Talking Back to Bullies : Verbal Self-Defense Class Teaches Victims to Speak Up

Susan, a trainer of show horses, came because she is tired of being pushed around by rude, aggressive clients.

Richard, a retired electrical engineer, came because he is tired of getting the runaround from doctors.

Anne, an aspiring filmmaker, came because she is tired of shrinking before abusive Hollywood producers.

Sick and tired of being verbal wimps, they came, 15 in all, on a rainy night to hear Vandye Forrester III dispense the wisdom they hoped would turn them into self-assured communicators.

Forrester, 54, a former speech writer turned anti-verbal-abuse crusader, brought his traveling verbal-self-defense workshop to Granada Hills High School last week, promising participants in the three-hour course that they would “never again have to wake up at 3 a.m. with the perfect comeback you wish you would have had eight hours ago.”

Dressed nattily in a navy blue suit, white shirt and red tie with an American-flag handkerchief neatly folded in his coat pocket, the Florida-bred instructor greeted each student as they filed in with an earnest, Southern-tinged, “Hi, I’m Vandye [pronounced VAN-dee] Forrester.”

“One of the reasons you’re here is you’re getting pushed around at work or maybe at home,” he said. “Someone’s been on your case, and you’re sick of it.”

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Offered for $26 as part of Los Angeles Mission College’s community extension program, the promotional material for “Power Verbal Self-Defense” billed the course as a way to “beat the crazy-makers in your life.”

“Being nice and being conciliatory just hasn’t paid off,” Forrester said. “Now it’s time to stand up and stop taking it on the chin.”

For those who braved the weather to attend--10 women and five men ranging in age from early 20s to 60-plus--there was no shortage of crazy-makers in their lives.

“I’ve worked on several sets, and they’ve been really bad experiences. [People] have been really vicious,” said Anne Gordon, a 24-year-old aspiring filmmaker from Studio City. “Confrontation really upsets me.

“I had a hard time distinguishing if I was being treated badly because I am a woman or because I can be intimidated too easily,” she said. “Hopefully, this course will give me some insights and a little more confidence.”

The insights are to be found in Forrester’s textbook, “Skills of Persuasion: Your Easy Guide to Wealth and Power Through Sizzling, Exploding Eloquence.”

Nods of recognition from the students followed Forrester as he described the characteristics of “blamers,” “paranoids,” “mystics” and even “verbal assassins,” “mind rapists” and “buck-passing wimp putzes.”

Janie Fenwick and her best friend, Sandra Guglielmi, were back for their second round of verbal self-defense Thursday night. They said they returned not to learn how to defend themselves against a specific antagonist but to get general skills that always come in handy.

“The first time we came we were looking at each other after five minutes like ‘What are we doing here?’ ” Fenwick said. “But once we got used to his style, I was really impressed--you pick up a lot of good pointers.”

“Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for. Here’s where the rubber reaches the road,” Forrester declared, moving on to his list of 33 techniques for “comeback and refutation”--all basically involving telling your opponent they don’t know what they are talking about.

Forrester, who earned a master’s degree in speech communications from Cal State Long Beach in the 1980s after giving up a career as a corporate speech writer, said his lessons are modeled on debating techniques taught by classical philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero.

“I teach anybody who is willing to sit still for three hours guaranteed tips to stop verbal bullies in their tracks,” he said. “I teach people they have to fight back immediately and forcefully.

“Did I say scream back, yell, froth at the mouth, swing your fists? No. It’s all about clear communication,” Forrester continued.

“What these people can do is more subtle but just as deadly as a punch in the nose.”