”

Gaining confidence from acquiring a new skill or tackling something difficult is expected, says Frank Webbe, psychology professor at Florida Institute of Technology and president of the division of sports and exercise for the American Psychological Assn.

“For the person who has completed a 5K race for the first time, suddenly they look at themselves a little differently,” he says, “because they have some physical capabilities they never thought they had, and they did something that wouldn’t have been predicted for them. That gives them the added piece that was missing before -- if they could do it in this realm, they could do it in another.”

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Confidence carries over

But programs such as Impact, Webbe adds, may boost that feeling even further.

“In a self-defense course there’s probably a more intense effect than we might see in a typical sports application,” Webbe says, lending an element of control that spills over into other aspects of life. “People then perhaps make some decisions that they have needed to make for a long time, now with a new view of themselves as a confident, capable person.”

Adair, 39, director of production audits for NBC Universal, says her Impact training made dealing with screaming producers a breeze.

“I’ve had producers lay into me,” she says, “and I don’t take it personally. I let them vent, and that’s a direct result of having male Impact instructors screaming at me. Before I probably would have started crying and run off the set. That’s the only way I knew how to cope. But this rewires you.”

Issey Monk graduated from her first course a couple of weeks ago, and she is already feeling the effects. The 32-year-old Beverly Hills marketer, a victim of assault, says the course was “necessary for me to put back a sense of comfort and safety in my life.”

The result: “I don’t get stressed out in large crowds, I don’t worry that people are going to bump into me. There’s an easiness to moving through the world, and that is totally life-changing.”