Labrys Empowerment Self Defense

Boundary-setting is a key component of verbal self-defense, and verbal self-defense is a huge piece of the empowerment self-defense model.

Boundary-setting is an important piece of Empowerment Self-Defence (ESD) because it can help individuals avoid situations in which assault could occur.

Establishing clear boundaries is essential, whether you're dealing with unwelcome comments or unwanted physical contact. ESD empowers you to confidently define and protect your personal space.
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Impact Boston is offering this very important class. Highly recommend for the young people getting out in the world to gain some skills.

Our Teen & Young Adult class is coming up Aug 3rd & 4th! This class is great for high schoolers who need a confidence boost, incoming or current college students or any young person embarking on a new adventure, and anyone aged 16-22 who identifies as a girl/woman, nonbinary, or LGBTQ who wants to learn self-defense skills.

Class is 12-6pm both days. Registration cost is $250. Full scholarships available.

This class only runs once a year, so register now! Go to https://impactboston.org/in-person-classes/ to register or contact [email protected] for more info.



{IMAGE: A flier for the class. Background is black, text is neon pink, purple, and white. Text says: “Teen & Young Adult IMPACT self-defense. An empowerment self-defense course for girls, women, nonbinary & LGBTQ youth ages 16-22. August 3 & 4 12-6pm each day. Students learn: how to use their voices to prevent violence & coercion, how to identify red flags in relationships, physical skills for dangerous situations, how powerful they are, & much more.” A photo at the bottom left shows a student setting up for a kick against the suited instructor on the ground, with the lead instructor in the background. At the bottom right the flier says www.impactboston.org}

If you are interested in learning about Empowerment Self Defense and how it can improve our relationships with others, here’s a 3-part workshop series I’m offering. Time is of the essence though. This workshop needs 3 more people!

https://www.berkshirecc.edu/academics/community-education-and-workforce-development/workshops/self-defense.php

Healthy Boundaries: What are they? How do we set them? How do we keep them? The key to healthy relationships is healthy boundaries. In this interactive three-part series, we’ll learn some key strategies and exercises utilizing the Empowerment Self Defense Model.

June 8 – 22, 2024, Saturday, 11 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
BCC Paterson Field House
$45

Self Defense | Berkshire Community College Learn how to avoid danger and de-escalate conflict; increase confidence in social and economic systems; build physical defense skills; and address violence that is most likely to occur in individual settings.

A few things that people (fellas) seem to not understand about the bear vs man thing:

1. The scenario is, a woman is walking through the woods hiking alone.

Whilst hiking, would they rather come across a bear or a strange man?

The question is not:

Who would you rather get in a fight with?

It is not “A man you know vs a bear you don’t.”

They are not being asked to hug or provoke the bear or man.

They are just walking, in the woods, and come across either a bear or a random dude they do not know.

And most of the women in these comments, as well as the ones we have talked to, plenty of whom have gone hiking alone and who have come across both bears and men whilst doing so, choose the bear as a preference to run into.

Because the threat of the bear is a known quantity and thus a much more controllable one. A bear is more likely to just keep foraging and move on its way than outright attack you, unless under very specific circumstances.

The man is not a known quantity and whether he openly displays aggression or not, a woman cannot know for certain what his intentions are.

This is for all the men who are big mad that women are saying they’d rather encounter a bear in the woods than a man.

For all the man screaming “this isn’t fair, it’s not all men!”

For all the men who are Stubbornly. Not. Getting. It.

First, we don’t care that it’s not fair. Second, you men are the whole reason this conversation exists. YOU made this problem. YOU.

🐻 A bear won’t hit you in the face with a brick if you won’t give it your phone number.

🐻 A bear won’t stalk you if it told you you’re pretty and you said you weren’t interested.

🐻 A bear won’t pretend to be kind to get you to lower your guard.

🐻 A bear won’t lock you in a basement for months to torture you.

🐻 A bear generally won’t bother you if you’re not bothering it.

🐻 If you encounter a bear, it will almost always retreat slowly because it means you no harm.

🐻 If you do get attacked by a bear and you say so, people will believe you.

🐻 No one will ask you what you were wearing that made the bear attack you.

🐻 No one will ask you how much you had to drink.

