Comments
Teaching girls that they CAN defend themselves
I am interested in becoming a certified trainer for Just Yell Fire. I gained my Master's degree in Library Science last May with an emphasis in children's and youth services, and hope to find a job soon as a public librarian. With the amount of contact I will have in that field with young and teenage girls, as well as contacts with schools and other libraries, I would like to find out how to become involved and help promote your program.
I have been training in aikido as a self-defense art since June, and will be testing for my first rank soon. The more I learned in aikido, the more it made me aware of how girls and women in America are socialized about violence. Movies, television, and popular media seem to promote the belief that girls and women cannot win or escape in a situation where we are under attack by a man. Recognizing this made me interested in finding out what programs were already available to promote girls' and women's self-defense. I discovered Just Yell Fire by Googling "women's self-defense". I was thrilled to find that someone has begun a movement to counter that socialization early in women's lives, beginning with teaching the girls who are most at risk that they CAN defend themselves and escape an attacker, even if their attacker is much larger. I myself am only 5'1", and the techniques that eliminate an attacker's advantage of greater height are also especially applicable to me.
I live in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, and I would like any information available on training for certification for Just Yell Fire, either locally or in neighboring states if necessary. Many thanks to you, Dallas, and everyone else involved with Just Yell Fire for your caring and hard work.
What will? Taking action!
I found your contact information after googling 'self defense for women classes' and wanted to get in contact with you right away. I was hoping you could hold self defense classes for female students, or any woman (faculty, staff or students) on our campus to help protect us if we were to ever get ourselves in this type of situation. It is very scary to know that an innocent 19 year old young woman was strangled, stabbed and murdered by someone that loved her for a year. Not even a stranger, or a crazy drug addict rapist on the street! Her boyfriend! Someone she trusted and loved! How scary is that? She was not able to get away, she was not able to defend herself. She died because of that.
But you... you have the power to give us woman that power. You have the ability to give us woman the ability to defend ourselves. To win. To live. And to help with our recovery of her death on our campus. I believe that immediately holding these self defense classes on our campus will prove that Emily Rachel Silverstein did not die in vain.
Please help me, help us. Give us the power, the ability to defend ourselves and live.