🐻 No one will ask you what you were thinking, being in the woods.

🐻 No one will ask you if you even tried to fight back.

🐻 No one will ask you if you led the bear to believe you wanted to be attacked.

🐻 No one will condemn you for not fighting back harder.

🐻 No one will arrest you for harming the bear.

🐻 No one will say you deserved the attack.

🐻 No one will ask how many bears you allowed to attack you before.

🐻 The bear won’t say you were asking for it.

🐻 The bear won’t say it was consensual.

🐻 The bear won’t try to convince everyone you’re lying.

🐻 The bear won’t get his buddies to maul you too.

🐻 The bear won’t threaten you to get you to keep the attack a secret.

🐻 The bear won’t show up at family reunions.

🐻 If you survive a bear attack, you don’t have to worry that the bear might be good friends with medical staff or the police.

🐻 You won’t have to hear that you’re making it all up to get attention.

🐻 You won’t have your reputation called into question.

🐻 You won’t get called a slut.

🐻 People won’t tell you you’re paranoid for being cautious around bears.

🐻 People won’t tell you that not all bears are dangerous.

🐻 If a bear attacks you, you won’t be told it wouldn’t be fair to ruin the bear’s future by bringing it up.

🐻 You won’t be told the bear is from a nice family and they don’t deserve the humiliation of an arrest.

🐻 IF A BEAR ATTACKS YOU, WE KILL THE BEAR SO IT DOESN’T HARM ANYONE ELSE.

👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤👤

If you still don’t get it, consider this:

Many women in the woods carry bear spray…

…AND IT’S NOT BECAUSE OF BEARS.

And finally, ask yourself this: If you hear human footsteps near you in the woods, are you hoping it’s a man or a woman? Pretty much EVERY woman would be praying it’s a woman.

In 2020-2022, bears killed a whopping 8 people in North America. Even if all 8 were women, that’s not even close to the approximately 12,000 women who were killed by men in that time period.

Bears = 8
Men = 12,000

It’s a real head scratcher guys.

It’s a YOU problem.

Saturday November 4th 5-7 pm is a free 2-hour Empowerment Self Defense workshop.

This is for Fodada’s International Women’s Self Defense Day.

https://www.fodada.com/2023-fiwsdd-preregistration

Please consider joining and sharing.

Presently only able to offer this in English

Labrys Empowerment Self Defense updated their info in the about section.

Thank you to Turtle Mountain Self Defense & Impact Boston for inviting us to be your students in preparation for your workshops. I am deeply humbled and grateful.

Celebrating the success of this fantastic Turtle Mountain crew. Pictured here with their students from this week and some of the IMPACT Boston team.



{IMAGE: a group photo in front of a wall that says “Celebrate Success” with balloons}

Join us this coming Sunday for an Active Bystander Intervention class surrounding racial hate-bias. Gain the awareness and tools you need to assess situations and react accordingly and safely. It’s time to put in the work to make our community safer, let’s make 2022 our year!

Follow the link below for more information:

https://pacmaine.com/class-schedule-2/

Peace , Love and Smiles

Sharing ideas around the table with some amazing women in the ESD Global Master Instructor Program.

We’ll be gearing up in March to offer lots of workshops for all ages. We want to be a key part of our community in violence prevention education. You will continue to see posts here. Some will be about the February Senior Instructor training and the International Violence Prevention Education prevention education conference in Jerusalem, Israel.

https://www.esdglobalselfdefense.org/what-is-esd-training

Violence Prevention Conference | El HaLev

Good day everyone,

I want to share some exciting news.

The First Violence Prevention Education Conference Launches this February in Israel

ESD Global and El HaLev join forces to host the first of what promises to become an annual conference devoted to Violence Prevention around the world

Beginning this coming February, ESD Global and El HaLev are proud to launch the First Violence Prevention Education Conference in Jerusalem. Accompanied by a series of Level 1, Master Instructor, and Co-ed Level 1 trainings, the conference features Professor Yair Amichai-Hamburger and Dr. Gal Harmat as keynote speakers.

Dr. Amichai-Hamburger is a Professor at IDC Herzliya, a private research university founded in 1994 by Uriel Reichman. He will be speaking on the need to provide children and young people the necessary tools to build the resilience required to counter online violence.

Dr. Harmat holds a Ph.D. in Gender Analysis of Peace Education and Dialogue. Her lecture, Intersectional Education: Gender Analysis of Empowerment Self-Defense, focuses on the future of education, what we are doing well, and what needs to change in order to successfully propel us into the future.

We will also be joined by The Haruv Institute, who will host a panel to discuss the implementation of solutions through the ESD method, the UNHCR – who will share insights as to the current projects with refugees, both in Tel Aviv and abroad, and a special panel with Dr. Yaron Schwartz on Engaging Men and Boys.

Among the numerous speakers and lecturers, too many to be listed in this article, attendees can also join panels on Incorporating Trauma-Informed Strategies in Violence Prevention Programs and “How-to” discussions on practical ways to implement ESD education and skills in their home countries.

As with all conferences, several networking opportunities and Think Tanks will be available with experts in their respective fields.

Does this sound like an event in which you would like to participate? You can register to attend here.

eng.elhalev.org In recent years, the discourse about violence against women and children has grown strong. We have seen the rise of the movement, we have heard more and more harsh evidence of domestic violence and found out how much s*xual and gender violence is rooted in the systems that make up our socie.....

Self-Defense Classes Help Indigenous Women Face Kidnapping Threat

I’ve had the great privilege to train with Shanda Poitra and the rest of the Turtle Mountain Empowerment Self Defense team. ESD saves lives!

npr.org Indigenous women are being kidnapped and killed at an alarming rate in the U.S. So some are teaching each other to fight back.

A Look Inside the Terrible Manual Cops Use to Teach 'R**e Prevention'

So my local police department is offering RAD. My aim s not to discourage women from taking this , but to look at it for what it is. A program developed by police, written in their language that encourages fear of “stranger danger”. RAD doesn’t really address the deeper realities of women and girls knowing and being involved through familial, romantic, or employment ties to someone who may harass, threaten, assault, or r**e them. It also consistently instructs women to rely heavily on the police. Now in any defensive situation, the police can be minutes to hours away from responding. It may have good intentions, but it falls short on being viable in preventing violence.

jezebel.com R**e Aggression Defense, or R.A.D., as it brands itself, is one of the most widely offered women's self-defense programs in the country. R.A.D. was developed by a police officer, and is ubiquitous at colleges and universities; it's taught primarily by law enforcement personnel, making it a pretty ac...

Change can be scary, confusing, and daunting, but always worth the effort.

Yehudit Zicklin-Sidikman

Consent is always first and formost.

"It’s like if I’m eating with a friend, and I like the way her burger looks. I’m not going to reach onto her plate and bite into it while looking at her to see if her facial expression shows that she’s appalled, or waiting for her to verbally object before I stop. Unless we have an established relationship where we reach onto each other’s plates and everyone is okay with that, I’m going to ask first.

It’s that simple when it comes to s*x, too."

Hverdagsfeministen

💪✊👊🤛

Labrys Empowerment Self Defense's cover photo

Kim Wuirch - Author

Broken-hearted mother's message to women - 'The first time he hits you, run'

stuff.co.nz The mother of a murdered woman has a stark warning for others in violent relationships.

One Book One Community: An Evening with Rachel Louise Snyder

eventbrite.com An Evening with author Rachel Louise Snyder

At Labrys Self Defense our goal is to promote safety and well-being through teaching empowerment self defense.

We bring over 20 years training and teaching experience in personal safety and self defense. We utilize a trauma informed skill set that recognizes and addresses violence on a spectrum. Our teaching is anchored in addressing the intersection of race, gender, class, s*xual orientation, age, culture, and differing abilities.

We use a peer support model to aid students in learning situational awareness, boundary setting, recognizing boundary violations, developing assertive speech, and quick and effective physical skills that can be learned and reproduced in a short amount of time. This creates a positive and accessible learning experience for students

You can request an on-site training for your group or employees. We offer regular courses at our training space, which is generously accommodated by the UUCP at 175 Wendell Ave in Pittsfield , MA We’d love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate to contact us should you have any questions. Be well and stay safe!

We’re just getting up and running here, so please be patient as content is added.

Labrys Empowerment Self Defense

BOB works very hard to help students practice their physical self defense skills.